- Thread starter Parm
- Start date
bigegg
Scream Not Working Because Space Make Deaf
- Messages
- 9,640
- Location
- Leeds, West Yorkshire
I was told/read it was originally to provide a "fibre" to the steel. strings of different grades interwoven so some are ultrahard/sharp, some are "springy" to provide resilience, and some are soft to prevent snapping.
it seemed a reasonable explanation to me?
a way to create a strong, sharp, flexible blade using available techniques/materials.
nowadays, it seems to be just a decorative thing.
bigegg
Scream Not Working Because Space Make Deaf
- Messages
- 9,640
- Location
- Leeds, West Yorkshire
for shaving!!!???That's the power of marketing for you. My father used lino knives, which I still have. One day I'll get around to regrinding them, he was left-handed, I'm not
<edit> never mind: I missed the bit about "Stanley" in the earlier post.
Seadog
Save the planet. It's the only one with rum!
- Messages
- 12,755
- Location
- NE London - UK
for shaving!!!???
<edit> never mind: I missed the bit about "Stanley" in the earlier post.
Oh yes, he was a cockney
bigegg
Scream Not Working Because Space Make Deaf
- Messages
- 9,640
- Location
- Leeds, West Yorkshire
works out about 120 quid for an 8" X 12" "sample"
about 16 kiridashi's worth at 6"X1".
not *too* bad I suppose.
Thats true more or less.
The proper stuff is made from wootz steel. In truth its a poor quality steel with too much carbon. The carbon if too high to form a solid solution or pearlite so it forms cementite (which is a hard and brittle intermetallic compound or Fe3C...Iron Carbide)...this carbide forms in bands....the folding spreads it about.....the benefit of this is that its got a soft(ish) matrix dotted with these hard particles....a bit like diamond impregnated metals
Its good but its not as good as its reputation.....slicing through gun barrels etc etc are mostly myth
Shox Dr
Chief Engineer to Carlos Fandango
- Messages
- 18,008
- Location
- East Yorkshire
Dyson, hawked his bagless vac around before he built it himself. Hoover were asked why they didnt buy him out. The reply was they were in the business of selling hoovers bags not hoovers.
No difference to razor blades
(DELL bought into the printer market around 15yrs ago, to sell printer carts)
DAPPH
as dyslexik as I'm daft
- Messages
- 7,493
- Location
- Near to Cross Hands Llanelli SouthWales GB
Think it was a Mr Rolls who started the change .
He enclosed a wedge of cut throat razor steel in a nickel frame look up " Rolls safety razor " . It came in it's own case with two strops in the lids as each top side & bottom side was a lid. There are a couple still coming on the market is junk shops
I think Seven O'clock may have been the first disposable blade safety razor that the top unscrewed to change the blade . As a Kid ( 1955)I recall Granddad still using his cut throat razor . Though I seem to think that dad always used the safety razor because it was issued kit in 1935 when he joined up to HMF.
Last edited:
slim_boy_fat
Member
- Messages
- 29,532
- Location
- Scottish Highlands
My Dad used one of those all his days. I tried one too, but could make nothing of it
so flogged it on the 'Bay.
bigegg
Scream Not Working Because Space Make Deaf
- Messages
- 9,640
- Location
- Leeds, West Yorkshire
*I* still use a "safety" razor.
I bought a pack of 50 blades, thinking they'd last me a year - think they were £15? about the price of a six pack of Gillette disposables.
I shave about once or twice a week, and a blade lasts me a month, so I've got about 5 years worth.
I use the "man eating tiger" test for disposal
the first time they taste human flesh, they get a taste for it, and it's time to get rid.
DAPPH
as dyslexik as I'm daft
- Messages
- 7,493
- Location
- Near to Cross Hands Llanelli SouthWales GB
In this link we are given a brief history of Damask steel yet I get the feeling that the Chinese/ Japanese developed the art long before it arrived in the middle east .https://www.thoughtco.com/damascus-steel-sword-makers-169545
Damask steel looks like Damask silk weave threads and patterns .
