How Japanese Masters Turn Sand Into Swords

This isn't a replacement for the Nova episode "Secrets of the Samurai Sword". 

...but the Nova episode tends to appear and disappear from YouTube and DailyMotion with fair frequency, so you might need another video that goes through the ancient art of creating samurai swords from the initial collecting and smelting of iron-rich sand through to the slicing of tatami mats to demonstrate the sword's quality and the sword wielder's technique.

This video's contents...

• 2:00 - why bronze was used for sword and was eventually replaced
• 3:00 - cyanobacteria creating oxygen that precipitated iron from ancient oceans
• 6:30 - carbon + iron = steel, initial interstitial positions shown...why alloys are harder than pure metals
• 10:30 - slag formation and removal from the 'ancient' forge
• 13:30 - forging the steel by master swordsmiths
• 14:30 - folding the steel - how and why
• 16:15 - how carbon atoms migrate to different positions and form ferrite, cementite, perlite, and martensite
• 18:30 - differential cooling rates via clay thickness creating different steel types and the distinct blade shape

Another great video from Veritasium and one that shows that he's got a team of folks making videos with/for him at this point...and it's short enough at about half an hour - to get through in a single class period, unlike the Nova episode.

Can I make Titanium Damascus?

tl;dr - Yes, he can, but it's expensive and involves a whole lot of oxidation.

Damascus steel has a noteworthy pattern that is really what Alec is trying to reproduce with the titanium shown in these videos. Here he starts with alternating grades of titanium stacked then forge welds them together.

The steps required to then anneal and machine the titanium billet that he produces are labor-intensive to say the least.

But he does get some cool rings out of the process.

Parts 2 and 3 of the series are after the jump.

process of making Damascus knife. Korea's top handmade knife master.

There simply are no words.

I mean throughout this twenty minute video there literally are no words spoken.

Instead, we just watch a knifemaker craft a single, beautiful knife from initially forge welding stacks of steel together to testing the finished knife.

It's mesmerizing.

Making a wheel for a train: oddly satisfying

I don't have a ton to say about this because watching forging videos is reward enough in and of itself.

I'm impressed by the forgers here. Those folks have an incredible set of skills.

Blacksmith Rates 9 Forging Scenes From Movies And TV | How Real Is It? | Insider

Mark Wahlberg apparently needs to step up his forging game.

Today's video has Neil Kamimura looking at forging and blacksmithing scenes from movies and commenting on their authenticity.

• Iron Man - RDJ is a heck of an actor, but it's weird that he's banging on cold steel when he's got a hot forge right behind him. And how does steel that's not hot enough to glow actually sizzle in the water?
• Rambo - At least the steel's hot here. Sly should use a heavier hammer and hit the center of the anvil. Not a believable scene.
• Game of Thrones - Not a good sign that the sword's handle comes off so easily. The container that's melting the sword would have to be hot enough to glow if it's making the sword glow. Surface casting is pretty but isn't how it's really done. They also seem to have broken the law of conservation of mass.
• Avengers: Infinity War - At least they used an actual mold not just surface casting. Kinda cool that the two pieces forge welded instantly...that's not s'right. 
• Infinite - Mark Wahlberg need to hit harder and shouldn't wear a glove on his hammer hand. His sword is all wavy and not done. "Swords do not cut pipe." 
• LoTR: Return of the King - Flux looks pretty when you smack it. Might as well start from scratch not try to repair the blade. And the elf actors don't know what they're doing.
• Conan the Barbarian - Still surface casting with all sorts of pretty flames for the appearance and bad quenching.
• A Knight's Tale - Hit it harder, girl. 
• Ragnarok - Get your metal hotter, gents...and improve your aim. 

Apparently the forging scenes in movies are pretty crappy.

Titanium - The Metal That Made The SR-71 Possible

 Hey there, Brian. Good to hear you again.

I recognize those material selection diagrams at 1:35. I've posted about similar diagrams before.

