quenching a sword

What good is a sword that doesn't fit your hand? I measure my customers and fab to fit. I mean, if you're gonna lay out upwards of a grand for a sword, you want it to fit. Here's the list for a one-hander... arm length from fingertip to armpit (blade length), hand width while making a fist (grip length), hand length from the base of the thumb to the fingertip (grip circumference), length from base of thumb to upper fold of wrist (guard overhang length), length from base of pinky finger to upper fold of wrist (pommel overhang length). This give you a sword that fits your hand, doesn't bite you in the wrist when you use it, and matches the lever of your arm. A little creative mass distribution in the guard and pommel for static balance and you have a blade that comes alive in your hand. Balance depends on the customer's technique; hackers get more forward weight, dancers get more rearward weight. The average balance point is about one hand-width forward of the guard. Think about it, give it a try. You might be pleasantly surprized.

Charly

I know how to make a sword fit the user, however a lot of people over here want what "they" used, and the customer is always right (well they are if I want their money).

HA is mentioned a lot here, so I have to apeal to the market.

For my own personal swords, I like to make them a little shorter in blade length and longer in grip, so I can play with two at the same time and get in real close ;-)

Regards Charles

base of the

upper fold of

creative mass

that comes

First, what the hell is HA??? Second, don't take what I typo personally, I typo for the general audience as much as for personal communication. I have a matched pair of shorties myself, that way I don't have to worry about losing blades off the ceiling fans if push comes to shove at the door. They throw like daggers too, turn over in just over nine feet. I like the customer's money, but I want them to be completely satisfied with the capabilities of their new old weapon, so there's usually consultation at some length before I accept the contract.

Charly

Chilla wrote in news:45bac9b6$0$2917 $ snipped-for-privacy@news.optusnet.com.au:

The Scots were well known (by the English, at least) to use both Claymore and Dirk togther.

The Dirk was used both for parrying and attack.

Absolutely true, and sword and dagger was well established by then :-) Love the Scot's, the only time it's correct to say blood channel ;-)

Regards Charles

If he had quenched in oil and pulled it out as soon as it quit glowing... he could have straightened it out before it "hardened all the way up".

The more Cr and/or Mn in it, the more time you got.

The whole thing doesn't switch to martensite at once, some of the blade is still austenite at some point. Right? ;)

BTDT :) ...with butcher knife blanks and they are tricky as anything to straighten while the sucker is fresh out of the quench tank. :) Using pliers and the oil on it is smoking to beat heck so it's not the easiest thing for me to see either. Especially since I heat treat at night? :)

What's tricky is while you're fiddling with it, the stiffness and elasticity of the blade is changing constantly. The dangged thing is turning into mostly untempered-martensite from all-austenite.

If you got the-warp-out half-way... then about triple that same strain is going to be needed the very next try. It's constantly changing and it's changing fast. :) If you warped it backwards double what it was... ;)

But for a true sword-maker I figure a guy could get good at taking major warps out of the sword fresh from the quench tank and take care of the little warps later after it's tempered?

I finish grind my blades extra thin so I have to do the grinding in a two step process, having figured out that a hollow ground blade, the edge needs to be at least 1/32" thick, and I later grind it to half to one third that.

So yeah, a thick-club;) of a knife could be heat treated and polished without later grinding... just not any of my knvies. ;)

I quench in real quenching oil and never use brine but my extra thin 1095, 1.22%C (old files) and 50100-B blades don't need water anyway, let alone the O1 or 8670-M blades.

See? All you've got to do is get it below about 750F quickly and "you've got it done-quenched ;)" and the time from there, don't really matter if it's cooling in air it'll turn to martensite anyway.

What do you think? :)

Alvin in AZ ps- The swords to beat are Howard Clark's made from L6 (like 4370) bainite using salt tanks. He forges the blades from L6 rounds. pps- don't know why, but swords have never done a thing for me :/

...

Hi Alvin. Good to hear from you. Thanks for the information. This is useful to remember. So, you use the TTT diagram to tell you when to stop tweaking? The danger zone should be some combination of temperature and fraction martensite. I guess if the blade is balanced (finish ground), there should not be too much tweaking to do. I have never heat treated a knife or sword, but may have to do it one of these days.

Eric

(ASMs "Tool Steels")

The line they call the "M point" is usually called the "Ms-line" for "martensite start".

Some older graphs you'll see an "Mf line" for "martensite finish" and those are now considered bogus... there is no "real" Mf-point.

The colder you get it (without letting it stop cooling) the more martensite will be formed from the retained austenite.

That's why I cold treat my knife blades. "higher hardness with no loss of toughness" -Roberts and Cary (ASM)

See the point at 1000F and at 10 seconds? Quench the steel from ~1500F down to and hold it at 1000F for 10s. That's 100% pearlite. Like railroad rail... or the top half of a cold chisel.

Actually that part of it is all in the "feel". :)

The TTT or ITT graph only shows you what's going-on in-theory.

The TTT graph is a road map to show you where you are and what you can get-away-with ...in this case. ;)

Yes, you can see in the graph the temperature constraints you'll need to stay within for certain things to happen... also the time constraints are shown too.

Time Temperature Transformation graph

The graph itself doesn't tell it all... left-out are things like you've got time to plastically deform the part before it gets "too hard" and-so too resistance to plastic deformation etc...

That part's, in the wordy part. ;) Dangged wordy part anyway. ;)

Metallurgy books are my-kinda-books, they are full of graphs and tables and only enough words in between to make sure you "got" everything out of the graphs and tables. Cool huh? :)

I'm not into books without indexes.

Finding-out what you can get away with is in your own hands and tools.

There are a lot of chapters dedicated to warp prevention and suggested steps to take to limit warping. Warp prevention is big business. Take A2 tool steel for an example, tough to find tool steels for sale where A2 isn't listed and it's a "go between" warping vs expense.

"Metallurgy Theory and Practice" by Dell K. Allen ;)

Alvin in AZ