/diy/ - Do It Yourself

i did 2 years of metal work in high school smithing, smelting, welding, basically, anything you can do to metal.

I'm a CNC programmer, why smith a weapon if you can make one with a CNC milling machine?
It's accurate up to 0.001mm, so you can make your blades sharp as fuck

>>236391
smithing is funner , cheaper , and more manlier its like driving a manual compared to a automatic.

>>236391
Not everyone has a cnc milling machine.

>>236391
just cutting a piece of flat steel to the shape wont produce the same end product. shit will be subpar and ghey. Also smithing makes you feel like a fucking badass.

pick related first thing i ever made

>>236391
Because you can't just CNC a weapon. The very fact you didn't realize this makes me doubtful of your skills as a CNC programmer.

>>236391
not convinced- on the basis that is moronic-as-fuck.

>>236345

Are you in the US? If so,look up your local ABANA chapter,they can steer you right. It's hard work though,and don't expect to be making swords and shit right off the bat.
It'll be a few basics,followed by shit like nails and hooks.

Making blades takes a lot of skill and technical knowledge about different kinds of steel. Also,thought at all about how to make guards,the handle,etc? Whole other ballgame.

http://www.abana.org/resources/education/schools.shtml like >>236454 said

I won't consider myself a competent DIYer until I can hand forge my own tools (hammers, chisels, files, drill bits), I want to be buried holding vise grips I made from scratch.

>>236391
Because the CNC machine can't fold the metal correctly, infuse the metal with the proper amount of carbon, and can't harden or temper the metal.

A knife made on a CNC machine may be sharp, but the metal will b too soft to properly use as a knife. The knife would only be for decoration.

>>236478

While I agree CNC guy is a moron....folding steel? The fuck?

Carbon doesn't get infused into steel from forging,either. In fact,most of the time it loses it.

Hardening and tempering can be done by an independent company,or with a small torch,depending on blade size.


Someone believes in too much mystical samurai sword BS.

>>236482
When you assume things, make up shit people didn't say, use pseudo-ad hominems, and don't know more than a 30 second google's clue about the material being discussed, you are a troll. I suggest you troll /b/ and leave /diy/ alone.

>>236487

So,you are saying people like Wayne Goddard have no clue about what they are talking about,and they only write lies and falsehoods in the books they publish?

Well damn,I guess Google outranks people who have been doing this for decades,sorry I said anything.


Folding steel doesn't fucking happen in forging anymore,there is no reason something like 5160 stock would need to be folded. I'm not dealing with shit tier metal like the Japanese smiths did.

Carbon transfer? In a normal forge,you will lose a tiny amount of carbon,but it wouldn't matter,since you would be knocking scale off anyway,or grinding away near the edge(talking fractions of a fraction of an inch) You can't infuse carbon into it,it just doesn't happen fast enough.


6/10 you made me rage.

>>236487
Sorry man, but I read your post and got the same impression. Nothing you said has anything to do with the sword making process, or CNC, leading me to doubt you know anything about either.

Folding steel hasn't been necessary to do in about 100 years, and in no way produces a superior blade.

Heat treating/tempering can be done irrespective of the shaping process.

You've really just done a full-frontal-failure because you overextended your expertise to something you've only read 4chan posts on. But I guess I can't blame you because that's the entire focus of this board.

>>236345
Start with a flat piece of high carbon steel that is just slightly larger than the outline of your knife. An old file is great for beginners because it can produce an incredibly lasting edge (compared to common stainless steel) and it is already a thin piece. Get it red-hot and pound a bit especially to compact the metal near your edge. Then use a power tool to create your desired shape including your primary bevel. After this, heat it up a lot (orange hot) stuck in a pile of black coal to prevent the access of oxygen. It is now more important since the grinding exposed the final edge parts that need to keep their carbon.
Quench it in water. It is also possible to pour water over the edge only with a teapot, but that technique is only good for very wide blades.
Then temper it in a kitchen oven. A good starting temperature would be 190°C. Twist it around for one hour in the oven because ovens don't have uniform temperatures inside. Then take it out and test the hardness. Scribe it with a regular file and feel the friction. It shouldn't feel like glass, you should detect some minor abrasion. If it feels like glass, raise the oven temp. by another 10°C and repeat until you can barely score it with a file. Then finish your job.

>>236492
>>236531
>being this full retard

lol

>>237124
Confirmed for troll

>>237124
Folding steel was done to remove impurities, which made the metal better. Any steel you buy now will be damn near perfect and folding is a waste of time. Go away, weeaboo.

>>237120

Important note:if you have access to a grinder,it's best to grind off the files before working it.

It's possible to hammer them down and create what is called a stress riser,and when you do quench it,it can crack. Wouldn't happen all the time,but if you have the grinder,why not.

Although honestly if you have a grinder it would be easiest to use that to simply make your blade via stock removal.


On the heat treating part,I wouldn't use water,but oil.

This method is from "The Anvil's Chorus"-Newsletter of the New York State Designer Blacksmiths,1999

I would normalize the blade(you'll need a magnet for this),by heating it to around 1600(just past where the blade is nonmagnetic),and allow it to slowly cool in the air,do this around 3 times. Anneal it by heating it to 1400-1500,and slowly cool overnight in warm ashes or vermiculite.

To harden,heat it to 1450(right past the edge of magnetic). Edge quenching would be the best.

