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Lancelot Chan
Industry Professional
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 Posted: Thu 02 Jun, 2005 5:39 pm Post subject: |
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http://wushu.hnipp.com
Yesterday I have a chance to test 2 katana made by Lung Chuan famous smith Zhou Zheng Wu, which one of them was made of sanmei construction and the other clay-covered heat treatment. He claimed them to be 58 HRC. The test revealed that both katana's edge hardness are below 40 HRC.
Ancient Combat Association —http://www.acahk.org
Realistic Sparring Weapons — http://www.rsw.com.hk
Nightstalkers — http://www.nightstalkers.com.hk
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Joe Leung
Location: Hong Kong Joined: 02 Jun 2005
Posts: 8
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| Posted: Thu 02 Jun, 2005 6:57 pm Post subject: |
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| Eric Meulemans wrote: | | Joe Leung wrote: |
Yes of course it is reasonable to expect that these sword will have to be polished after such a test. (I would be reluctant to use the word repair)...but please be reminded that the construction of japanese sword is a that a jacket of high carbon steel covering a core of low carbon steel. So the extend to which the sword needed to be polish is very important.....is any change of shape neccessary?
Joe |
Regardless of the type of steel or construction method, polishing is, in effect, "repair". When a blade is ground, polished, or otherwise treated to remove nicks, mars, or deformations it necessarily involves the removal of material from the blade. This in turn invariably changes the shape of the blade, however small that change may be.
It is my understanding that the polishing of Japanese blades is an exceedingly labourious and expensive task requiring great skill, and that the removal of say, a small nick or scratch involves work over the entire length of the blade so as to minimize the overall effect such a defect (as well as the subsequent removal of material) might have upon blade shape. Nevertheless, this can only be done so many times, and each time it of course alters, if only slightly, blade geometry.
Steel is steel, and like any material it has its limitations. Whether through use, abuse, or even maintenance, it will be subject to those limitations. Anyone who has carried an heirloom pocketknife can attest that the shape of its blade has changed greatly from the time their father or grandfather first took hold of it...
-Eric |
Hi Eric,
I agree that steel is steel and it has it's limitations. The reason that I cited Japanese swords' construction is that...one the jacket steel is polished through, the life of the sword is ended. On the contrary of thinking it is indestructable, I think it is quite fragile and has relatively short useful life. So while a polishing can involve regrind of shape but it really are limited by it's construction.
With all that swords left today in such good condition, I don't believe that these swords were used very much....if they have been used.....not just worshipped in the past.
But the test cutting inscriptions....if we choose to believe that they are true and there is no corruption involved then the damage after such test should not be great as most if not all of the swords are in good shape.
A Japanese sword can be regarded as dead if the hacket steel is worn through.
Joe
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Michael P Smith
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| Posted: Thu 02 Jun, 2005 8:02 pm Post subject: |
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| Lancelot Chan wrote: | | I'll just report the result as plain as it is if anybody is interested. ( I guess many of you are tired of me already ) |
Not tired here. I've learned a TON from this thread and related threads. I supect your new Brescia will hold up better, but have the honing stones ready!
FYI, I cut through some beef ribs with my Albion Prince yesterday. No sign of edge damage.
Mike
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Lancelot Chan
Industry Professional
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Eric Meulemans
Industry Professional
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| Posted: Fri 03 Jun, 2005 7:48 am Post subject: |
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| Joe Leung wrote: |
I agree that steel is steel and it has it's limitations. The reason that I cited Japanese swords' construction is that...one the jacket steel is polished through, the life of the sword is ended. On the contrary of thinking it is indestructable, I think it is quite fragile and has relatively short useful life. So while a polishing can involve regrind of shape but it really are limited by it's construction.
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Thank you for the clarification. I have read of this important point before but somehow didn't make the connection. Is it perhaps the case with such construction that the blade is more likely to fail catastrophically (i.e. snap in two) rather than suffer minor blemishes?
While heat treating may have varied signifigantly, it seems that European blades are usually spoken of being "used up" in battle, taking on nicks and gouges, while Japanese blades are more often said/shown to break in half (ala Kurasowa). Perhaps this is merely a difference in poetic license or meaning, rather than a factual representation of actual damage sustained?
