The SINGLE most important trait of a sword...?

BePrepared

BePrepared

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Aug 26, 2010
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The holy triumverate of steel characteristics are, as you all know, Toughness, Corrosion resistance, and Wear resistance.

As you can see from the chart below, all the popular steels have various degrees of tradeoff...

ToolTips_1108_Fig2.jpg


which of these characteristics do you think is the MOST IMPORTANT trait?

Assuming that you could only have one of these traits at extremely high levels and the rest at median levels, which would you say is the one that would be most relevant to a sword.
 
Temper resistance. A true sword must resist many thousands of cycles of being severely stressed, twisted and bent and must return to true every time.

n2s
 
The single most important trait of a sword is for it to be capable of keeping you alive in a combat situation. :D But out of the above-listed steel characteristics I'd consider "temper resistance" most important for the reason not2sharp mentioned--if what's meant by it is "fatigue strength". Otherwise, toughness.
 
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+1 for temper resistance.

But I'm not sure if your chart is telling you the truth. Most swords are nowhere near RC-60.
Some Japanese types with a hardened core and soft mild steel spine, sure I could believe that, but that is fairly unique.
Most are closer to a spring temper.

Doing tamishigiri requires a different edge than what you would ride into battle with.
People are soft on the outside and a little crunchy in the middle (not so crunchy as some would think). It does not take much to maim or sever something. If those (insert: "people", "zombies", "raidoactive zombie ninjas" etc... etc....) are wearing body armor it just gives several +1 for a tougher edge and focusing on removing limbs and leaving the body armor alone.

I'd say that the SINGLE most important trait of a sword is the guy driving it.
Go get a boat oar and make yourself a bokken/subrito. :)
 
Agree with the above. Of the remaining, would toughness be the next most important? Tough compromise if so.
 
I'd say the single most important trait of a sword would be the person (and their skill level) who's wielding it.

+1 for temper resistance. I'd probably want toughness next though.
 
umm we better check the definition of "temper resistance"...

I'll go out on a limb and suggest that temper resistance is the resistance of a hardened steel to being tempered, as in high temperature applications. If you need that in a sword you are a bada$$ Mother******

I'll take toughness as tested notched, the reason most of my swords are S-7
 
my thinking was that toughness was the most important thing. Seems that anything that may be forced to parry other weapons and cut through bone would need to be able to handle a large amount of shock
 
temper resistance? but why?

do you mean stress relief after every time you use your sword? or are you worry about the sudden increasing of temperature at the point of impact will mess up your sword?

by defination above, i think your mean the "fatigure strength, or fatigure limits". this is important. but before everything toughness has to come first. you have to make sure your sword is not going to break by a powerful mace blow. so, enough toughness is the number 1 thing. the fatigure limits will have to come in second.
 
I think the Temper Resistance is the steals ability to maintain it RHC hardness in a hi-temp environments.
I don’t think this benefits a sword unless you are cutting 1200* zombies.

Many of these steals can have there toughness increase by altering the HT protocol.

Why No 3V

Dan
 
Dan, i just picked a random chart that demonstrated the question. I didn't mean to limit it to those choices.

3v and Infi are both awesome... neither made the chart :(
 
Ah, temper resistance makes sense now. Thanks for the clarification.

Thinking about all this makes me wonder if swords are what they are not because of the driving need for a single outstanding trait but the need to balance a number of often contradictory traits. The blade needs to be tough, but the edge needs to be hard. It needs to be heavy enough to deal with hard targets but light enough to be maneuverable, etc.

Steel is just one of the factors and even then the sort of steel may dictate either changes in the sword or compromises in material to get all the factors to balance right.

Pattern welding and folding and laminating were developed precisely because different parts of the sword required different sorts of material characteristics to perform their function.
 
Replace "temper resistance" with "tensile strength" and the question makes a lot more sense. The ability to withstand deformation and fracture under both impact loading and tensile/torsion forces are critical attributes for a functional sword blade.

Tensile strength is resistance to failure/fracture under tensile loads. Compressive strength is resistance to deformation. Toughness is resitance to fracture under impact. I don't know what "temper resistance" is, I don't recall ever hearing of it or seeing it on a comparison chart or spec sheet before.
 
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If you will notice, Temper Resistance wasn't in my triad of characteristics. Since i assumed (some say correctly) that it dealt with tempering the steel during production, i didn't see it as relevant to the end product.

The chart shows it but only because that's what that chart had on it... i selected a random comparison chart to demonstrate the idea
 
The traits I would put first are tensile strength, toughness and compressive strength, as I said in my post above.

Wear resistance is generally in conflict with tensile strength and toughness, so I would put it well below those on the list. I would rather fight with a dull sword in 1 piece than a sharp sword in 2 pieces.

The chart does not offer all of the necessary data for this application (IMO) and none of the steels listed on it are ones I would choose for a sword blade. I think it confuses your question more than clarifying it.
 
If a sword breaks it could be useless and cost you your life

I would rather have a sword bend than break

A great sword with in reason will try and always return and not take a set

Of the three Choices that the op posted toughness would be my choice
 
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