could someone explain to me what the measurement for strength of metal is. i've seen swords/knives measured in rockwell factors? what is it? and when something is 440 steel what is that? what should one look for when buying a functional sword/knife? strengh, composition (steel, carbon steel, etc.)? and help would be greatly appriciated. thanks.
First of all what do you want this sword to do? I can tell you want it functional but what kind of function? Cutting ? or live steel sparing? or iaido? What you want a sword to do determines what is can be made from. Rockwell a scale of hardness used for knives. It really mean little as you can used low 50s blade and cutt better thatn a low 60s blade. This is for knives mind you. For sword it is even less than meaningless IMHO as some who has made a few knives. I would suggest checking out www.swordforum.com there are people much more knowledgable than I there. But in general carbon steel is better for swords than stainless steels. But compostion is less importan than the skill used to make it. (waits for wiser heads to appear and tell him off)
440 steel is a mild carbon steel as might be used for nuts and bolts, this would make for a blade that would not keep an edge for as long as can be done. However the harder you make something the more brittle you make it and so using a harder steel will give a blade more likekly to snap or shatter or large chips to be taken from the blade where as a milder steel will be more likely to dent and be repairable. These are just in general terms though as it has been a while since I have done my metalurgy, by folding and rolling the steel you can increase and elongate the grain of the steel and orientate it so as to give strength in one direction but not have the brittleness transversly. That is why you can see all the lines running parallel to the edge of a blade
I think he means a steel sword. what ever is a goood fighing sword except blunted. In my knowledge 440c is a stain resisant tool steel so it would be high carbon but he addition of large amouts of cromium weakens the grain structure. Thera are many way ways to make a blade less flimsy the addtion of ridges or the inclusion of fullers also know wrongly as blood grooves. You can make a sword from a bar a steel but it would have to be a high quality bar of steel. which is why the japanese and several other cultures such as the Norse would take what ever iron based metal they could and pound it together over and over until the carbon was even;ly distributed through out. But htis is oof the op of my head so As i said before check out www.swordforum.com there are many skilled and knowledgeable people there of several different sword and weapon based arts. so you can get information on just Japanese SA or Western SA or even chinese, korean, and Arabic SAs
thanks for all the great input guys. it actully helped out. i just need to save enough now to buy one.
blades I think the only reliable blade is a forged blade. 440 is weak steel for a large blades. I recomended 1080 steel and strong materials.
Greetings bubba Yes the 400 series of steels are not the best for use to make a large blade but it can be done it will just be substandard.
actually you can get a good katana for around $500 Us or less. Granted to me a good sword is one that will cut and not break easily looks are secondary to me. Plain and simple is what I like and plain and simple will cost between 200 and 500 dollars US
okay here is a list of sits that have western swords that are functional http://store.swordforum.com/angustrim/ http://store.swordforum.com/armart/ http://www.allsaintsblades.com/Abought Us.htm There are more but it is so hard to find them in see of cr@p there is online I will begin to look for sites that sell functional Japanses swords. I would suggest doing a search for paul chen swords
And here is a website that have tips for purchasing swords http://www.paullarue.com/html/buyingfirstsword.html