To temper:
300-325:Light work,such as leather or paper
375:Skinning knife
425-475:Hunting knife
450-500:Survival knife
550+:Axes,throwing knives

Minimum time is 1 hr in the oven
>>237124
Went a little further,I'll tell you the rate that carbon is absorbed into a simple mild steel(1020). If your making a carbon rich environment with standard dry material,you'll see a penetration of 1/32 of an inch every 3 hours@1800F.

Liquid commercial ones are better,however most contain cyanides,and are slightly deadly. At 555F,ever 10 minutes you'll get 0.005 of carburized material. The max this method is capable of achieving is 0.02 inches of case hardening.
If anyone wants any guides or tutorials,feel free to ask,I'll photocopy them or get some pictures.

>>236531
>>237120
>>237150
God damn, the retardation ITT is terrible.

I guess Wootz and Damascus steels are an urban legends to you morons.

gb2/b/ with your shit

>>237120
>>237153
>recommending files to make knives

So we are back to this type of /diy/ trolling again? I thought that crap was over. File metal should not be used to make blades, it is far too brittle because of its extremely high carbon content.

>>237157

We know about damascus and that shit. It isn't what is being discussed. Someone was saying "OMG BUT IT WON'T FOLD THE STEEL",like it was fucking necessary.

And I would never say I folded the steel when making damascus. I would say I forge welded it. Because I'm not a fucking weaboo.

>>237159
Too high of carbon content? Then use oil to quench,not water. Still too hard? 550 in an oven for an hour or two.

Most files are made from W-1,or W-2. If not that then something like 1095,which is still perfectly fine for making blades.

Why o why do I feel like I'm constantly feeding a troll.

>>237157
Nobody said that folding was a myth. We said it's not necessary. We already have high-quality steel that doesn't need folding. Go ahead and fold your steel a bajillion times, I'll order some online and get the same strength and more consistent quality.

A CNC machine is shit for making weapons.

Case closed.

>>237178
Angus Trim, Albion Armourers, and various other smiths would probably disagree with you on that one.

It's just another way to shape the steel prior to heat-treating.

>>236391
Show me how to put a one-inch hole in a piece of one-inch bar. I'm a smith and I can do this. A machinist cannot.

Also, OP, I wouldn't worry about making weapons. Making a sword is a ton of work. Blacksmithing is work. This work can be very enjoyable but I wouldn't want to make swords for a living when you can make more money with less effort craft decorative yard items for people in Vail/Aspen with more money than sense.

My advice to you is buy a sword of off the internet. Your friends won't care too much, I promise.

CNC machining and even laser cutting works just fine for making blades.

The thing is, you need to start with a billet/bar stock that's already forged or sintered with the desired properties before cutting and then treating.

A forge can modify the steel feed stock and re-shape it. A CNC cannot.

>>237215
Nope. Enjoy your shitty wall hangings.

very simple solution here:
ask The Guru.

Should start by learning how to read a iron-iron carbide phase diagram.

from anvilfire.com:

If you start with the same steel, and the heat treatment is identical, there should be no difference at all. Many forged blades can be weaker than stock removal blades because the smith may overheat the steel and not go through the normalizing steps required to reset the grain size.

In other words, the heat treatment is the heart of the matter. No matter what the blade started as, if you screw up the heat treatment it's trash.

And yes, I'm a bladesmith. ;-) I forge them because I prefer forging to grinding. That said, you ALWAYS have to do some stock removal, even on a forged blade.

Now then: Albion swords, arguably the best mass-produced swords ever, are mostly shaped on a 5-axis CNC mill. They are then hand ground to finish. It's a matter of keeping the cost down. An Albion will perform VERY well indeed, as you can see if you watch their videos. That's because they have the heat-treatment down pat.

If someone is being pedantic and insists on maintaining the myth of the traditionally-made Japanese sword as the be-all and end-all of blade evolution, well, you really can't throw a wad of raw tamahagane steel on a CNC mill, so they must be forged. Will they outperform one I made from 9260 spring steel? In general, no. They are not flexible by design. but that's a whole 'nother can of worms. What specific blade shape and material are they talking about? That's all that matters.

full link:
http://www.anvilfire.com/gurusden/

Good, this thread is still here.

I made a small forge today out of some glass factory fire brick, an old pipe, and a hairdryer motor (from this thread >>238720 ). I don't have any of the proper tools. I just wanted to see how hard this sort of thing is to do. I was using stuff that looks alike coal, but it isn't coal. I have no clue the proper name of it, but I find it a lot of times in the gravel of rivers beds. It burns very hot like coal though. I was able to get an iron railroad spike so hot that it started to melt the flatter part at one point. The fact that it is 101F in the full sun today did not help at all.

So far I ended up with an ugly piece of flattened metal and a PROFOUND respect for blacksmiths throughout history.

If I continue on this hunk of metal, I think I'll not make it into a knife, but I will make it into a blade that can be mounted on a pole for various uses around my farm.

pic related

I've done some smithing during some education. It's hard, sweaty and hurts your arms and you need to practice a lot untill you can smith some goodlooking useable things. And you need to have some strenght in your arms to smith, you can't just go with an "I'll get some strenght from smithing a lot" . You need to have strenght. I myself lift a lot and still found myh hands being sore for three days after every smithing lesson for 4 weeks

>>237615
This?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOwWIQCX89o

>>237416
>you need to start with a billet/bar stock that's already forged or sintered with the desired properties
Modern technology, how does it work?

>>238806
Oxygen lance foundries. Very pure source material.

metallurgy of steel for blacksmiths etc by paul verhoeven is good for learning about heat treating and other metallurgy related things.

>>238810
and you can dd it from mediafire I think, one of those sites.