Frosty Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 What a relief! I was afraid we'd driven you off. Resurfacing anvils is a touchy subject, like THAT wasn't obvious. For a fine forged finish a bottom tool works a treat. A piece of polished steel with a shank welded on will provide any surface, edge, etc. you need. If you weld the shank on one side you can put the center of the tool over the sweet spot over the anvil's waist. Making the shank long enough to stick out under the heel lets you punch and drift a keyway and wedge the bottom tool to the anvil for max effect. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 For heavy use I'd make the tool the width of the anvils face and weld a couple of downward projecting straps on the sides to hold it in position. But as most blades will have substantial stock removal done on them it's generally not needed to have a perfect face. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Midnight Posted July 18, 2016 Author Share Posted July 18, 2016 Thomas, the sword was 25 inches, weighted 1.8 pounds, had a COB approx. 8 inches from the handles, I used 1095 for the entirety of it, it was heat treated in a fire, but I made sure that the temp was as uniform as I could make it. I would attach pictures, but lost the camera that had the pictures in a flood, and the sword was sold to a friend of my dad shortly after I finished it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 and the vibration node? What did you draw it to? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SReynolds Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 The manner you guys dispense logic is priceless. I will try that with this week's class when somone complains about the candle holder task. "Why cant we try to make swords"? "What for alloy would you think best"? Cue the chirping crickets. I like the willow branch sword mentality too; "heck, I've been maken' swords since I was 5" LOL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Midnight Posted July 18, 2016 Author Share Posted July 18, 2016 I'm going to be honest, Thomas, I don't really know what you are talking about when you ask what I drew it to. Do you mean the thickness of the blade at tip, and 2" from the tang? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles R. Stevens Posted July 18, 2016 Share Posted July 18, 2016 Tempeture, or color you drew the temper to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted July 19, 2016 Share Posted July 19, 2016 Heat treating for tool steels, blades included is a process of hardening then drawing the temper. Tempering is a controlled softening of the steel to draw it back from brittleness and give it flexibility. There are a few methods but drawing to a temper color has been around since humans have worked steel. Take a look at Heap O' Jeep's RR spike spread cross pics blue at the ends and silver in the center. The colors ran very close and fast but those are temper colors. There are charts available you can compare with. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted July 19, 2016 Share Posted July 19, 2016 You see I'm trying to explore what you know about the fine fiddly details of the craft. So 1095 is a nice alloy for knives but a bit brittle for swords; *but* if you draw it to a higher temp you trade off some of that brittleness so a 1095 sword would be tempered at a higher temp than say a 5160 sword. Did you quench it in oil and if so what type and what temperature the oil was at? I assume that since you don't address the node question you did not take it in account when making your sword. Weight of course is the clear marker between SLOs and swords. Is your sword 25" from tip of blade to end of pommel or 25" of blade? The weight is a touch high depending on the style of blade; but really not bad!---do you have any fullers in it? what is the cross sectional shape of the blade? (lenticular, diamond, squashed diamond, hexagonal, etc...) I know tedious in the extreme but I assume you don't have a good photo of it to hand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the iron dwarf Posted July 19, 2016 Share Posted July 19, 2016 there is a great deal of difference between a sword like object and a sword, over 30 years ago I made several sword like objects for sci-fi con costumes, these days I know people who use swords and they need to have the correct temper, vibration nodes, shape, balance and be made from the correct material. I would not attempt to make a sword Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles R. Stevens Posted July 19, 2016 Share Posted July 19, 2016 Opens a can of worms he did.... Midnight, don't run off, honest if these guys are taking the time to question you, it's because they think you have potential, and as some of these guys acualy do make honest to goodness users swords they can really teach you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SReynolds Posted July 19, 2016 Share Posted July 19, 2016 6 hours ago, Frosty said: Tseat