Few technical questions needed to ask.

[number1001]

Hi All,

 

I am new to this hobby. I am trying to built a viking sword with 9260 steel because I like the flexibility of this steel.

 

My question are:

1. Where can I  buy this 9260 steel cheap -- dirt cheap

2. How good the the steel can hold for the edge compared with others

3. Are there any advantage if I fold the steel

4. How can I make color black and red out of the steel -- I saw it on ebay -- some katana use 1060 steel and able to produce this kind of color.

5. Casting vesus forge a sword which way is better in the menaning of produce a quality sword.

 

Thank you all in advance

 

 

[Steve Sells]

1) see the suppliers lislting in the blade section.

2) define good, all blade edges are a compromise

3) none,  fyi: "folding" isnt as easy as TV and the video games make one think.

4) paint

5) casting is for bronze, not steel blades.

 

 Please read up on this subject before you end up in a wild fire. Every question you have asked have been answered and explained in the blade section.    Start by  learning about basic forging, and read the knife chat lessons also in the blade section. There is a lot more to this site than  just the General Smithing section, and a lot more to making a functional sword than most think, I f you just want a blade to look cool and hang on  the walls, buy a 2 inch wide and 36 inch long section of steel,  grind away everything that dont look like a sword, and have fun.

 

 I will relocate your post to the blade/sword section now.

[Geoff Keyes]

So you're new, which is obvious, and you want to take on a very difficult project right out of the gate.

 

Have you ever done any metal working?

What kind of tools do you have?

Why 9260?

 

I could go on, but I'll answer your questions to start.

 

1)  Enough steel for you project will cost you in the neighborhood of $20 US, shipped.  If that is not cheap enough, perhaps you should consider just buying a sword.

 

2)  Edge holding is more about heat treatment and geometry than the steel.  Even a bad piece of steel will hold an edge well enough to cut for a while.  Most Viking swords were made of very bad steel by todays standards, any spring steel would be better than most of them.

 

3)  In short, no.

 

4)  I suspect that the colors you are seeing are photographic effects.  Light filters or photoshop.  You can paint the surface, or rust it.  Polished steel is silvers to gray to black.   You can get some interesting effects with bluing, but those colors ranges from blue, through browns, to black.

 

5)  No steel sword has ever been made by casting.  Let me rephrase that, no quality steel sword, intended for any kind of use, has been cast.  Some (perhaps most) bronze swords were cast as were copper ones.  Steel and iron swords are made by forging and grinding.

 

Geoff

[number1001]

Hi Steve,

 

Thank you for sharing your knowledge.  i have done buying 3-in wide and 36-in long to make a sword -- I also learn how to heated and tempered. It is okay, but I want to get to another level. Again, thank you for your comments.

Best regards

[number1001]

Hi Geoff,

Thank you for your comments. I have all of the tool which I needed. I have been a hobby for about 1 year now. I have make couple knife and sword before. i guess the more I ask the more I learn about it. I hope that no  one upset with my questions (sometime stupit).

Thank you very much

[ThomasPowers]

OK shipping may be very expensive to get it from the USA to the Antipodes! 

Or asking where to get something cheap without providing at least a general location is rathe useless on this WORLD WIDE FORUM.  As I recall 9620 is sometimes used in vehicle springs.  To get a reasonable LOCAL source you may check if you

can find a place that makes springs for repair.

 

How does it hold an edge---better than some, worse than others.  However it will in general hold a better edge than the originals and is moderately easy to work---we could suggest some VERY expensive alloys that you would be guarenteed to ruin as they are very tricky to work and heat treat; but will hold a better edge!

 

You folding the steel will make it weaker, introduce cold shuts and contaminents and lower the carbon content.  If this is what you want then it's an advantage.  If it isn't then it's a disadvantage.  (You do realize that the japanese blades often start near 2% carbon and through repeated folding and welding end up at 0.5%---one quarter of what they started with!  You do NOT add carbon folding!)  It's also quiet tricky to do especially with chrome containing steels that do not like to weld to themselves.

 

Look into temper colours and patination for colouring the blade

 

Traditionally no blades were cast since the bronze age as casting tends to make brittle blades due to large grain structures.  We have better methods and alloys now; however to use them is quite expensive and to not use them results in expensive poor quality blades

 

I *strongly* suggest you learn to forge before you worry about forging a sword---it will be a *faster* path to producing a good blade than just jumping to sword forging directly ESPECIALLY if you are doing this on your own without expert help

 

If you are in the USA, may I commend the Bladesmithing classes held by the American Bladesmith Society as being a great way to bootstrap yourself into bladesmithing.

