The "Ask Nathan a Question" Thread

Richard338 said:
You expect a negative sori?

(sori not sori)
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Yes. The spine is martensitic, which is less dense than pearlite. The edge goes through the transformation first which stretches the hot soft austenitic spine, then the spine converts which will straighten the blade some. So I'm starting with a little extra curvature with the knowledge that it is going to curve down some.
 
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Jack of All Blades said:
Will this balance similarity to the K18? For me, bringing back the balance point close to the hilt is important for me to be able to use one handed. If this can be done by increasing the weight of the pommel or a slight distal taper that would be great.
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That's hard to do because the blade is longer and the handle is shorter. Dan and I have decided on a weighted pommel which will move it back some. He specified 1.25" ahead of the guard. We may tweak it once we work with the prototype.
 
madcap_magician said:
Excellent! I was thinking it would definitely need to be sub-2 lb. Oh man I'm so glad you don't come up with these things more than every couple years, I'd hate to miss one from being poor.
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1 lb, 11 oz. Because what the hell is 27 oz right? But that number could change depending on what we do with the weighted pommel after evaluating a prototype.
 
I was on the verge of sitting this out, but you're making it difficult for me. She looks like a sexy little number, and the specs sound about right. I agree with Dan on the POB - a wakizashi that will largely be used 1-handed should balance much closer to the handle than a katana (typically around 4"). If Dan wants any tips on designing japanese-style swords, send him my way. I feel I'm well qualified because my surname sounds Asian.

And look, I got through that entire post without making one comment about it bending down when it gets hard!
 
Knowing what I know now about sword production, I planned to sell this K20 for what we sold the K18 for in 2019, which was $1,175. That is $1,400 today with inflation. That's based on the actual ~ 20% I'm seeing in my materials and other hard costs not the "consumer price index" you might hear about on NPR. I'm also adding a weighted pommel which was not figured into the original K18 or K20, which adds about $100. This will give you excellent one handed balance and additional power in your cut, it's a no-brainier. This lands me at $1,500 for this upcoming pre-order. I apologize for getting this wrong when I was asked about it earlier, I spoke too soon.

Except for international orders, I'm not going to take full payment in advance like we normally do on our pre-orders. We'll take a 50% deposit to start the project and we will take the other 50% once the blades are successfully through heat treat and it is clear this project can move forward.

If the project is scrapped (and, collaborating with Dan, we have a body of knowledge here, this is a risk) the deposits will be refunded and I will take a bath. Achieving the edge stability of a simple steel in this alloy is very challenging but very desirable for this application but it does not come without some risks. We're going to cross our fingers and hope these don't turn into bacon shaped objects. These are single edged and I'm making the edge pretty thin, which is risky. During that martensite transformation on the spine (which happens after the edge), the spine will grow and pull the center of the blade into tension (the center will see less stretching from the edge conversion and also less growth because it won't see the same quench rate as the edge or spine) which will bend the section forward and put the leading edge of the blade into compression. That leading edge will already have more growth than the rest of the section due to the higher quench rate that the edge will see. Sometimes, if these forces are high enough before the steel is through the tempering process (which relieves growth but occurs after cryo), that compression can result in a wavy edge. Perfect symmetry can reduce this risk and we're banking on our process to deliver this, but there aren't enough single edge Delta 3V swords in existence to know for certain that this is going to work. We know it can work, but we also know it can fail. It's not just the material and processing costs and the almighty pain that it is to process that make these swords expensive.

I can't recall where this question was asked so I'm posting this response in both places.
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
Knowing what I know now about sword production, I planned to sell this K20 for what we sold the K18 for in 2019, which was $1,175. That is $1,400 today with inflation. That's based on the actual ~ 20% I'm seeing in my materials and other hard costs not the "consumer price index" you might hear about on NPR. I'm also adding a weighted pommel which was not figured into the original K18 or K20, which adds about $100. This will give you excellent one handed balance and additional power in your cut, it's a no-brainier. This lands me at $1,500 for this upcoming pre-order. I apologize for getting this wrong when I was asked about it earlier, I spoke too soon.

Except for international orders, I'm not going to take full payment in advance like we normally do on our pre-orders. We'll take a 50% deposit to start the project and we will take the other 50% once the blades are successfully through heat treat and it is clear this project can move forward.

