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Old 02-28-2011, 02:43 PM
Doug Lester Doug Lester is offline
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Location: Decatur, IL
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Ok, Tourist, to start with the anchient sword smiths of Japan, or anywhere else, had no idea of why what they did worked. What they knew about iron was only on the macro level. They didn't know about carbon; it was just charcoal to them. They only knew what was achieved through centuries of trial and error and included a lot of superstition. As far as blades that rival modern products, that's something that just doesn't stand up. Yes, they produced very good blades, they also produced mediocre blades. The old steels just do not stand up to modern alloys. If the old steels were better we'd still be using them. These methods are not lost, they are still being practiced by a few masters of the art and what goes on with their processes are well understood.

Ed was asking about 52100 which is a deep hardening steel totally different from the tamahagane steel of medieval Japan or modern simple steel, for that matter. Painting a slurry of clay on the blade will not retard cooling long enough for pearlite or bainite to start to form. The steel will still go right past the nose of the cooling curve to the Ms point.

Doug Lester


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Last edited by Doug Lester; 02-28-2011 at 02:46 PM.
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