Vikings appear to have formed thin forged round soft iron rods and plaited them, then via a charcoal fire heated ,forged & folded & welded them into superior blades .. Some such blades with fine herring bone patterns from the Viking ravages in the UK have been found after x raying swords . I think one may be in the Yorovik museum in York and another in Peterborough city museum ..
My own thoughts are … Yes the impurities will be spread out , so will the higher carbon flakes giving you a very consistent mix the more folds you put in it .
Japanese master sword makers folded many many times . A trained master sword maker would take several years to make a single sword apparently . They all started out with soft pig iron but learnt that the carbon from Charcoal & the forge fire could be utilised in getting a better metal if it was folded in like puff pastry & forge welded every time it was folded , Some one will have obviously noticed that doing it a certain way gave a pattern and so the art of Damask steel developed .
I also discovered whilst on holiday that you can impart carbon into a low carbon steel by keeping it in the carbonizing oven ( Is that called a pickling oven?)
?Saw that at The Water wheel trip hammer driven forge ( in Devon ?) which is a reconstructed heritage /industrial blacksmith concern in a former industrial smithy .
When we start mixing old tried & tested methods with new modern ones and machinery we often lose the very reason that the old ways were developed and used . Hardening & tempering using charcoal , clay paste and soft iron tempering blocks being one of the main one.
When you make a good well planned Damask you make many many elongated grains ( streaks ) of high carbon steel ( with luck and angling back slightly from the cutting edges to the handle )
On a good Damascus I guess those harden-able streaks will be so close as to be almost continuous along the cutting edge. The lesser steels are the frame if you like , a frame that these harden-able & tempered flakes are supported on , giving you hardness & a tempered cutting edge on a flexible frame.
After all if you look at a sharp blade under a 200 x to 500 x microscope you will see in reality that the edge is actually almost toothed like a saw
Its called Case hardening...or carburising...but its better when done in cyanide....that give Carbo-Nitrided which is harder...........Its like many things, the newer versions take the old way and totally undertand it before improving on it...like you say the Damascus steel is hard particles in a softer background....these days that can be done without the need to "fold" and with much better accuracy ie the %age can be controlled.
bigegg
Scream Not Working Because Space Make Deaf
- Messages
- 9,640
- Location
- Leeds, West Yorkshire
No.....but the patterns are due to the inhomogenity.....these days the dispersion can only be seen microscopicallybut do you get the pretty pattern?
DAPPH
as dyslexik as I'm daft
- Messages
- 7,493
- Location
- Near to Cross Hands Llanelli SouthWales GB
Thanks Al , I knew about nitriding pits being used to harden crankshafts didn't realise it is considered a case hardening process . though thinking about it just now , it makes sense .
In the oven I mentioned they used coke and heated things like castings & forgings for several days , when the guide (a retired metallurgist )said it was for putting carbon in the work piece I was taken aback and said " So it's not a normalizing oven then " . " No is for adding carbon, it was only after Bessemer made his steel furnace in Sheffield that they stopped being in common use" he replied.
bigegg
Scream Not Working Because Space Make Deaf
- Messages
- 9,640
- Location
- Leeds, West Yorkshire
from my limited experience, it's the patterns that make the blades saleable at the huge prices they command.
regardless of how "good" the steel is.
Its still done but there are easier and better ways.....you can use alloy steels and case harden with Nitrogen or simply with heat..........Have you heard of KASENIT powder...they may still sell it.....thats what its for.
The opposite is to have an oxidising atmosphere to remove carbon.....they used to decsrburise cast iron to make it malleable....WHITEHEART and BLACKHEART iron.
bigegg
Scream Not Working Because Space Make Deaf
- Messages
- 9,640
- Location
- Leeds, West Yorkshire
That's the power of marketing for you. My father used lino knives, which I still have. One day I'll get around to regrinding them, he was left-handed, I'm not
I've just googled "lino knife" - and im reasonably certain grandad had one which he used as a marking knife.
he died when I was 10, so memory's a bit blurred, but definitely a curved blade.
might have been a folding one for pruning though.
or he had two...
I remember him pruning with one - and marking out in a tight corner with it.
