Sword Forging!

Go down to your neighborhood nucleide store ("I'm sure that in 1985 plutonium is available in every corner drugstore, but in 1955 it's a little hard to come by!") and slice off a hunk of polonium. The residue on the blade will glow blue as it ionizes the air around it, while the blade heats up (until the polonium evaporates / spalls off) due to the large heat output of polonium (140W/g). A few grams sealed inside throughout the blade would suffice to keep it hot. (I would beware of stress, BTW, as you'd probably get brittle iron polonide at the interface, especially with diffusion at temperature.) Polonium is quite poisonous, so it would be quite deadly to be struck with such a sword.

Note that such a sword would cool off relatively quickly (months); you'd need quite a bit more, say, 238Pu (which NASA uses in their RTGs) for a longer-lasting one (decades). If not coated in Po, it wouldn't be nearly as poisonous either; it's not nearly so fear-striking-into-the-heart-of-your-enemies to tell them they'll die of bone cancer in twenty years...

High-energy electrons from beta sources aren't very useful, except for glowing, which alphas also do and with less hazard to the holder. Gammas sterilize anything in range, and would serve better as a WMD cast into the fortress via ballista or catapult.

I have *no* idea where you're trying to go with the electric idea.

As far as metallurgy, the ancients weren't far off. I've made knives from plain carbon steel and OCS (Old Chevy Spring, typically ASTM 5160, a chrome steel), both alloys that are still in widespread use today (if not always for knives ). Carbon steel in particular is hard enough to make files out of -- it's tried and true, ancient and modern. Corrosion resistance is important and so most kitchen knives are made from 400 series stainless steel.

There are some specialty alloys which have much better edge holding and etc. All of them are steel alloys, and no other metals can compare, not titanium and certainly not aluminum (there aren't any aluminum alloys any stronger than medium carbon steel). Ceramics certainly beat steel on hardness and edge holding, but are all brittle.

Incidentially, I've heard of diamond (or diamond-coated?) scalpels.

Tim

Damascus blade steel

While this is an older post... I would like to clarify a few things. As a former Badger Blades employee and current owner of many Badgers (as well as Starfire and Legacy Forge blades) The things above are true... but not.

Badger Blades does in fact bang on anvils to demonstrate the strength, cutting edge, and flexibility of our blades. It is a 5 lb UNTEMPERED anvil such as those found in any Harbor Freight (where we usually get ours). We do not, nor have we ever seen, one of our anvils cut in half with one blow. However, we do not replace the anvil each weekend, so eventually.... we do get into its center and all of the sudden we have two halves!. As cool as it may sound to say we chop anvils in half.... our swords are cool enough, and functional enough, that we willingly explain how.

As for the washers, dryers, stoves, cars etc.... yes, they do cut through them.

We often did it in my back yard.

The thing is... straight swords were designed to be used in fights with opponents wearing metal armor. They were not wearing 8 inches of steel plating.. it was thin and light to allow some (though not much) mobility. (To clarify, curved blades were designed in areas where people wore leather armor. Curved blades cut, while straight blades hack. Middle eastern, Asian, etc blades are curved and SHARP where straight blades were only EDGED.)

Badger Blades designs their straight blades to hack through metal armor (i.e. sheet metal). This is what washers, dryers, stoves, and cars (and more) are made of. We do not claim to be able to slice through the tempered engine block of a car (though it may be possible with months of dedication), however, you can (and are encouraged to) hack through any appliances you legally own. The warranty covers breakage during most forms of use, abuse, and stupidity...but not intentional breakage (torches, vice grips, and trains are all considered intentional.)

To cover a few other posts quickly.... Damascus steel had a very specific content that people have been trying to replicate for forever. If they ever actually do, it STILL won't be Damascus steel. And anyone showing you a sword or dagger with the cool looking lines on it calling it Damascus should be smacked. Damascus steel came from DAMASCUS! The cool lines came from the process of folding the blade (now most commonly re-created with acid etching).

And no one folded a blade 16,000 times. It would shatter into little tiny bits.

Back when swords were the best defense, steel was not available in nice, handy bars with chemically guaranteed consistency. You started with a hunk of it and you beat it out flat. You then re-heated it, folded it, and pounded it some more. This spread the carbon more evenly throughout the length of the steel. Eventually, you fashioned a sword out of it.

HOWEVER, you didn't fold it 16,000 times. This is a math issue the ignorant don't seem to understand. (And before you get all up in arms, ignorant = unknowing, not stupid.) To explain:

You take a hunk of steel... pound it out. You now have ONE layer of steel.
You fold it and pound it out again... You now have TWO layers of steel.
Do it again and you have three right? Nope! You have FOUR.
Again and you have EIGHT
Again and you have SIXTEEN

While this may seem a redundant repetition, the number of layers increases exponentially. After only ten FOLDS you have 512 layers. After twenty folds, you have 524,288 layers. Each time you heat and beat steel you weaken it. If you folded steel 16,000 times, you would have little metal bits laying around.

New methods allow us to create the sword shape from properly carbonized steel and then temper it ONCE. The carbon content and the quenching method determine how hard, flexible, and sturdy your blade is.

As a final note, for the safety of all, 220 and 440 (the stainless steels) are great when tempered for kitchen knives. However, if someone sells you a tempered stainless steel sword, please do not bang it on anything. Hang it on the wall and let it be pretty for you. Tempered stainless steel does not have the ability to be flexible when struck. Instead of a slight wobble, you will get the "glass" effect, and could seriously damage yourself or others with the flying shards of metal.

some kind of pyrotechnics in the sword blade might be fun perhaps some kind of low power substance that gives a nice satisfying flash when it gets whacked against something

you could go all out and get yourself a sealed CO2 laser tube off ebay and build a small short duty cycle power supply with an off the shelf HV inverter and a lithium battery pack and make a pretend light saber! sorting out the optics to get a nice tight culminated beam at that wavelength might be fiddly but you could burn your name in most walls like Zorro !

Just don't run the tube too long in one go without cooling fluid or you will damage the electrodes & mirrors.

Quote: Originally posted by Belle

HOWEVER, you didn't fold it 16,000 times. This is a math issue the ignorant don't seem to understand. (And before you get all up in arms, ignorant = unknowing, not stupid.)