-Eric
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Joe Leung
Location: Hong Kong Joined: 02 Jun 2005
Posts: 8
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| Posted: Fri 03 Jun, 2005 9:02 am Post subject: |
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[quote="Eric Meulemans"] | Joe Leung wrote: |
Is it perhaps the case with such construction that the blade is more likely to fail catastrophically (i.e. snap in two) rather than suffer minor blemishes?
While heat treating may have varied signifigantly, it seems that European blades are usually spoken of being "used up" in battle, taking on nicks and gouges, while Japanese blades are more often said/shown to break in half (ala Kurasowa). Perhaps this is merely a difference in poetic license or meaning, rather than a factual representation of actual damage sustained?
-Eric |
I hope that it will not deviate too much from the topic.
Quite on the contrary, the construction of hard jacket steel and soft core steel make it less likely to break. Although there will inevitably quite vast variations between different era and smiths...but on the whole Japanese swords are more prone to bend than break. You will be suprise how easily these swords can be bent by bare hands. So for a good cut with antique swords (yep there are plenty of ppl cut with antique swords, less expensive ones of course) you need good blade alignment and path of cut or the sword will be bent seriously.
I've seen flaws of all kind but mostly edge nicks (both chips and roll but more with chipping). Separation of jacket steel and core steel is another common findings in antique sword, most likely by repeated polishing and thinning of the jacket steel and repeated bending and straightening.
As a dentist, "repair" means something more then taking away materials to me. It implies that there will be material (same or different kinds) added in order to restore functions. But in polishing, I think everyone agree that there will only be material taken away from the sword and no matter how pleasingly and skilfully it was done the sword is weaken rather than strenghten.
With all that said, a properly heat treated blade should have enough edge toughness, especially when we are using modern, homogenous steel which is dense and of known properties. We are not guessing in heat treating like our ancient smiths did. So there is not much excuse ......... In ancient days, smiths even discovered that they can aus-forge (although they will not know exactly what they were doing microscopically) or what we can call low temp forging/edge packing to improve the grain at the cutting edge.
We have all the modern technologies right at hand....we have hardness tester, all kind and all powers of microscopes or even scanning EM, X-ray, crystallography. We understand material sciences nowadays, we know how to differentiate flexual and compressive strengths, toughness, strength and brittleness.
I am not saying that we have to test each and every swords. As we have known steel of known composition and know properties. We have thermo-couple thermometers, ovens, high-temperature salt etc. for accurate heat treating (rather than just open fire in the old days) for heat treating. Can we just do some tests before taking on a regime of heat treatment? I mean just taken the heat treated test blade to a metallurgy Lab for destructive tests, and get readings for improvements.
I am sorry if anyone find the post offensive but it is really what is in my mind.
Sorry for the long post!
Joe
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Jean Thibodeau
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| Posted: Fri 03 Jun, 2005 10:05 am Post subject: |
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Joe;
I can't speak for anybody else, but I find NOTHING offensive about your posts: On the contrary it's very interesting.
If I am understanding correctly, I would think that both Japanese swords and European swords were intended to be as effective as possible and have desirable qualities making them weapons you could rely on that would not leave you holding a useless hilt with your blade snaped off in the middle of a fight. Long term durability would come second, but would still be desirable.
The way to achieve these qualities different tradeoffs were chosen: With the Japanese swords, the edges would be harder and maybe sharper with a soft core minimising the possibility of breakage and making repair by straitening possible if the bending was not too extreme or repeated too often.
With the European swords the qualities chosen were less extreme edge hardness combined with a very shock and permanent bending ( taking a set ) resistant spring tempered blades. Also different cutting styles were draw cuts would be used more often with Japanese blades than shearing / chopping cut of the European swords might be a factor.
Anyway, this is the way I understand the sum of the opinions expressed by everyone so far.
Individual swords could find themselves using more or less extremes of these tradeoffs in either cultures.
You can easily give up your freedom. You have to fight hard to get it back!
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William J Welch
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| Posted: Fri 03 Jun, 2005 10:07 am Post subject: Albion edge failure, Lance is not the only one. |
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I also had an edge fail on an Albion sword but right now I am waiting to hear back from Albion, as they have not returned my Email yet, I figure they are going to the Blade show in Atlanta. But I will be more than happy to relate what happened when I hear back from them.
I plan on bringing it to Atlanta with me Saturday.
Cheers Bill.
