DH-2 Specs?

Simply added a newsgroup to the post. ;)

Alvin in AZ

Here's what I located. DH2 is also known as Di-Hard (thus the "dh").

DH2

C 0.6/1.0 Si 0.3/0.8 Mn 0.5/1.1 Ni 0.4/0.8 Cr 0.5/1.0 Mo 0.2/0.5

From what I read on it, it appears to be some sort of jacketed or at LEAST differentially hardened steel. Thus they are able to have a wear resistant outer and strong inner.

Gobae - The Smith

snipped-for-privacy@nycap.rr.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Thanks. We had some other irons in the fire, (literally) so we didn't get around to slicing off some workable pieces to play with at this week's forge night. I'm still pondering trying to make a mattock blade out of it, but now I'm half tempted to just torch cut a double-adze, or a pick mattock shaped head at full thickness, using the original edges as the bits, and enlarge a bolt hole to gas weld a heavy duty handle socket on. It wouldn't be a comfortable tool to use long term by any stretch, but I bet it would succeed in busting up some of the rock/clay soil around here.

Another possibility was cutting a 3" wide strip, welding on a handle and flattening/annealing the shorter side to make a hot cutter.

Sounds suspiciously like L6 with a somwhat lower alloy content

GA

something...well,

For sure and yet higher alloy content than 8670-modified that circular saw blades are made from now-days.

It's for sure, deep hardening.

Edge quenching or partial austenitizing I can easily see but a hard case around the whole thing when quenched fully-autenitized would have to be a foot thick. ;) So if they are making a "case" around it, they might be just austenitizing the outsides (by induction?) and quenching.

(just trying to make sense of what you read)

I guess that works. :/ Don't know. :/ Only thing I've read that was specific, was about automotive springs and how very important it was

-in their case- to have the same hardness all the way through for fatigue strength. I picture the insides and outsides not working together so its strength isn't what it could be (under the work load of so many flexes)?

Cool thread. :)

BTW-> "low alloy, high carbon steel" ;) Good stuff. :)

Alvin in AZ

Cross posted this to support my idea that an L6 sword could be stronger than the strongest 5160 sword. Still don't know tho. :/

Alvin in AZ

Howard Clark might agree with you. Seems to have a bias in that direction for his Japanese Swords.

GA

[dozer-blade edge steel!]

And you and DrH will prob'ly go with the ease of working 5160 into swords out-weighs the slight strength benefits of L6.

Hmmm... seems kinda familiar like I heard that somewhere before like the "knife-list" or r.k.

Alvin in AZ ps- is the "knife-list" still going?

For me it's just that I already had an idea of what the 5160 would do. It was a price, availability and familiarity thing. Off the top I know that Admiral doesn't have anything thicker than 3/16ths listed for the L6. Can't say that I looked very hard though. For me, anything less than a quarter inch is lightweight stuff. From an asthetics and strength point of view, I think a sword should have a thicker cross section with a lot of edge tapir. You can get thinner as the quality of the steel permits but "Flat" swords just look cheesey. Just my bias.

GA

"Greyangel" wrote

Do you fuller at all?

Chas

Did a big wall hanger broadsword with a large fuller down the center. I used my handheld grinder to do it and was not too impressed. Not as clean and even as I would have liked. Next time around I'll go with the more traditional draw bit. The table saw would work pretty good for the really thin styles though. hmm.... ;)

GA

"Greyangel" wrote

One of the meanest things I ever did was to order a fullered D2 blade from a stock removal maker :-)

(Maker: W.W.Woods of Vera, TX. D2, Jeweler's Bronze, Mastodon Ivory; sheath in laminated Elephant Hide with springsteel reinforcement) I don't know how he did it, but the interior of the fuller is mirror polished, the rest of the blade is brush finished.

I've often wondered how hard that is to do- I really like the Sa family blades; all the swoopy relief and multiple scallops.

I've never quite understood why the 'integral' makers didn't go ahead and work up fullers in their blades. It's such an obvious evolution in blade design from the flatground stuff- can't see why people have missed it.

