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Mud quenching?


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In a discussion elsewhere, a fellow in Ireland was talking a big game about quenching in what he called "lark", which by his description was a mixture of water and mud. According to him, this gives a very slow quench that bakes the clay around the blade, which then "cooks in the clay" and does not need additional tempering. 

This strikes me as arrant nonsense*, but it did get me wondering if anyone here has personal experience or knows of anyone attempting anything similar?

 

*An impression not improved by his insistence that 5160 needs to be folded and welded to itself multiple times to knit together the molecules and equalize the stresses caused by modern manufacturing methods.

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The Farce is strong in that one!   

Just another variation on interrupted quenches or single step harden/tempering.  Unfortunately for most items it's a much poorer method---especially for knives!      I'm more of a fan of differential tempering and sometime differential hardening---or both.

I was amused by their implication that they were NOT putting in cold shuts, crud, decarb, etc and so on doing their welding and folding as compared to a nice clean industrial process.

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7 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

I was amused by their implication that they were NOT putting in cold shuts, crud, decarb, etc and so on doing their welding and folding as compared to a nice clean industrial process.

I didn’t even want to go there. I may have typed the words “ineffective solution to a nonexistent problem”, though. 

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J H C C  ,

Concerning the chap who opined,

"An impression not improved by his insistence that 5160 needs to be folded and welded to itself multiple times to knit together the molecules and equalize the stresses caused by modern manufacturing methods."

Where did this person do his degree in metallurgical science?

Amazing!

Everyday is an education for the SLAG.

SLAG.

 

 

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What ever your opinion is on Morden steel is up to you. I was trained by a man who worked as a bladesmith his whole life. He came from a very long line of smith's. We all online often like to pretend we are like the old Smith's but we are far from it. My claim is correct when it comes to steel as steel is the most poor of metals today due to recycled metals added in the smelting process.They use all different types of metal during the process, zinc, lead, raw iron, brass etc., so you are not getting 90% steel. Why do you think old leaf springs are still in favour with bladesmiths? Folding is like knitting. It knits the molecules together and forms a strong bond. If you don't fold and use the blank as you found it, then the monocles are loose so to speak. That was what I was taught by a very talented man. I respect you opinion but I don't like the "know all" attitude you used to explain it. To address your last question. As I said before there is no need for heat treatment after as the metal will cook in the mud. That is the whole point of this quenching. This is a very popular skill used in Africa today. I might not use the long winded words you used but I know what I'm talking about. Facebook and YouTube isn't the learning base and knowledge center for everything. Best of luck to you and happy forging :)

His words, not mine.

 

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Good to know that science hasn't advanced any and so generations of folk beliefs trump x-ray diffraction; metallographic microscopy; etc. I hope he finds a good Doc that can treat his humours with leeches and a cautery  and none of this new fangled germ theory of medicine! The recent outbreaks of measles and mumps would seem to indicate he might be able to...

I would like to point out that Africa is also known for making mild steel blades---not because they are better; but because that is what they have.  The UN Manuals on Blacksmithing include a method of crayoning on hot cast iron to steel the surface of mild steel axes because popularity is the best indicator of best practices!

I'm afraid that I will continue to use a high tech insulin pump pushing genetically engineered insulin into me as I Like my life eclectic!

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quote: "steel is the most poor of metals today due to recycled metals added in the smelting process"

Steel is not added to a smelt. Period.

Steel is a quality product, it is tested for content to assure the additions of recycling are clean

your friend is a few fries short of a happy meal

I am still LOL

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Incredible. are there still people like this around ? You know what happens to zinc, brass and the like in an electric arc furnace for recyling steel ?

And knitting steel together ... i'd say get that man a microscope and show me what isn't together in fresh 5160, and after you've folded it a couple times how bad it looks. Fresh 5160 is very clean uniform steel.

But if he's so convinced, let him pass a ABS test or compete in a cutting competition ? 

We live in a golden age of steel. There is more steel around in much better quality then ever before. If the historical japanese smiths had access to the modern steel we have today for a couple of centuries; all the mythological katana's would have been mono steel, probably without hamon. Why fold it if it's perfect to start from ?

