Can Someone Give me a Rundown on Steel

>>33151034
Buy the most expensive Cold Steel sword that you like. The more expensive the better the steel obviously.

Multi-alloy swords like traditional katanas existed because high quality steel was a rare and precious commodity so it was only used on the working edge.

Monosteel swords are superior if they are made from quality steel.

Japan had limited steel production in those times.

>>33151143
thanks senpai didn't know! i thought it was something to do with combining both properties i guess. any suggestions on the steel? most of what i see is in the 1045c range it seems

>>33151068
definitely a fan of Cold Steel you can't go wrong. I've heard good things about Hanwa, Shinwa, Mushashi as well.

I was wondering because I found a new source that seems legit, but a lot of the steels are things I'm not really familiar with

Go to YouTube and look up Walter Sorrels.

>>33151519
>>33151068
>>33151034

Cold-Steel makes sword shaped objects.

Actual swords can be had elsewhere.

>>33151692
Basically, they cheat construction with crappy modern corner cutting. Tang and pommel, generally. You want to avoid a welded tang, and/or rait-tail tangs. This is the issue with most wallhangers, though ColdSteel is usually OK in this regard.

The big thing is the pommel. They'll just weld a threaded bolt onto the tang to screw on the pommel. Over time, this gets loose and is a weak point.

You want a 1-piece, full tang, with a peened pommel (literally fit to size and hammered in place). If they do at least this, they'll probably be OK for the crossguard as well. The cheaper shit just gets loose over time.

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Just buy a proper historical sword from a proper manufacturer.

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Where do I start.... First off, Cold Steel makes great Knives and machetes... their swords are Cancer, do not touch them. They are one of a few things, sometimes more than one:
1) Balanced like a crow bar
2) likely going to come with a horrible rattle or loss assembly
3) May come with rust spots
4) some of their swords are improperly put together in the factory to make up for flaws, like covering the tang in paper to make it fit the handle.
5) A lot of times you can get a better variation of a Cold Steel Sword from the actual manufacturer. Most Cold Steel swords are made by Windlass and Dynasty Forge.

And for the money they just aren't that great, you can do much better (on a Budget) with Hanwei, Ronin Katana, Windlass (read/watch reviews first), and some other brands depending on what kind of sword you want and how much you want to spend. But consider $200+ as a general rule of thumb for real swords (some exceptions).

If you just want to cut shit, you may not want a real sword. Consider a swordchete from Cold Steel or Condor. They are fun and cheap, and much more durable than real swords.

As for steel, pretty much any common carbon steel is good enough for modern swords; 1045-1055 (cheaper), 1060-1075 (anything higher may be to brittle), 5160, T10, S7, L6, 6150... if you like a sword and are unsure of the steel, just look it up on Sword Buyers Guide (SBG).

Tempering is more important. There are two common types of tempers; Mono and Differential. Mono (aka "spring" , "through hardened") is much more durable and forgiving, but does not hold an edge as long. Differential, does hold an edge longer, but in every other way is worse, its easier to chip the edge or permanently bend the blade ("take a set"). A good mono blade is flexible, it should be able to bend very far (over 45 degrees in some cases) with out taking a set, where a Differential, maybe only 5-10 degrees.

I would go on, but I'm at the word limit. Pic related my "real" swords.

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>>33151916 >>33151034

Oh and if you just want to read more into random discussion about swords, there is a sword thread here >>>33091899

>>33151034
>regarding types of steel used in blades

modern, I assume, rather than historical. that's a PhD paper. or five.

Stainless,
300c 313c, 440c: Cheap crap used in wallhangars. doesnt rust. Doesnt hold an edge.

Carbon steels,
Usually ID'd as "1050, 1060, 1075, 1090" in US, "CS60, CS70" in EU. number denotes the carbon content as percentage of steel - 1060 - 0.6%. 1075, 0.75%. higher carbon = harder, but more brittle.

Spring steels.
more complex alloys. 5160, (US) EN45 / EN47j (UK). Often alloyed with silicon, they tend to be slightly softer but perform better in resistance to crack propagation, and in flex cycles.

Those are the most common.

15n20 - a mildly stainless alloy commonly used in damascus pattern-welding, with 1075 or similar carbon steel. when etched, doesnt go as dark, creating a bright contrast to the main alloy.