If the project is scrapped (and, collaborating with Dan, we have a body of knowledge here, this is a risk) the deposits will be refunded and I will take a bath. Achieving the edge stability of a simple steel in this alloy is very challenging but very desirable for this application but it does not come without some risks. We're going to cross our fingers and hope these don't turn into bacon shaped objects. These are single edged and I'm making the edge pretty thin, which is risky. During that martensite transformation on the spine (which happens after the edge), the spine will grow and pull the center of the blade into tension (the center will see less stretching from the edge conversion and also less growth because it won't see the same quench rate as the edge or spine) which will bend the section forward and put the leading edge of the blade into compression. That leading edge will already have more growth than the rest of the section due to the higher quench rate that the edge will see. Sometimes, if these forces are high enough before the steel is through the tempering process (which relieves growth but occurs after cryo), that compression can result in a wavy edge. Perfect symmetry can reduce this risk and we're banking on our process to deliver this, but there aren't enough single edge Delta 3V swords in existence to know for certain that this is going to work. We know it can work, but we also know it can fail. It's not just the material and processing costs and the almighty pain that it is to process that make these swords expensive.

I can't recall where this question was asked so I'm posting this response in both places.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s all great, but what do you have cooked up for the drops? Any room in there between the big blades to punch out something stabundating with the scrap?
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
Knowing what I know now about sword production, I planned to sell this K20 for what we sold the K18 for in 2019, which was $1,175. That is $1,400 today with inflation. That's based on the actual ~ 20% I'm seeing in my materials and other hard costs not the "consumer price index" you might hear about on NPR. I'm also adding a weighted pommel which was not figured into the original K18 or K20, which adds about $100. This will give you excellent one handed balance and additional power in your cut, it's a no-brainier. This lands me at $1,500 for this upcoming pre-order. I apologize for getting this wrong when I was asked about it earlier, I spoke too soon.

Except for international orders, I'm not going to take full payment in advance like we normally do on our pre-orders. We'll take a 50% deposit to start the project and we will take the other 50% once the blades are successfully through heat treat and it is clear this project can move forward.

If the project is scrapped (and, collaborating with Dan, we have a body of knowledge here, this is a risk) the deposits will be refunded and I will take a bath. Achieving the edge stability of a simple steel in this alloy is very challenging but very desirable for this application but it does not come without some risks. We're going to cross our fingers and hope these don't turn into bacon shaped objects. These are single edged and I'm making the edge pretty thin, which is risky. During that martensite transformation on the spine (which happens after the edge), the spine will grow and pull the center of the blade into tension (the center will see less stretching from the edge conversion and also less growth because it won't see the same quench rate as the edge or spine) which will bend the section forward and put the leading edge of the blade into compression. That leading edge will already have more growth than the rest of the section due to the higher quench rate that the edge will see. Sometimes, if these forces are high enough before the steel is through the tempering process (which relieves growth but occurs after cryo), that compression can result in a wavy edge. Perfect symmetry can reduce this risk and we're banking on our process to deliver this, but there aren't enough single edge Delta 3V swords in existence to know for certain that this is going to work. We know it can work, but we also know it can fail. It's not just the material and processing costs and the almighty pain that it is to process that make these swords expensive.

I can't recall where this question was asked so I'm posting this response in both places.
Click to expand...
Yep still in for two.

How far through the project do you think heat treat completion would be in terms of timeline, for those of us who need to do some financial planning?
 
Grenock said:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s all great, but what do you have cooked up for the drops? Any room in there between the big blades to punch out something stabundating with the scrap?
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Interesting question, but between the narrower blades with mild curvature, and less disparity getween the blade vs handle width, there might not be room for much more than 3V spikes?

Ooooo... D3V throwing spikes... or something akin to the CS Jungle Dart
 
Grenock said:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s all great, but what do you have cooked up for the drops? Any room in there between the big blades to punch out something stabundating with the scrap?
Click to expand...

Yes. Material hold down features that we can use to stabilize the blade during the cuts. These will be removed and discarded. I'm sorry, there are no daggers hiding in this layout.
 
madcap_magician said:
Yep still in for two.

How far through the project do you think heat treat completion would be in terms of timeline, for those of us who need to do some financial planning?
Click to expand...
It's going to be after the DEK projects come off the machines, so probably late this year.
 
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