How To wanting to make a honsanmai katana looking for good spring steel for the spine?

[Evan Wilson]

I must have missed something. I thought you were going to use something like 5160 for the spine. In a knife thickness, all the steels we have talked about will through harden.

I don't see any reason to substitute 50100 for 52100 anyway. 50100 and 52100 are both 1+% carbon ... and as said above ... they are through hardening in a knife thickness. They are equivalent to your W2 edge steel in use and HT. Nothing wrong with that, just different than what you started with.

Here is a graph with 1095, 50100, 52100, and W2:

View attachment 2301859

Here is the analysis of Don Hanson's W2 (the low Mn is why it gets a great hamon):
C .95
Mn .22
V .19
Cr .15
Si .23
Mo .013
Ni .08
Cu .14

I was told that durring the quench if I mixed shallow and through hardening steels they would want to start pealing away from each other he explained some of the metal urgy but most metal urgy is a bit above my head either way he got it on good authority from Howard clark at least that was the long and short of what I was told.

thanks for the numbers above.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

With your honsanmai I don't think there will be any issues with the layers tearing apart. It is in bare layers with exposed junctions where problems arise.
My comment was based on your original premise of using 5160 to obtain a softer/tougher spine and a very hard edge. Using 52100 or 50100 will give a harder spine. The clay coat will help, but you may want to draw it back with a torch to gain more toughness.

 

[Evan Wilson]

With your honsanmai I don't think there will be any issues with the layers tearing apart. It is in bare layers with exposed junctions where problems arise.
My comment was based on your original premise of using 5160 to obtain a softer/tougher spine and a very hard edge. Using 52100 or 50100 will give a harder spine. The clay coat will help, but you may want to draw it back with a torch to gain more toughness.

when I have a chance I will try to a few knives made honsanmai and two metal blades to test and see. I'm a big believer in practical testing do to theory not always holding up.
what your saying makes sense and those were my thoughts as well,always good to be cautious though.
thanks for the help with everything will defiantly do a torch temper after the first two cycles.

 

[Evan Wilson]

I have had a few issues but making steady progress and have welded the 50100 with the w2 the meteoric bloom steel needs one more weld then can be used in a final weld construction, some notes and update on what has been a humbling experience, the w2 and 50100 do not like to weld together however something salvageable /usable can be made with it.
Note: had some not so great forge welds but got things to stick with a forge press and the core steel can be used.
some of the recommendations about the 50100 given from my friend he admitted to have given less than accurate advise due to a misunderstanding.
still I should have check a good amount more on my end and the fact that I did not is a fault of my own.

some notes on what steel/metals I commonly work with and am experienced in using: I am used to working with wrought iron,bloom steel and meteorite and have been told to have had more knowledge on meteorite than most of my peers,my knowledge on wrought iron is adequate from my understanding and what I've been told and my understanding and work with bloom steel has been the same.

the things that I am lacking in:working with many of the modern mono steels available even some of the simple carbon steels such as 1075,1085,80crv2 and others.
I lack much of the basic metallurgy knowledge that my peers have,and have been working on getting to know more albeit slower than I would like.

My fit and finish is below my forging skill lvl and needs some work not quite up to par with the standard that the community here holds but close and improving daily.

I am currently working on some items for my local church to raise some money for them and have gotten a bit detracted from this project though and working on it
and have been working on clearing room for a forge press.

I will be making a tanto with the w2,50100 and meteoric bloom steel as stated before however If I make anything longer in the future I will use wrought along the spine just do to simplicity and being comfortable working with it.


as mentiond by a few of the individuals here I seem to have been focused on the spine a bit more than needed.

 

[Evan Wilson]

update and some images of the meteoric bloom steel
managed to get the bloom steel made into a solid bar 6 inches long by 1 1/8 inches wide by 3/8 of an inch thick.

some photo's showing the meteoric bloom steel etched giving a window into what things will look like once a blade is produced.
the window was only taken up to 400 grit and the photo's don't do it justice look much better in hand under the light.

I can hardly wait to see a blade made with it and taken up to 2000 grit.

 

[Evan Wilson]

update:I got everything welded up and a preform made expect a blade and pictures in the next few weeks.
I test hardened a piece of the w2 and 5100 and even in an oil quench things wanted to start splitting so I had to start over for the core this time using wrought and w2.

 

[Evan Wilson]

sorry this took longer than I wanted it too but here are some images after getting the blade forged and ruff ground.
the blade has some flaws and the tang needs some more work but this will turn out to be a nice blade with a 9" cutting edge.
Its the one on the left