S7, AEB-L - high-end stainless, can be cryogenically quenched. Roughly as good as most blade steels with extra corrosion resistance.

>>33151034
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=steel+grade+sword

>>33152500
After all that, what to pick in a blade?

Doesnt matter at all.

what matters is that the blade is heat-treated right.

5160 performs brilliantly as a blade steel. O1 steel is generally considered too high carbon, at 0.95%. Excellent for knives, not for swords.

But take the 5160, heat-treat it wrong, however, and its crap, the O1 will outperform it.

so actual choice, assuming you at least pick one with any decent 0.5 - 0.75% carbon or spring steel will do well enough. there's no one "best" option. What matters far more is that it is made by a decent company, who can give it the proper dimensions, distal taper, cross-sectional profile, and all the details that actually make a blade good.

>>33152579
Not him, but I make a lot of knives out of O1
Thing with O1, (or at least the one I'm using and the way I heat treat it) is that it has a 'happy place' around 60-62HRC, which means it gets insanely sharp, stays sharp next to forever and is fairly tough in terms of compression stresses. I can temper it softer but it doesn't like it or really have the flexibility of a lower carbon steel like the 1060, 1070 or 5160 to absorb shocks and they both have a much better flexural strength when tempered for a larger blade (around the 56-58HRC). Swords are designed to cut and smash through flesh and bone, anyone that's done that with a high hardness knife knows that it can cause chips and that's not even doing it like you really hate a motherfucker either and swinging around 1-2kg of blade. Any imperfections in the hardening and temper or flaws caused by the forging are also going to come through in some spectacular fashion which results in chunks of steel flying around.

Majority of stainless tool steels are next to useless for swords, (though they will be very shiny) so even with a high end, expensive steel, running through 2 sets of cryo, 3 sets of kiln tempering still ends up kind of mediocre. You could stick it in a san-mai style jacket with a core of hardenable carbon steel and I've seen it done on smaller blades, but the technical aspects of that are extremely problematic in that you almost certainly run the risk of burning all the carbon out of the cutting edge unless its sealed in a foil to keep oxygen out or running a nitrogen feed into the kiln. 9 x out of 10 though it'll probably fuck up, have problems during the forging trying to get the dissimilar metals to stick to one another and its really not worth it.
I like stainless knives, I've made them in the past, but its not a material for swords.

>>33152834
I'd say 56-58 is way too hard for a sword.

48-52HrC, in En45 / 5160 is closer to optimal.

OP here thank you everyone for the super detailed responses, I'm new to /k and I can see I have a long way to go with swords. I've owned a few in the past when I was getting into it but down to just one now and a few machetes I'm found of. A swordchete might be the way to go for me as one anon suggested (namefag), because I like the durability factor. I do want to get another sword though, but I've been looking at really big and thick ones so I might have to reconsider that and stick with short swords; I really want a Nodachi though for fun and was unsure what to look for based on the exaggerated length of the blade vs what I'm more familiar with.

Would I be correct then in reading spring steel for the flexibility would be important? Not planning to do any demonstrations with it (nothing retarded like chopping trees either) but might eventually want to have a go at some melons or milk jugs.. I know someone said 1045 is cheap, but would it be a good steel in this application if I get one that's heat forged and tempered well?

Thanks guys for all the help on my first post! I'll read the sword general and lurk around for a while now

Steel is kind of overrated when it comes to blade discussion.

Heat treat, blade geometry, etc. are much more important, but it's easier to measure dicks with steel.

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>>33154701
No problem, enjoy /k. These are all my large blades, if you want to beat up some foliage and cut some bottles, with a sword (like thing), it's hard to beat the two Cold Steel's (center) of the pic. Also, I'm in love with that little black one (Schrade Brush sword) for like $35, it's amazing, more of a big knife though. Also consider Condor, their swordchetes are more on the sword side, at lest their Naval Cutlass.

Nodachi and Odachi are cool, but hard to come by, and anything quality is going to put you back at lest $450, more likely $700 or so.

Yeah 1045 is fine for entry level, and light back yard cutting. Right now you can buy a factory second Ronin Katana for $80 (normally $130) if you just want to dick around with a Katana, and don't care if it's a bit beat up when it comes in the mail, it's a great deal. Keep in mind, it's differential tempered, so you can bend it pretty easily if you don't keep the edge straight.