treating for tool steeltemperdes included is a process of hardening then drawing the temper. Tempering is a controlled softening of the steel to draw it back from brittleness and give it flexibility. There are a few methods but drawing to a temper color has been around since humans have worked steel. Take a look at Heap O' Jeep's RR spike spread cross pics blue at the ends and silver in the center. The colors ran very close and fast but those are temper colors. There are charts available you can compare with. Frosty The Lucky. Blue? I wouldn't have guessed blue as all books I have read describe blue as all temPoer Lost. But we have diSsussed how books are wrong. Obviously my phone typing ISnt working correctly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Midnight Posted July 19, 2016 Author Share Posted July 19, 2016 I am awfully sorry, guys. Neither my phone, nor my laptop would open up the second page of this thread for the longest time. However, I have found a way around the apparent broken code. As for the sword's length, in total it was 30 inches, with a 25 inch blade, the cross section was hexagonal and the blade itself was modeled after a Greek xiphos. I "drew the temper" to a medium straw color, as I am well aware of how brittle(but also how fantastic) very high carbon steels can be like 1095. There was no fuller, as after drawing the sword in my head I found that the fuller made it look silly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted July 19, 2016 Share Posted July 19, 2016 Temper Colour depends on the alloy, design and intended use. Differential tempering is a great thing for swords or as the japanese do differential hardening. For many using swords a spring temper is better than a brittle temper. For a railroad spike knife I wouldn't temper at all or just at the faintest straw as they are low carbon steel. For a high carbon steel sword I'd temper fairly far back. THERE IS NO "ONE CORRECT COLOUR" TO TEMPER TO FOR AN ITEM! as it depends on the alloy used! Make a knife blade from a file and another from a coil spring, temper them to dark straw and drop them. File knife will probably end up in pieces...Any work instruction that tells you to temper to a particular colour WITHOUT addressing the alloy is BOGUS! (Though a lot of the old books will as they didn't expect the wide range of alloys we have in common use today.) Typical blacksmithing advice, the exceptions run way longer than the rule, sigh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted July 19, 2016 Share Posted July 19, 2016 8 hours ago, SReynolds said: Blue? I wouldn't have guessed blue as all books I have read describe blue as all temPoer Lost. But we have diSsussed how books are wrong. Obviously my phone typing ISnt working correctly. Sure blue is a temper color. In some cases it may be drawn so low as to be useless, especially for a blade but it's certainly not drawn to "normalized" let alone annealed. In the local spring shop, 5160 leaf is drawn to blue and oil stopped leaving a black finish. As Thomas says different alloys have different requirements, some are "as quenched" alloys requiring no tempering at all. As to books saying the "temper" is lost. That's a misuse of the term we talk about all the time, what they MEAN is a loss of HARDNESS, tempering is a deliberate controlled reduction of HARDNESS, softening. Completely tempered would be annealed. How many times has someone here corrected a person who said they "tempered" their blade by heating it to ?orange and quenching it in: oil, water, whatever. Getting the craft's language/jargon standardized is probably the #1 contribution Iforge is making to the craft. We have to know what a person means or we're just guessing at what they mean. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Midnight Posted July 19, 2016 Author Share Posted July 19, 2016 1 hour ago, Frosty said: Sure blue is a temper color. In some cases it may be drawn so low as to be useless, especially for a blade but it's certainly not drawn to "normalized" let alone annealed. In the local spring shop, 5160 leaf is drawn to blue and oil stopped leaving a black finish. As Thomas says different alloys have different requirements, some are "as quenched" alloys requiring no tempering at all. As to books saying the "temper" is lost. That's a misuse of the term we talk about all the time, what they MEAN is a loss of HARDNESS, tempering is a deliberate controlled reduction of HARDNESS, softening. Completely tempered would be annealed. How many times has someone here corrected a person who said they "tempered" their blade by heating it to ?orange and quenching it in: oil, water, whatever. Getting the craft's language/jargon standardized is probably the #1 contribution Iforge is making to the craft. We have to know what a person means or we're just guessing at what they mean. Frosty The Lucky. I agree: many a mistake has been made due to people who say one thing, and mean the other. