icykarma

I don't think any of you realize I'm not doing this to create steel. I'm doing this to see if this combination would be comparable to a steel blade without all the hassle of making steel itself. Edit* "some of you"

If you want to offer your knowledge do so with patience and humility, please. I don't think the whole blade would break as the edge will contain most of the cast iron and even that will be folded with a fair amount of wrought iron. As the wrought iron is softer and more giving it should make the edge last longer then just cast iron while still having a sharp edge, but we'll just see. This is just a project for fun to see if the concept would work, that's all.

Thank you guys for the encouragement. I'll post some pics in a week or two.

Sorry if the last post is a bit condescending...old age gives you a sharp (pun intended) tongue at times.

Well, yes, the glass is still weak but is very sharp. If formed right and with just the right amount being shown and protected then it is darn deadly. You seem not to be able to expand to the view I see it as. From what I can tell cast iron is harder then steel but so brittle that it doesn't really make it advantageous. Just as exposing a thin layer of sharp glass could slice most people with ease and no damage to the glass, would it not be worth making? Have the right ratio of cast iron folded on a single edged side would give an extremely hard (while I admit brittle, but humans aren't hard to cut) yet mostly protected cast iron edge. Am I wrong?

Half the posts mine, one who explains something politely, two who criticize me. Very polite indeed...people these days. You still haven't given me what I've asked several times. If katanas use different grades of steel that are also hard and brittle and combine them to create a katana can you not do this with cast/wrought iron? You say cast iron is structurally weak but does not combining it with wrought iron strengthen it? Why not? Have you tried this combination yourself and gotten results that would say it won't work? I'm not trying to be condescending but I find it hard to believe people who just say "well that's how it is!" I've dealt with many such people who were wrong throughout my life.

Kid, don't test waters you haven't been in. A life of factory jobs and construction working makes steel making a fun past time. This isn't a place to question what I do or why I do it. Leave it at that.

The wrought iron being fairly soft and giving (the elasticity of the blade) with the cast iron being very sharp, but brittle. The combining of the two and distribution of carbon from the cast iron would make a blade with properties of both but still inferior to steel. At least, that's what's going through my head with this. From what I read about katanas they're just doing the same thing with different types of steel.

Thanks man, good solid advice. I think I may just try this out just to see if it can be done and what I can get. You never know, it might become the next craze! (joking...sorta) That's sort of what I was wondering about. The action of repeatedly folding does just that, spreads the carbon throughout the blade/tool/etc, right? It may not work like that since I can't be the first one to think of trying this out.

Eh, money isn't an issue for me. As I said, I'm poor. Cost effective is very different in my eyes. I have all that I need to make it. I can make my own charcoal/coke, mine my own ore, and forge my own tools. $0 plus hours of time making the materials vs $7.50 an hour 40+ hours a week plus the month or longer it would take to have enough money to buy the materials plus actually forging what I want? Tell me which is more cost effective for a poor man.

Now I'll put this forward now, I don't know much about blacksmithing. It's only become a very recent hobby and interest of mine so I have a lot to learn. I'm lucky to have a relatively decent amount of mine-able (from the perspective of a poor man with too much time on hand) amount of magnetite on my property. Because of this I've picked up blacksmithing and swordsmithing. This morning I had an interesting idea that's been bugging me all day. In the same way that a katana is made with "low" and "high" carbon steel, could not a sword also be made of cast and wrought iron? Say you put a bunch of pieces of cast iron between two slabs of wrought iron, forge weld them, and fold them a bunch of times. Would this make a practical blade? Would it be possible to do? I know people say cast iron is too brittle to forge, but I just find it requires a much lighter hand to shape. But even if you can shape it to a sword it is too brittle to be useful, so why not combine wrought and cast iron? What do you think?