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Lancelot Chan
Industry Professional
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William J Welch
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| Posted: Sun 05 Jun, 2005 12:02 pm Post subject: |
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My brother and I were doing some test cutting last week, and I took a cut at a fresh deer leg, first cut went through flesh and bone left a little tag of skin, but nothing unexpected.
second cut a rising cut to the same leg and cut through skin but not really into the bone, just cut into it.
third cut cut completely thru good clean cut, but when I looked at my blade I was stunned. A chunk 1 cm x about 1/10 cm was gone.
So far the Albion people have said that it is not covered by their warrenty, and that i can send it back and they will fix at a charge or I can fix myself.
Now my sword is a first gen Crecy War Sword, and I may be wrong, but I would have thought that a well made sword would have gone thru a bone like a deer leg with no problem.
I dont have the Pics of the cut yet but, will have before long.
In the video, yes also took video, you can see the spray from the cut on the leg, so the leg was not dried out, it was quite wet.
photos of edge are at http://photos.yahoo.com/bossqwjw
I have added two pics of the deer leg in mid cut, with the spray from the leg very obvious.
Bill
William J Welch
Brotherhood of St Luke.
Last edited by William J Welch on Sun 05 Jun, 2005 1:19 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Bill Grandy
myArmoury Team
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| Posted: Sun 05 Jun, 2005 1:15 pm Post subject: |
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Hi Bill,
The photos are a little blurry, so I can't say for sure, but from the looks of it that seems like pretty nominal damage. I've had damage like that before on swords that I had to file out. Maybe the damage is worse than it looks in the photo, I don't know, but based on that alone I'd say it's the nature of using your sword.
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William J Welch
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| Posted: Sun 05 Jun, 2005 2:06 pm Post subject: |
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Even though, I know what will be the outcry from most on this forum, I agree with what was said on another forum,
" In reply to:
Sorry to learn about that. It could have happened for a number of reasons, but it is a safe wager that other swords, whether historic or replica, have shown such trauma from strikes.
Well (name deleted), that is about what the manufacturer said at the Blade show yesterday.
Just for fun I went out and and cut up an old dog bone that has been out in the yard for a couple of years with an old machette I have. I crushed it up, really... it was too hard to "cut". With no edge damage.
I don't have anything in this, except I was the one filming it... and I was going to buy one before this happened. But I still am failing to see how it is unreasonable to expect a $500 (or in Lance's case +$1500) dollar sword to perform at the same level as a South American machette made from questionable metal with questionable heat treatment that I bought at Smokey Mountain Knifeworks for $5 plus tax."
William J Welch
Brotherhood of St Luke.
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Joe Fults
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| Posted: Sun 05 Jun, 2005 2:09 pm Post subject: |
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Interesting.
Good touch to put the tape measure in the photo for reference.
I cannot tell with certainty in the photos, but in most of them it appears that the edge is chipped. Can you clarify whether the edge rolled/deformed or chipped out?
Thank you for sharing your experience.
"The goal shouldn’t be to avoid being evil; it should be to actively do good." - Danah Boyd
Last edited by Joe Fults on Sun 05 Jun, 2005 2:57 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Jason Elrod
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| Posted: Sun 05 Jun, 2005 2:46 pm Post subject: |
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| William J Welch wrote: |
Just for fun I went out and and cut up an old dog bone that has been out in the yard for a couple of years with an old machette I have. I crushed it up, really... it was too hard to "cut". With no edge damage.
I don't have anything in this, except I was the one filming it... and I was going to buy one before this happened. But I still am failing to see how it is unreasonable to expect a $500 (or in Lance's case +$1500) dollar sword to perform at the same level as a South American machette made from questionable metal with questionable heat treatment that I bought at Smokey Mountain Knifeworks for $5 plus tax." |
The machette didn't perform as well as the sword. It didn't cut the bone as it was suppose too, "it crushed it up".
How thick is the machette edge? How thick is the blade? How sharp is the machette? How well balanced is the machette? How heavy is the machette? Does it have any distel taper?
Just some things to think about.
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William J Welch
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| Posted: Sun 05 Jun, 2005 3:08 pm Post subject: |
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oh, that"s true, I just couldn't help myself.  .
But really though it's something to think about. I have a different digtal camera and I'm going to
take more pics.
William J Welch
Brotherhood of St Luke.