This video does a great job exploring the tradeoffs among strength, weight, cost, and properties in choosing a material. In this case, it's mostly about the tradeoffs guiding when we do - and don't - use titanium.

It also covers some of the concepts of chemical and electrolytic reduction around 5:00 - and states that we don't use either of the traditional processes to purify titanium. It's amazing that anybody ever figured out some of the more complicated metals processing...um...processes. They're so remarkably complicated.

We also get an application of accidental galvanic corrosion at 8:30 where the cadmium-plated tools were leaving trace amount of cadmium on the titanium.

Titanium really sounds like a pain in the tuchus to work with.

Casting vs Forging

Recently I was looking for some videos to compare the virtues of cast versus forged metal parts. Here are the ones I ended up using in class.

That video says it's 9:46, but it's really more like 4:50. The video segment plays twice in the upload for some reason. In this one Richard Hammons shows the virtues of cast versus forged parts, casts a hammer, breaks a cast sword, forges (or lets another guy forge for him) a sword, and shows how much tougher the forged sword is.

There are three more videos after the jump...

MAKING A BOWIE KNIFE WITH REAL ENGINEERING!!! PART 1

I get that much of your personal taste in enjoying YouTube videos (or not) comes down to the personality of the presenter. That's why I'm going to refrain from commenting on Alec Steele's videos.

I won't mention the overly-enthusiastic schtick.

Honestly, I won't.

I'm a little disappointed that this isn't the video I was really looking for. I was looking for the video showing the testing of the various heat treatments of the steel.

I guess that's on part 2. Arrgghh...I guess that's next week then.

Heat Treatment -The Science of Forging (feat. Alec Steele)

There is something weird happening with the Real Engineering guy's accent. I'm struggling to place it exactly. There's a sing-song lilt to it that's screaming, "Irish" to me. Then, at 1:50, there's a weird ll-th thing going on with the 'through the heat treatment process' phrase that makes me think he's almost got Welsh in there. His patreon page says Galway, Ireland, but I've not heard that ll-th thing anywhere but from Wales.

Can anybody definitely say where he's from?

I'm going to have to check out the testing video from Alec Steele (an aptronym). Maybe that'll be next week's post.

So much great metallurgical explanation here...BCC, FCC, ferrite vs austenite vs pearlite, phase diagrams, quenching vs tempering vs annealing (normalising - British spelling, natch).

Brad Makes a Knife with Bob Kramer | It's Alive | Bon Appétit

I'm a fan of goofy Brad, the host of the video series, It's Alive. Mostly the show is about cooking in the realm of fermented foods (kombucha, beer, garlic honey, cultured butter, sauerkraut, etc), but this time Brad goes to a small-scale knife shop because, as he says at about 13:10, "this ain't necessarily alive, but it's got energy...watching [the knife-making process] from start to finish, if it don't make you feel alive, I can't help you.

There are a bunch of metal topics covered here...

• 0:45 - "make some steel from scratch"...they make their steel from powdered ingredients (carbon, iron, manganese) and then melt them together
• 1:30 - induction heat melting of the steel ingredients
• 2:20 (and again at 3:00) - forging...the take the fresh, steel 'biscuit', reheat it 
• 2:45 - heating the steel back up to the plastic state...they don't mention the phase transition from BCC to FCC, but they do explain that hot steel can change it shape more easily...and that they have to reheat the 'biscuit' because it's getting cold
• 3:30 - rolling mill...a small mill but still far larger than what we show in the summer workshop
• 4:15 - forge welding different steels together...they only refer to the steels as steel A and steel B...no mention of high- or low-carbon steels
• 4:40 - iron oxide...the captions explain that, "[t]hose dark flakes are iron oxide. High temperatures accelerate the oxidation process."
• 6:20 - "quench tank there, Vinnie"...Vinnie is the camera man for all the Bon Appétit videos...no explanation yet as to why you would quench something
• 6:58 - hardening the knife...molten salt bath for an oxygen-free atmosphere for heating..."dissolving the carbon into the iron" then capturing it during the quench...followed by a tempering bath to, "bring the knife to a working hardness, so it's not too hard...not too brittle"..."when it's hardened, it's under a lot of STRESS...we go in there (the tempering bath) and it just adds some heat, kind of massages it...makes the knife 'happy'...yeah, this is the 'martini' for the knife"...there's a decent graphic summary of this at 7:50
• 8:40 - acid etching the knife..."the acid eats these layers at a different rate...because we mixed in different things in the steel"
• 11:20 - nothing curricular, but watching Bob Kramer put a blade on the knife just by eye as stunning...I assume it took a few more passes than what the video shows, but he makes it look so casual and awesome...I'm amazed

