steel ?

[Rravan]

Hi guys, hoping to rely on your experiance here.
What is the best steel to use for a sword, where can i get it and how much does it cost.
Also any guidlines for the heat treatment of the steel eg; quench medium and tempering spacifics.
Any help in this area would be greatly apreciated.
thanks in advance.

[Don A]

I would check with these guys:

swordforum.com

[ThomasPowers]

Basically I would say if you have to ask this type of question you wouldn't be able to work with the high alloys steels and would suggest you start learning on something like 5160.

As for "BEST"---what type of sword? what's it going to be used for? what environment? what tools do you have access to and training on? what's your budget?

Why somone would assume that there is only *1* "best" I do not know---sort of like asking "what's the best mode of transportation" without telling us any of the details---sometimes a horse is the BEST and somtimes a rocketship is the BEST---but they are NOT interchangable...

[steve sells]

Originally Posted by Don A

I would check with these guys:

swordforum.com

Is there a reason you sent him there rather than give him a real answer, or is it you think none of us here know?

[Quenchcrack]

I kinda have to side with Thomas on this issue. When you don't know enough to ask the right questions, you have more homework to do.

[Rravan]

Thank you for your coments so far.
I should have known better then to leave room for missinterpritations and so i will clafy.
What i was asking was for some recomendaions of steels that you guys have tried and found to be succsesful for a broad range of sword types, furthermore i was intersted in the price of these steels and more importantly where i can find them(i live in australia ).
Hope this helps.

[Rich Hale]

Let me chime in here a bit. Not sure what you have in the way of supplers for materials there or whether you have a forge or not. Can I suggest you get some leaf springs from a pick up truck and forge them to some kind of shapes that please you ,,learn to heat treat the steels and use them to cut paper, cardboard, wood etc...that will give you experience in how metal moves and how it works after you have altered it. A year or three of that will let you know how things work and give you an idea if you want to go further with sords. They are in no way a starting point for someone new to the craft, If I were the teacher and you the student you would be looking at four or five years before starting to think about a sord. Good luck.

[tetnum]

i am not partial to spring steels (ie 4140, 5160) because they move well under the hammer and relitivey forgiveing of some heat and lack there of and for me are relitively good water quench steels

car leaf spring can be 1045 5160 or some other thing the mill makes
a just do not recomend most exotic steels untill you do a fair bit of forgeing (A-32 is not recomended if cooled wrong lots of flying sharp things its not fun)

be safe happy forgeing

[dablacksmith]

the most comon sword steel is 5160 . in america you can purchase it at a lot of places amrality steel is one that is on the web . heat treating is kinda tough for swords as they are a long heat ... you might check with your local industry car and spring manafacturers .they will usually harden and temper for a fee and have the heating and qunching tanks to do the job right . Make sure you let them know that the blades have been forged and need to be anealed or at least normalized before hardening .they can probably provide a suplyier for the the spring steel also ... good luck!

[Rravan]

thanks heaps