 

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I liked one of the shows about katanas where they were gushing about how perfect a material for swords tamahagane was---after just showing how a master swordmaker only had to spend about a week with a multi person crew working it into something he could use...NOT my definition of a perfect material!

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Don't forget it took the master years to learn, from his master what was usable in the "bloom(?)" Oh and don't forget how long and hard people had to work to gather enough ore to make a bloom.

I know "bloom" isn't the correct term, I'll appreciate the correction.

Frosty The Lucky.

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well, I have come across a couple of similar old tim smiths in the UK. Armoured in their self sycophantic certainty.

I am not surprised that they exist in other places as well.

There is wisdom in a lot of the old ways but often it is buried amid a pile of dung or festers with its later incarnations.

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I've been watching a series of YouTube videos about welding metallurgy, and the lecturer (Thomas Eagar of MIT) has some very interesting things to say about the changes in steel composition over the years, even within a single ASTM standard. It got me thinking that a lot of these older processes (like the whole folding-and-welding to make a consistent billet of tamahagane) may well have had some value with older, less consistent materials, but (A) people didn't always know why a particular process worked (or seemed to work) and (B) there's a natural reluctance to give up the role of the expert when your expertise is no longer relevant -- or indeed to admit that the expertise of the person who taught you may no longer be relevant, if your sense of your own competence and worth is derived from the unquestioned value of their teaching.

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It's hard to break free of how you learned, it's burned into our DNA. For a couple million years give or take how we were taught was how it was done, memory was all we had to record information. Paintings on cave walls appear to be more religious in nature. Knowledge passed down was what we had PERIOD. In the last few hundred years, say since Gutengerg invented movable type that allowed rapid printing inexpensively information and knowledge became generally available. Folks had a reason to learn to read and education became a matter of going out and getting it. 

IIRC there was a lot of uproar about the disaster cheap printing was going to be to society. Tradition took it on the chin.

Knowledge is changing faster right now than ever, 10 years ago seems poky slow. It's not easy to discover what you spent 12-20 years in school learning isn't current. 

There's that, there's a different factor I haven't seen mentioned yet. How fast should change be? The faster things change the easier it is to take a wrong or downright BAD path. Some resistance is a good thing it lets folk filter new knowledge for the correct, useful, harmful, etc. 

People have been learning about iron for about 2 millennia now, the HARD way by trial and error and word of mouth. In the last 100 years iron and steel has changed in it's very nature. Selecting steel is a menu selection with performance, chemical, working, data to sort through. 

All that is expected and a good thing to a point. Where it's a problem is new guys being loud and convinced some arbitrary period in the past is where THE correct way (traditional) to do things lays. You can tell the mythical thinkers, they rationalize rather than argue points with logic.

Such is life, can't hold it against them it's helped ensure the survival of the human race since we came on the scene. 

Heck I convinced myself not to call us Homo Rationalizis. DARN I hate it when I do that to a snappy phrase.

Frosty The Lucky.

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7 hours ago, JHCC said:

I've been watching a series of YouTube videos about welding metallurgy, and the lecturer (Thomas Eagar of MIT) has some very interesting things to say about the changes in steel composition over the years, even within a single ASTM standard. It got me thinking that a lot of these older processes (like the whole folding-and-welding to make a consistent billet of tamahagane) may well have had some value with older, less consistent materials, but (A) people didn't always know why a particular process worked (or seemed to work) and (B) there's a natural reluctance to give up the role of the expert when your expertise is no longer relevant -- or indeed to admit that the expertise of the person who taught you may no longer be relevant, if your sense of your own competence and worth is derived from the unquestioned value of their teaching.

There were at least 20 ways of laying out a japanese blade for swords..   What few know is they were in fact making homogeneous blades even way back when others were making composite blades.. 

Old steels because of the impurities as well as the varied carbon content dictated how the steels were prepared..  

People today have a tendency to look down on technology of old... Much of it was based on an understanding of the material which today is lacking because of all the scientific study and the ease of each piece of material having a standard.. 

