The Armour Archive

Digging through my grandfathers basement i found an old sword blank made by my uncle steven, it;s a big beast of scimitaur-ish thing...
but anyways, to my point, this beast is made of 1/4 inch saw steel.
i;m sondering, how does saw steel hold up for making blades, does it hold an edge well, how hard is it to work, is it very brittal, those kinda things.

basicly i'm wondering if i should put forth the effore to finish it.

Tybolt

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What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word, As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee:

Are you talking about a big, circualar saw blade? like the ones lumber manufacturers use to cut logs with? if it is, then yes, it is good steel to make blades out of.

Many custom knife makers use surplus circular saw blades from lumber mills to cut out there knife pieces.

As far as flexibility is concerned I am not sure. but a 1/4 inch thick peice will not flex very much anyway. I say go for it.

Insane Irish

Agreed. Saw steel is much desired for blades.

If you have a forge, try and look for discarded bandsaw blades as well (the large varieties used in industry, say 1"+). You can forge weld a good damascus billet from it, and they make great knives too, although it takes a lot of work. If you're just grinding, have at it and know that you've got a good piece of steel to begin with.

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Lochlainn
I'm a Liberal and I'm OK!
*Insert gratuitous inflammatory remark here*

yea, i think it's from a big old circular saw.
anyways, right now, i lack a forge, hopefully that'll be remedied though.
i'd really rather use a forge, and thin it down in places and the like, it weighs a freaking ton, asside from the tang i'd say the blade averages at about 3 inches across, about 4 and a half at the thickest, and 2 where it joins the hilt. it's and intimidating looking thing.
my dear uncle oridginally made them for martial arts katas and the like.
anyways, thanks for the info




[This message has been edited by Tybolt (edited 03-06-2001).]

Your dear old uncle was either an ox or a nut! I hope you have a large grinder and a lot of time to bring the sucker down to a managable weight!

Jeezus, it reminds me of my first sword... (whistfull smile)

Large saw blades are often type L6 tool steel which is supposed to be really good for damascus work. It has sufficient chrome to make high contrast etch lines. It also makes good blades as a single steel. I have three large saw blades that will eventually be something .

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Krag von Berghen
KragAxe Armoury

Member's Pics

my uncle was a bit of both, also he liked to use those beasts so he could throw competition blades around like feathers...

nayways, here's a newbie-ish question....
what is the difference, if any, between patern welding and damiscusing.
i;ve been told both are teh same, and i've been told they are completly different.
so what would you guys say?

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What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word, As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee:

I am unfamiliar with Pattern welding, BUT, I do know how to make a Damascus blade.

To Make dammascus, you take wires, alot of them twist them together, heat them in a forge and pound into a blade.

They make arealy nice looking blades, and are very functional for knives.

although, for swords, they worked but eventually were inferior compared to solid folded blades. the shear fact that they originally came from a bunch of wires, made the blades not as strong as folded blades. But they look really nice.

Insane Irish

hey irish,
i believe the process you described with the wires is pattern welding.
damascus, if i remember correctly, is the solid-fold technique you refer to.

You are correct, that is pattern welding. From what I have read, damascus is the name usually used for pattern welding. There are medieval weapons made by what is called damascus, but which seems to be a different process. What process was used is largely unclear.

So, from a medieval viewpoint, Damascus is incorrect for any modern blad,e but from a modern view, any pattern welded blade can be called damascus

Read The Complete Bladesmith by Jim Hrisoulas.
I think he has some other books on pattern welding.

Hope this is helpful
Brian

Pattern Welding - Process of taking dissimilar materials, usually a low and a high nickel steel and welding them together to form a solid piece. This piece can then be folded, holes put in it, and other manipulation of the layers. This forms a pattern in the finished piece which allows the contrasting metals to show through.

Damascus - Completely different process. Has been lost but recent research may have found a way to reproduce it. See the Scientific American for February for more info, they have a big article in it about True Damascus.

Brandr hinn Rusli

Just to adda bit to what Brian and Brandr said...
The true damascus seems to be a mixture of metals that don't form a complete alloy solution or segregate out a bit upon cooling which form a very intricate, fine pattern. No one's really completely figured it out yet. The generally accepted "closest match" to true damascus is "Wootz damascus" made by Jim Wootz (I think it's Jim). Knives illustrated had some articles way back with pictoral references that was pretty cool. Pattern welding is the forge welding of different pieces of metal into a single billet. However, like the others pointed out, everything is just called damascus these days. If you're really interested, i could dig out the article sometime this week and make a copy for you.

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Krag von Berghen
KragAxe Armoury

Member's Pics

I wouldnt complain if you wanted to dig up the article Krag.
anyways, thats pretty much the answer i've largley gotten, damiscus and patern welding are the same, but different....
in any case, i made a nice patern welded knife in shop class, teacher busted me and made me take a chop saw to it [img]http://www.armourarchive.org/ubb/mad.gif[/img]. that hurt. BUT i know how to do it, and that could make for fun things in the future.
anyways, thanks a lot

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What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word, As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee:

[This message has been edited by Tybolt (edited 03-09-2001).]

One of our own has just published a great article on Damascus steel. Here's the link: http://www.armourarchive.org/ubb/Forum4/HTML/000160.html

Cool article! Shows you how good my memory is! I thought Wootz was the guy who supposedly re-discovered the damascus steel recipe. I guess it was a Jim "someone" who was making Wootz stuff. Now you got me curious! I'll have to dig it out now .

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Krag von Berghen
KragAxe Armoury

Member's Pics