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Alexi Goranov
myArmoury Alumni
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| Posted: Sun 05 Jun, 2005 3:39 pm Post subject: |
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| William J Welch wrote: | | My brother and I were doing some test cutting last week, and I took a cut at a fresh deer leg, first cut |
Just to be fair, "fresh" in your case means a leg frozen for a while, and then left to thaw for 2 days before the cutting. while it might have been completely thawed out, I personally think that this is not what "fresh" means.
This goes into the discussion above about what happens to bones of dead animals.
the comparison with a machete is mute. the same argument can be applied to a can-opener and swords. since the can opener cuts metal better, is it the appropriate tool to take in combat against armored opponents. different tools for different purposes with having different capabilities.
While I agree that the damage is not pleasing to look at, having seen few originals, they do carry some sign of damage as well. further more, many surviving examples show signs of repetitive honing to the point where the original blade type is hard to identify. so the million dollar question is should a $500 or a $1500 sword show some damage after cutting very tough targets. Well read this thread from the beginning to get the answer. I expect that my swords will get some damage after heavy cutting practice, so to keep them in mint condition I cut only soft stuff. knowing your tools and what they can take (and how they take it) is essential.
Could folks make tools that will cut (old) bones without a sign of damage: sure! Will these tools follow the characteristics of medieval swords: probably not. but that horse has been beaten enough.
I think your sword is not that badly damaged, and it can be easily repaired. And that is all that matters. If your sword broke in half I'd be concerned.
Sincerely
Alexi
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Joe Fults
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| Posted: Sun 05 Jun, 2005 4:00 pm Post subject: |
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Swords from many vendors are being subjected to this type of use. Not every modern sword exhibits the same performance, and not every modern sword exhibits the same behavior when so used. There are some definite differences that should probably be considered at time of purchase depending on how the sword in question is going to be used.
Fair or not, I want a sword that I'm going to use for test cutting and drilling to perform acceptably and endure without substantial signs of wear. I'm willing to accept that wear will occur over time and I'm willing to accept less life from the tool when I invest less to acquire it. Unfortunately "more" and "less" are as individually subjective as most of the rest of the stuff being discussed in this thread. For me, unfortunately, wares from the primary vendor in question in this thread, fall into the more costly catagory. So fair or not, this is not what I hope to see.
"The goal shouldn’t be to avoid being evil; it should be to actively do good." - Danah Boyd
Last edited by Joe Fults on Sun 05 Jun, 2005 5:25 pm; edited 3 times in total
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William J Welch
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| Posted: Sun 05 Jun, 2005 5:09 pm Post subject: |
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I have taken three more photos of the blade that are a lot clearer than the last. That show a lot more of the damaged edge.
William J Welch
Brotherhood of St Luke.
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Alexi Goranov
myArmoury Alumni
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| Posted: Sun 05 Jun, 2005 5:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Joe Fults wrote: |
Fair or not, I want a sword that I'm going to use for test cutting and drilling to perform acceptably and endure without substantial signs of wear. |
So do I. and so does pretty much every one else. But what is the test cutting medium going to be? What is "acceptable"? What is "substantial signs of wear"? I am not sure there is a simple, single answer for that. Every one has expectations about how a given sword should perform. when the expectations are not met, we tend to be upset (that is a natural reaction). The problem then is were our expectations unreasonably high, or was the sword quality lower than necessary?
Just a thought.
Alexi
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Joe Fults
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| Posted: Sun 05 Jun, 2005 5:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Alexi Goranov wrote: | | Joe Fults wrote: |
Fair or not, I want a sword that I'm going to use for test cutting and drilling to perform acceptably and endure without substantial signs of wear. |
So do I. and so does pretty much every one else. But what is the test cutting medium going to be? What is "acceptable"? What is "substantial signs of wear"? I am not sure there is a simple, single answer for that. Every one has expectations about how a given sword should perform. when the expectations are not met, we tend to be upset (that is a natural reaction). The problem then is were our expectations unreasonably high, or was the sword quality lower than necessary?
Just a thought.
Alexi |
That seems to be what we are all wrestling with in this discussion.
However, it seem obvious to me that tools can be built to handle what is being discussed here. The main question then, at least for my part, is whether I have to sacrifice historical accuracy to acquire them, and if so, how much I have to sacrifice.
"The goal shouldn’t be to avoid being evil; it should be to actively do good." - Danah Boyd
Last edited by Joe Fults on Sun 05 Jun, 2005 6:09 pm; edited 2 times in total
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