What about tempformed steel for swords or katanas?

S

swit

Joined
May 4, 2020
Messages
2
I don't know much about swords, but just out of curiosity I was wondering if modern materials could be used to create a "super sword" and I did some internet research on that line. A helpful comment I found on Quora said that there are three things that are most important for the material: hardness, fracture toughness, and yield strength. Just like most people said on threads I read, steel is the best of all the materials I looked at. Two things which come close are palladium microalloy glass and 3d graphene. Palladium microalloy glass is stronger and tougher than steel, but, if it's as hard as other metallic glass, its hardness HRC is about 45, which is low for a sword. Also, it sounds like it probably wouldn't stand up to repeated use as well as steel. 3d graphene could work in theory, but I don't think it can be produced for a sword with current technology.

But I did find one interesting thing, which I didn't find any threads on so I wondered if people were aware of it: something called tempformed steel which supposedly has toughness and strength far above any other modern steel. It was first published on in 2008, it seems:
https://www.nature.com/articles/news.2008.851
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/320/5879/1057 (I think this is the original article, abstract only)

It doesn't seem to be very well known, because I only found a few results for it on Google. There are multiple articles from the last few years though so it must be attracting some interest.
This chart from the original article shows how it compares to benchmarks for non-tempformed steel:
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/320/5879/1057/F4.medium.gif
(TF is tempformed steel, Y-axis is toughness, Xs and +s are data points for regular steel given by US and Japanese industrial standards, I can't find the link to the chart description but I saw it at one point)

More articles:
https://www.researchgate.net/public...n_S700MC-type_Steel_Tempforming_vs_Ausforming
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/articl...dvpub/0/advpub_ISIJINT-2019-726/_pdf/-char/en


Could this be used to create the strongest sword?
 
Last edited:
I don't know, but metallurgy itself is pushing forward too.

S7 or CPM-3V are both insanley tough already.
But CPM-3V has not just insane toughness, but also amazing edge retention and decent corrosion resistance. Powdered steels really went far.

And now we have nitrogen steels appearing on the market too. Which seems to be next step forwards. As the time goes by there will without a doubt be more and more insanely tough and resistant materials.
 
Larrin Larrin should speak to this, but I expect this is just a low cost heat treatment only for structural steel ... and the results I don't think come close to what's needed for a knife.

This process is for structural steel, which seems a big improvement for low carbon steel typical in that area (like 0.1% - 0.4% range)
 
I hadn’t heard of tempforming before. It appears to be “warm rolling” of martensitic steel to refine the grains and create an elongated structure that leads to toughness improvement in a specific orientation. With most knife steels they have very poor ductility especially when they are martensite so warm rolling martensite sounds impractical to me. It sounds like it is pretty specific in that you would need an application that benefits from that particular microstructure’s properties. Exploring ausforming for the more general grain refinement might be more practical.
 
Last edited:
It's an interesting academic/fantasy question. But of course unrealistic as every weapon that mankind has created has (1) been created to beat another weapon and (2) has been made mostly obsolete by another weapon. For that reason swords stopped developing once firearms became prevalent. The wars of the mid 1800s are probably the last instances of swords, spears, bows being used concurrently with guns. But after that, no advancements in bladed weapons were needed so... "no super sword". At least until Star Wars in 1977 :)
 
KenHash said:
It's an interesting academic/fantasy question. But of course unrealistic as every weapon that mankind has created has (1) been created to beat another weapon and (2) has been made mostly obsolete by another weapon. For that reason swords stopped developing once firearms became prevalent. The wars of the mid 1800s are probably the last instances of swords, spears, bows being used concurrently with guns. But after that, no advancements in bladed weapons were needed so... "no super sword". At least until Star Wars in 1977 :)
Click to expand...

There were "Lazer swords" before George Lucas. He borrowed the idea from someone else, I forgot who at the moment!

I still want a light Saber though... Lol
 
soc_monki said:
There were "Lazer swords" before George Lucas. He borrowed the idea from someone else, I forgot who at the moment!

I still want a light Saber though... Lol
Click to expand...

It is said that the great Sci-Fi author Isaac Asimov wrote a story called "The Traders" published in 1944 that had an "energy sword".
 
Smiling said:
I don't know, but metallurgy itself is pushing forward too.

S7 or CPM-3V are both insanley tough already.
But CPM-3V has not just insane toughness, but also amazing edge retention and decent corrosion resistance. Powdered steels really went far.

And now we have nitrogen steels appearing on the market too. Which seems to be next step forwards. As the time goes by there will without a doubt be more and more insanely tough and resistant materials.
Click to expand...
Got me curious. Would tough steels like 3V and INFI make good katanas or longswords?
 
KenHash said:
It is said that the great Sci-Fi author Isaac Asimov wrote a story called "The Traders" published in 1944 that had an "energy sword".
Click to expand...


That was it! I can't believe I couldn't recall that. Too early in the morning... Not enough coffee. Thanks!
 
For what was once science fiction made into reality, go here https://bladeforums.com/forums/mad-science-forge.941/ . You get bonus points if you queue it up using your Dick Tracy communication watch from Apple.

On an aside, you might enjoy reading Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson. One of the primary antagonists is a baddie named Raven who wields knives knapped from futuristic plate glass.
 
Larrin said:
I hadn’t heard of tempforming before. It appears to be “warm rolling” of martensitic steel to refine the grains and create an elongated structure that leads to toughness improvement in a specific orientation. With most knife steels they have very poor ductility especially when they are martensite so warm rolling martensite sounds impractical to me. It sounds like it is pretty specific in that you would need an application that benefits from that particular microstructure’s properties. Exploring ausforming for the more general grain refinement might be more practical.
Click to expand...

Is toughness improvement in a specific orientation a good thing in a katana for example, because the blade is much wider than it is thick; in other words, it's only going to break in one direction anyway?
 
If anyone wants to see crazy modern steel swords being used to cut stuff up I suggest watching Knife or Death.

Across the series a few Blade Forums members get good runs.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top