Steel opinions

Cut straight to the chase.

Have a bladesmith make the blade of whatever he can make best use of.

5160 gets a lot of reccomendations if I recall correctly. Something nice in a nickel laced pattern welded steel if your tastes run that way.

Then have the fittings and furniture made from some of the salvaged WTC material and trim it out with some of the meteorite bits or work the meteorite iron into the fittings with the WTC material. Get some nice engraving done (not done by anybody using a pantograph fercryinoutloud, real engraving) The sword will need a sheath and fittings appropriate to it's style and intended usage. More opportunity to use the stock in hand.

The bladesmith may be able to use some of the steel in a pattern welded blade as a lower carbon content component (Layers of higher and lower carbon steels are welded together to form pattern welded steel billets).

No personal experience in the smelting or refining of steel alloys, but I'll go out on a limb and say that the way I suggest above will be MUCH less expensive than to do as you propose, melting and alloying.

However you go with this, best to get on it quick as the lead times for work like this can be longish.

Oh yeah! Post pictures of the end results in the dropbox at

Please!

Cheers Trevor Jones

That reminds me Trev, did you and Mike ever get the induction furnace spinning?

Tim

-- "I've got more trophies than Wayne Gretsky and the Pope combined!" - Homer Simpson Website @

Hey Proud Dad,

Wow! I have NO IDEA, but what a wonderful thought.

If what you want isn't possible, then maybe just the handle or the "guard thingy" could be worked into the handle on a standard blade. Wow!! What a great idea for a graduation presentation!!

Take care.

Brian Lawson, Bothwell, Ontario.

ps...congratulations to your son too.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx

I have>My son will be graduating from Annapolis in June 2006.

Ya got the wrong guy on the induction furnace. I wasn't involved in one.

Cheers Trevor Jones

I like the meterorite idea. But in the words of James Black who smelted a bit of meterorite in Jim Bowies knife, "For better or for worse, she contains a bit of Heaven, or perhaps a bit of Hell.

What they said, plus: alt.crafts.blacksmithing; there are some _serious_ sword makers there. You may be able to speed things up if someone has a blade ready to go that just needs fittings and a scabbard.

FYI, what folks were referring to is that the WTC steel and the meteorite will be very low-carbon steel, which just ain't good blade material, unless you don't mind him having a pretend sword.

: snipped-for-privacy@sp.am.bigfoot..com.goaway wrote: : :> My son will be graduating from Annapolis in June 2006. :> :> I want to make him a sword. I have 4 ounces of nickle-iron meteorite :> that I've collected over the years, and a couple of pounds of iron :> from the WTC that I kept (I worked on the removal for 4 months) :> :> Would it be possible to analyze the exact metal that I have, melt it :> down and alloy it into a good steel for making a sword? I know I'll :> have to find a good knife maker to make it. : :What they said, plus: alt.crafts.blacksmithing; there are some :_serious_ sword makers there. You may be able to speed things up if :someone has a blade ready to go that just needs fittings and a scabbard. : :FYI, what folks were referring to is that the WTC steel and the :meteorite will be very low-carbon steel, which just ain't good blade :material, unless you don't mind him having a pretend sword.

I figured that the WTC steel would be bad by itself, but I figured it's basically Iron. Couldn't enough carbon, nickle, moly, etc, be added to it to make it into a reasonable blade material?

Absolutely. It can be done.

How much money do you have?

John Martin

Sure, carbon can be diffused (case hardened) in, or if you want to melt it in you could do that too. I'm not sure if alloying elements diffuse very well, but for a W1 or so, you don't need much more than iron, carbon and a bit of manganese (average steel has enough already).

The meteorite might be forge-weldable as-is, or it might be a good idea to melt to clean out the crud (especially if it has any stones in it).

My first thought was pattern welding the two, since I seem to recall steel and nickel iron are quite good for this.

Tim

-- "I've got more trophies than Wayne Gretsky and the Pope combined!" - Homer Simpson Website @

:>: snipped-for-privacy@sp.am.bigfoot..com.goaway wrote: :>: :>:> My son will be graduating from Annapolis in June 2006. :>:> :>:> I want to make him a sword. I have 4 ounces of nickle-iron meteorite :>:> that I've collected over the years, and a couple of pounds of iron :>:> from the WTC that I kept (I worked on the removal for 4 months) :>:> :>:> Would it be possible to analyze the exact metal that I have, melt it :>:> down and alloy it into a good steel for making a sword? I know I'll :>:> have to find a good knife maker to make it. :>: :>:What they said, plus: alt.crafts.blacksmithing; there are some :>:_serious_ sword makers there. You may be able to speed things up if :>:someone has a blade ready to go that just needs fittings and a scabbard. :>: :>:FYI, what folks were referring to is that the WTC steel and the :>:meteorite will be very low-carbon steel, which just ain't good blade :>:material, unless you don't mind him having a pretend sword. :>

:>I figured that the WTC steel would be bad by itself, but I figured :>it's basically Iron. Couldn't enough carbon, nickle, moly, etc, be :>added to it to make it into a reasonable blade material? :>

:>

: :Absolutely. It can be done. : :How much money do you have?

Enough. I was prepared to pay for the ivy league. He got into Yale and Georgetown. He chose Annapolis instead.

I cant imagine that a small vacuum furnace would cost more than $1000/hour. Am I wrong?

The WTC stuff is almost certianly mild steel. However meteorites are nickel-iron composition that makes excellent blades.

However the real place to ask is over in blacksmithing or knifemaking. I'd think it would be possible to laminate the material you have with conventional blade steels to make a good-performing blade. (Although those swords are entirely ceremonial and usually not sharpened.)

--RC

Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad

-- Suzie B

I would think so. However there's one guy who could give you a much better read on the situation. Jim Hrisoulas, or 'dr jim', as he's known on the net, is one of the leading swordsmiths working in this country today. He's also a PhD metallurgist. The web page for his business, Salamander Armoury is at

--RC

Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad

-- Suzie B