3 layered steel vs. Damascus steel and katana steel?

[forgeguy1977]

I understand that Damascus steel and Katana steel have certain qualities e.g maintaining sharpness flexibility shock resistance etc, has anybody made a knife  by forging or cutting your knife blank, but thinner, the same thickness of the desired edge out of a high carbon steel, HHS etc etc, then covering both sides in weld then grinding it down? I know it sounds cheap but wouldn’t this make a high quality knife if done well? could you make a steel hunting bow this way?

 

This has been relocated to the proper section. 

 

You posted rude language in your profile, we deleted it, then you replaced it.  Then refused to talk with staff, you left us no choice, account is now banned.

[Steve Sells]

Read the knife making posts, In fact there is an entire section about blades, and a section for instruction, if only you take the time to read them, its free !

 

Try it and let us know how it turns out, we like photos. 

[Rashelle]

Steel won't work that well for a bow. If you are looking for making a bow you're choices for a laminate would be a composite bow, such as horn belly, wood center, and sinew backing: a laminate bow using a mixture of woods, bamboo, and or fiberglass, or a stick bow using wood, even a board bow is an option. Which then lets you choose type of wood, whether to back the bow and what to back it with such as bamboo, fiberglass, sinew, rawhide, cloth. etc. With a bow the limb tips, mid limb, and near handle area bend and recover at different rates. With steel you would have a potentially powerful recovery but due to weight it would be a slow recovery. Thus lack of speed for you arrow. You would not have an efficient transfer of energy..

 

Hope this made sense.

 

Rashelle

[Metalsmith21]

Has anyone ever forged crossbow limbs? If so what alloy?

[Geoff Keyes]

Actually, there are steel bows made in India, and at least one steel bow that I know of from the mid 1800's found in the US,  I don't know whether they made for good bows, but often sub-optimal stuff was made and used and worked just fine.  So what if you did not squeeze every bit of performance out of it?

 

Of course forged crossbow limbs have been used, historical examples exist.  I don't think I would want to trust my life to one that I had made.  If a blade fails, it's probably not going to do so catastrophically.  If a crossbow limb fails, it's going to do it right in front of your face.  The alloy is not the point, any carbon steel would work, you could probably make them out of mild steel if you didn't exceed the yield point of the limb.  The heat treat is what is going to make or break (pun) the limb.

 

I have built chopping blades out of 2" x .100 material, the width and a good heat treat makes up for a lack of mass.  I'm not sure what it is that you are trying to get at.  I don't think you could prove that "katana steel" (whatever that is) makes for a better cutter.  Mike Bell, who is the best Japanese style maker that I know personally, makes katana for mat cutting out of cable weld billets.   The right steel (one with some carbon in it) a good heat treat and a good geometry make for a good performing sword.  OTOH, I have seen a sword made from a lawnmower blade cut through an 8 inch rolled tatami mat, and it wasn't even particularly sharp.

 

Geoff

[Rich Hale]

It is a shame that the person that posted this question does not color within the lines. He has already missed out on some good information in the above answers. Information that may have helped him along. However the thread remaining will likely get more answers and there are a lot of folks that will get access to it.

[ThomasPowers]

Your basic understanding is fairly wrong to start with.  Such steels can have good properties or worse than normal properties depending on alloying, heat treatment, design and handling.

Historically they were used to deal with problems with plain steels of those historic periods.  Steels have improved a lot in the last 1000 years.  (think of comparing a chariot with a modern battle tank...even a chariot built with modern components).

 

Unfortunately a LOT of HYPE is out there trying to convince people to buy things for other reasons than reality.  I suggest you learn what makes a good knife and then apply that to specific pattern welded and monosteel blades and select the ones that best suit your use cases---of which "being pretty" is a valid component.

[Stefflus]

There's a question in the OP that I don't see answered, and although I'm not going to go down that path, it tickled my interest: -Would it be feasible to sandwich or "laminate" a high carbon steel by laying down arc-welding beads on it's sides?

[Geoff Keyes]

I suppose you could, but how would that be better than a San Mai construction?  I would be concerned that the thermal shock might create fracture lines.  I suppose that you could pre-heat the core steel.  It sounds like a lot of work for not much gain.  It might be worth a small scale study, hough.

 

Geoff

[Rich Hale]

_{That for sure was not covered, i will tos mythouights in and admit I have not tried it...I almost remember Moony mentioning he has done this. No details pop up here.}

_{I Would try tig welding sa the clean weld wouild allow me to assure no gaps would be covered over.ALso I believe you could select a filler rod based on its compostion more readily than if you used a wire feed welder.. For anyone that is really good with a tig theuy may wish to sonside how much more they could make with the same mount of welding time as it would take for a knfe that is an experiment.}

_{I do nto see Moony post in the forums but he is in the chat room almost daily ,,at the odd times that work for those folks from Oz....He may be able to add mroe if you catch him.}

[ThomasPowers]

You could probably tig up a blade out of razor blades; though I'd be very quiet about it to avoid the neighbors finding out and arranging for a long state sponsored holiday in a room with padded walls...

 

And like was mentioned I'd weld on any blades with definite pre and post heats done.  Seems it would be a lot harder than forge welding.