Chas

Last time I talked to Howard Clark he just got a large order of L6 in 20 foot, 3/4" round rods. (it's the cheapest way to get it?)

Sounds right to me. :)

Talking about cheesy blades... Just saw The Alamo with Billy Bob;) and Jason Patric as Jim Bowie the knife and actor was cheesy as anything! :)

Foley people made it sound like a big piece of plain sheet metal which would plain ol' grate on my nerves everytime it was taken out. :{

Jason Patric's "The Beast" is a cool movie tho. :)

Alvin in AZ

snipped-for-privacy@XX.com Spaketh Thusly:

Ayup. I've been on it for a while, learned quite a bit. Russ Kepler runs it off his server.

-- Bill H. [my "reply to" address is real]

Molon Labe!

ROTFLA Did he cuss you afterward? 'spose it depends on your intent as a maker. Certainly would be a lot easier with a fuller hardy and hot metal but as a newbie I tend to try anything that occurs to me and I really don't mind spending hours with hand tools if it does the quality of work that I'm after. I've learned to be afraid of what a power tool can do to a perfectly good piece of work in a moment of what I call "a case of the dumbass". I've varying examples of those moments. The trick is to pull out of it looking like you meant it all along ;-) Back to the fullering though, I'm working on an idea for attaching hardy tools to my rail anvil. After discussing with Alvin the idea of tapping into the end of it, I'm leaning towards welding an attachment to one end. Probably won't be much good for pounding on but it should be fine for holding that fuller tool.

Beautifull work! (like the cutlass too) That face in the leather is awsome! Since I started obsessing about making blades I have run across a few makers out there who do things to the leather that I don't think I've seen before. You're right at the top of the list!

Polishing stone sticks?

I've learned that a sharp piece of hard steel can remove a lot of stock pretty quickly. A friend of mine has been getting involved with my forging escapades and decided to try a small meat hatched. He brought it to me to fix some rough edges and was blown away by what could be done with a good file. Left here and headed straight for the hardware store to get his own.

Hmm yes, I've always been partial to fullered blades. Large cross section, deep fullers. I think my next project is going to be a sort of cross between a katana and a scemitar with long narrow fuller near the unsharp (top?) side of the blade.

GA

Nice! Where did he purchase it? And yes, if Admiral's prices on the 52100 is an indicator, then we're talking around 25% of the flat stock prices. I ain't skeered 'o no 3/4 round. Its that 1 inch square stuff that beat me up ;-)

Ya wouldna wanta be trustin' ol Slingblade with a real knife now wouldya? uhhuh.

Never heard of it. Should I?

GA

"Greyangel" wrote

It took him about five years to get around to making it. It boiled down to him making some stuff to go to the Pope and needing them sheathed; heh, heh, heh. His work is *really* hard to sheath; big, heavy, thick, weird shapes- and needed very precise tooling of the symbols and such. He gets nearly $3K for a knife like the 'Cutlass', so it made a good trade.

More likely some sort of milling process. Bill was a metallurgist for NASA for his career- very proficient with advanced tooling and processes- very complex steels and heat-treating.

A bladesmith's 'sen' is more like a spokeshave or rebating plane- like an 'Old Woman's Tooth' slotting tool. The form is scraped, as opposed to filing. The bit was made from 'glass-hard' steel. One would think that a carbide lathe bit would be an upgrade-

The designs to look at for fullering/scooping are naginata blades. They were short and made of heavy stock (by and large). The best wakizashi I ever saw was a long naginata blade mounted in waki style, made by the Sa family- big, meat cleaver.

Chas

So what is the popes EDC? This has me intrigued. I am guessing some sort of ceremonial sword. Really undermines the whole turn the other cheek thing doesn't it.

Fraser

"Fraser Johnston" wrote

There were several heavy short swords and a couple of battle axes- to be used in parades/ceremony. The Pope presented them to the oldest military order in Catholicism during the Christmas season.

Chas