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SReynolds Posted July 19, 2016 Share Posted July 19, 2016 I get it. Thanks. Lost in translation. How about this; a popular smithing book ( not going to mention names) advised NOT to use a worn anvil. Sway is not good. Chipped corners are best repaired by welding and grinding. Keep this in mind, please when folk ask. How to books are telling folk how to. If you read it in a book It must be legit. Remember my comment about a book instructing you must scarf all welds or it is improper (I belive the text said subject to fail) My favorite suggestion is applying bees wax at a red heat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Midnight Posted July 19, 2016 Author Share Posted July 19, 2016 Can someone tell me about this "node" business? I remember coming upon it in a book somewhere, but the author failed to make much mention of its implications, nor any sort of technique one could use to move it through the sword. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted July 20, 2016 Share Posted July 20, 2016 you ever take a fairly inflexible rod and hit something hard with it and have it "buzz" your hand so you drop it? You were not holding it at a node! Nodes are places where a standing wave in an item has an amplitude of zero So you really really want the grip of your sword to be at a node as it will feel more like it's glued in your hand when you hit something rather than that it's biting your hand to get free. So many ways to shift nodes around---length, cross section, taper, pommel, guard, etc and so on and is one of the major things that make a sword not just a big knife. You can test your blades for where the nodes are as you build them and try to adjust if it looks like the grip is not at a good point---unless you are making it for an enemy.... cf vibration node in wiki and elsewhere Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted July 20, 2016 Share Posted July 20, 2016 6 hours ago, SReynolds said: I get it. Thanks. Lost in translation. How about this; a popular smithing book ( not going to mention names) advised NOT to use a worn anvil. Sway is not good. Chipped corners are best repaired by welding and grinding. Keep this in mind, please when folk ask. How to books are telling folk how to. If you read it in a book It must be legit. Remember my comment about a book instructing you must scarf all welds or it is improper (I belive the text said subject to fail) My favorite suggestion is applying bees wax at a red heat. Now you know why I'm NOT EVER going to write a non fiction book! I don't teach people the "right" way to do things other than safety that is. I'll maybe show you how I do things but that's about it. Does she explain how you get bees wax red hot to apply it? Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Midnight Posted July 20, 2016 Author Share Posted July 20, 2016 1 hour ago, ThomasPowers said: you ever take a fairly inflexible rod and hit something hard with it and have it "buzz" your hand so you drop it? You were not holding it at a node! Nodes are places where a standing wave in an item has an amplitude of zero So you really really want the grip of your sword to be at a node as it will feel more like it's glued in your hand when you hit something rather than that it's biting your hand to get free. So many ways to shift nodes around---length, cross section, taper, pommel, guard, etc and so on and is one of the major things that make a sword not just a big knife. You can test your blades for where the nodes are as you build them and try to adjust if it looks like the grip is not at a good point---unless you are making it for an enemy.... cf vibration node in wiki and elsewhere very interesting...so, I would assume that, besides wanting a node in the handle, you would also want a node at about 4 inches or so from the tip(depending on the swords length, of course) so that when you hit with it, the wobble was minimal, allowing for a cleaner cut? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted July 20, 2016 Share Posted July 20, 2016 Ah, another example of assumptions making life more difficult than it need be. Unless I'm SEVERELY mistaken managing nod location is strictly to improve grip, hence handling. Don't over complicate things by trying to understand ALL the implications till after you get the basic idea. Personally I go for a working handle before delving much deeper than the basic idea. That's just me though. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted July 20, 2016 Share Posted July 20, 2016 look into discussions on the Center of Percussion AKA COP AKA sweet spot on swords used for edge work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Midnight Posted July 20, 2016 Author Share Posted July 20, 2016 16 hours ago, ThomasPowers said: look into discussions on the Center of Percussion AKA COP AKA sweet spot on swords used for edge work. thanks, Thomas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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