Wrought iron is a great example because of the many conversations about it and it being a mess to start with and then the quality getting better each time it is worked.. Peter Wright selling  1st run fresh wrought iron anvils at a lower price..  Vs the second run scrap wrought irons which were the high end models going for more money.. the old advert is neat.. 

Grain texture as course, course medium, medium, fine..   I'm using these terms because of the level of refinement I have seen..  I used some 2nd run round stock from silo hoops and it shown a really nice pattern forged.. I then upset it for a few heats. and forged out the skull.. 2hrs in acid and nearly no pattern at all..  the guard 10minutes in acid the skull 2hrs.. 

I am not against old ways.. I am against telling others about old ways and not being able to tell them why or why not it does or does not work.. 

There are many who learn something and then never, ever question as to why or why not..  As a farrier I served an apprenticeship with one of the top in the area... I would ask him questions and he would say " Shut up and do the work".. 

I never understood this as talking about the work and getting information from a skilled person would help.. 

It wasn't till many years later.. I had watched a video by a guy who went to Japan to study with a screen maker..    This Japanese guy was world famous..  This white guy is the 3rd apprentice so about as low as you can get..   He starts asking all these questions and the master ignores him..  This goes on for a few weeks.. Finally one of the seniors apprentice tells the guy to shut the crap in the trap and watch...      This white guy then went on to say about how he watched and he started to notice little things he had missed previously with all his talking and question..      At the 3 year mark he was finally doing pretty well and the senior apprentice an he were getting to be a little more freindly..    The white guy said thanks for telling me to listen and to watch.. The Japanese guy told him that it's different in different parts of the world.. He then said.  The white guy was there to learn the secrets and methods of the master and only once he was quite that he would be mindful enough to learn.. 

I thought about this for about a month an then  it dawned on me..  If one sees something in another that the person is interested in learning.. One must shut up and watch what is happening...      " Simply it is their methods that are being taught"..   

I'm not explaining it well.. But anyhow, the idea is not to question but to learn..         It's their method, their skills.    To interject what I know, or how I do it or would do it is pointless...   They are not taking a class from me.. I am there to learn from them.. 

My point is..  Many learn this way by example and never question "WHY".. 

Anyhow, I would agree in some ways that metals today are better or can be better.. But I have had some really crappy steels come through the door in the last 10 years that in the previous 20 years had never seen.. 

I had read a book by a blacksmtih who claimed that every few years he heats his anvil in the forge and once a good dark red color only seen in a dark room, he would then dump linseed oil on it and rub it with a brick until cooled..   This is what kept his anvil in such good shape over the 40 years of his smithing career..   Non sense right..  Not to him.. And not to someone who reads his book and latches onto it.. 

I love the old books because of how the information is presented.. Of course it's old information and much of it is outdated in the metallurgy depo..  But then again some of it is still great info and pertinent to what we work with and forge today..   

One of the books talked about testing steels each batch since there is a slight difference and one should be intimate with the material to truly understand it's limitations.. 

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Frosty..    Anybody and everybody will argue a point if they feel they are smarter or better or their information is more correct based on belief..  I know because... :)

I still run into this all the time and it gets to a point where it's not worth even discussing because you can't change someones beliefs unless the information clicks..   

I am never stuck to anything I do.. I have never had and original idea in all my life..     I adapt and through trial and error arrive at a conclusion..  

If someone tells me something.. The first thing out of my mouth is  " Show me"..    If someone can show me something and it is fact better or if I can see merit in it.. I will simply adapt it into the skill set nearly seamlessly.. 

The problem becomes when they think they can explain it..   English is my only language.. Well other then some Japanese.. But with english being my 1st language..  Really its about 3rd in the language list.. First and 2nd would be sight and sound.. 3rd would be spoken word..  4th would be written word in books..  5th or  6th would be forum talk/writing depending on the day.. 

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1 hour ago, jlpservicesinc said:

only once he was quite that he would be mindful enough to learn.. 

My grandfather gave me this advice when he was teaching me something. "You were given one mouth two eyes and two ears, which means you should do twice as much looking and listening as talking".

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