Wazamono and Bad Rust thread

[Stephen]

taking from them both, could one take the Kanesada and retemper in a forge and have the cracks go away? just a wondering this morning.

 

http://www.ksky.ne.jp/~sumie99/SC.html

[Mark Green]

Stephen,

Retempering would likely open the crack more. The Steel could be chopped up and reforged into a new sword. I know some people that have done this to dead swords.

But Retemper will not fix a crack.

 

Mark G

[bluboxer]

Good day Stephen,I agree with Mark and yes this tamahagane should be re-cycled as it is a precious commodity.Which begs another question;where do all of the dead swords go?

Alan

[reinhard]

where do all of the dead swords go?

 

Just guessing: Unless of extremely high value, they were probably transformed into implements of every-day use. Problem is: One cannot separate softer (and cheaper) Shingane from harder Kawagane after fusing them into one blade. I just cannot imagine a samurai buying a blade on which his status (and, in extremis, his life) depended, made of mixed and recycled softer and harder steel for discount reasons. The only exception I can imagine, are some of the mass-produced kazu-uchi mono handed to Ashigaru during Muromachi period.

Maybe some of our Japanese friends come up with more profound information.

 

reinhard

[bluboxer]

Hello Reinhard,I think you are probably right unless anyone has heard of a mystical sword graveyard where battle worn swords may rest?

Seriously tho, after re-forging and the resultant carbon loss it would make good core material if steel supplies were low.But I was not thinking of re-forging the steel but to re-smelt it in a sense.In this way we could adjust carbon content and produce good jacket steel.

There has been a resurgence within bladesmithing in the US and abroad of smelting steel in smaller tataras and other furnace designs.This stems from the fact that all modern steels available for purchase contain too much manganese which reduces significantly the appearance of a hamon (and other activity) in clay coated heat treatments.Building a tatara,feeding and tending to it's operation is a huge undertaking.Using re-cycled material such as a broken sword blade in a variation of a "puddle" furnace allows us to have manganese free steel for forging without the costs associated with a tatara.

 

Maybe this should be a new thread but what does everyone think of this?

Alan

[slavia631]

Re: Stephen... Absolutely not. I'm not sure whether by "re-tempering" you mean normalizing the blade and repeating the entire heat-treatment, or only repeating the tempering process (normally done directly after yaki-ire), but neither of these procedures would do anything to change the structure of the blade. In fact, re-quehcing the blade would most likely deepen the crack further. The blade would have to be completely re-forged, to be 'fixed'.

[rkg]

Good day Stephen,I agree with Mark and yes this tamahagane should be re-cycled as it is a precious commodity.Which begs another question;where do all of the dead swords go?

Alan

 

Why, to ebay, of course

 

Best,

 

rkg

(Richard George)