[Maillemaker]

1001, could you update your location, please?  There's always the chance there's another smith nearby that could lend (possibly life-saving) advise and wisdom.

[number1001]

Hi Thomas,

You are enlighting me -- Well taugh -- Thank you for your comments and sharing the knowlwdge.

[number1001]

Hi Maillemaker,

I am in San Jose -- California. Thank you

[Dan C]

Gee, maybe I need to challenge myself more.  After making, on someone else's request, a spearpoint out of a piece of axle or 5160 I'm telling myself to limit future blade lengths to ~5.5", this one was 7".  My forge is made from an 11" brakedrum and it was difficult enough to heat treat evenly.  I finally was able to get the blade straight and skate a file the entire length, but took longer than expected and I won't be able to charge enough to account for my time.  All in all a good learning experience.  So I'm curious what sort of equipment do you have that's going to enable you to heat treat a 3' blade?  Based on the questions you're asking, my first impression is you're in over your head.

[Rich Hale]

Go for it....Some folks can use more guidance and specific details and some cannot. If you want to jump right in then keep us in mind and take pics to share...Heat and beat,,grind and toil,,however you wish to work. 

Your shop,,your rules!

[Bruno C.]

Everyone wants to make a sword.   So do I one day.  I wish all attempters safety and luck.  Frankly, I think anyone can make one.  But there are very few makers that can make one I would trust my life or health with.    number1001,  the only end all super sword ever conceived was/is the Light Saber.   Everything else is a compromise.   Learn as much as you can, and try not to watch HighLander while you're doing it :p   It fuzzes things up a bit on expectations.    I say Go fer it and Good Luck.  But I would do my best to make sure anybody else is left unhurt from your creation,  saving yourself from injury is a great Bonus too.

 

Don't mean to discourage at all.  Sometimes the best way to learn is the hard way.

 

-Bruno

[Charles R. Stevens]

Like Bruno the thaught passes threw my mind from time to time. Yes way to much of my miss spent youth playing D&D.
Now it's mental exercise. What techniques do I meet to master, what schedule of procedures do I need to fallow, what tools to build, what kind of sword to build, then walking threw the forging in 6" peices of hot steel...
Yep, forging "S" hooks, punches, hardy tools, chisels all look very attractive compared to the level of focus and commitment I need to take on that project. No wander the axe and spear remained the standard for thousands of years.
I'm stubborn, and when I'm ready to forge 100 sword blanks, and work them all up to hopefully have one I'd be more or less happy with I'll let you all know.

[ThorsHammer82]

I swear the is the first question that comes out of everyone's mouth when I tell them I'm doing blacksmithing, or that I built a forge. "Can you build me a sword" either that or "when are you going to build a sword"

 

whereas I would love to know I have the skill and ability to make a proper sword. I have not intentions of doing so. Partly because of the description above from charles, partly because I know currently I don't have the skill to make a proper sword, and finally because I don't have the equipment/manpower to pull off a proper sword. Maybe someday when I've got a power hammer and a 5' ribbon forge I'll consider it. but as it stands right now I've got no need for those pieces of equipment. My skills and abilities do not lend themselves to being able to produce anything of worth from them at this time.

 

Now, I'll make some blades out of scrap on hand and be happy with it. but to make a proper sword not only do you need the tools and equipment to make one, but you also need the hands on supervision of a master swordsmith to get it right the first 100+ times. YouTube, and online forums just aren't going to cut it in my opinion.

 

a proper sword was a utilitarian object. Not a pretty thing to hang on the wall. what you're describing is a pretty thing to hang on the wall. It will have little to no use if used as a proper sword. If that's what you're going for, that's fine. but it doesn't do a lot of good if you've ever got to use it. not that that's likely to happen, but you get the point.

[ThomasPowers]

Swords are not just "big knives"; they have a whole slew of design criteria unique to themselves---for example blade harmonics:  get them wrong and the sword will try to leap out of your hand when you hit something with it.  Get them right and it will act almost like it's glued to your grip!

 

Then there heat treating issues and walking the line between a blade that will take a set or one that will crack, (save for japanese blades that are designed to do both!)

 

Another major problem is the amount of time involved makes it hard to learn from your mistakes---mess up a knife in heat treat and you can forge another one that afternoon.  Mess up a sword and it may be weeks before a hobby smith gets back to the point they can try plan B and more weeks till Plan C, etc

 

Of course all this presupposes you want to make a sword and not a SLO sword like object

 

There was a reason that in early medieval times the most common weapons of war were the axe, spear and bow.  The sword was an indicator that you were in the upper levels of the social scale!