Warnings

• 7:35 - mention of making the steel happy via a 'martini'
• 10:20 - there's a bleeped, "I always f*#^ that up"

Brad's a goof, but it's loads of fun to watch him make a knife.

HYPNOTIC Video Inside Extreme Forging Factory: Kihlbergs Stal AB Hammer Forging

I don't know that the video is hypnotic. That's overselling things.

It is, however, impressive to watch the forging that's being done here. I'm especially impressed with how much of the forging is done by hand, the pieces moved, rotated, shifted, pierced - all by hand.

Does anybody know the name of the tool used for the notching done at 2:55? Is it a notcher? A notching tool? A notch? A wedge? A notch wedge? Wedge notch? Triangular wedge notching tool? Notch wedge triangular prism with metal handle?

A forging series

This forging series comes to us from Terry McInerney of Impact Forge in Columbus, IN.

Terry spoke at our ASM teacher material camp at the University of Indianapolis as part of the Forging Foundation's outreach through the camps. Terry spoke to the advantages of forged parts and brought with him a number of finished products. I asked Terry if it would be possible to have a full forging series to show my students (and campers) the process from start (the billet, the cylinder on the left above) through to the finished product (the far right) and the flash (the 'waste' that is 'cut' off in the final forging step - the ring and punched center on the farthest right).

Terry was kind enough to send me two sets of the series - one for my classroom and one to travel with (though the 40+ pound series is a bit daunting for anywhere that requires a flight.)

Terry had the following to say about this series...

In each box is a complete progression of a Ford Explorer wheel hub. One billet, preform, blocker, finished part, perimeter flash, and pierced slug. These parts are forged at 2300 degrees f in a 2500 ton mechanical press, then trimmed and pierced in a 300 ton trimming press. The material is 1045V, quite normal for hubs. The [V] represents vanadium added [for grain refinement] during the heat treatment process. A finished hub is normall around 38 to 43 RC. The parts in the condition you see are microalloy material and have been rapidly air quenched on a special cooling conveyor to reach the desired hardness. They are then shipped to the customer for machining and assembly.

Big, big, big thanks to Terry McInerney and to Impact Forge for the donation to our program.

Raw Craft with Anthony Bourdain - Episode Four: Bob Kramer

Well, yeah, who doesn't turn a meteorite into a chef's knife in their spare time?

Bourdain visits with Bob Kramer, a master chef's knife maker who goes through the smelting, forging, and heat treating of some pretty spectacular knives.

At about 5:38 (explanation starts) then at 6:18 (actual visual) is one of the - if correctly described - most stunning things I've ever seen in material science. Kramer explains that there is a 'shadow' that moves through the steel as it - as I understand - undergoes the phase change from FCC to BCC, squeezing the carbon into the harder, BCC form of iron.

I am currently looking for confirmation from a second source, however, that what we see is actually what Kramer says it's showing.

Mizuno Grain Flow Forging: Factory Tour

Chris Voshall walks around during most of the video. It wasn't until I watched the video for a third time that I saw his title, "Golf Club Engineer."

Not that there's anything wrong with faking being a golfer or anything. Heck, I've been doing it for years. (ba da bum - rimshot!)

Seriously, though this video does a brilliant job explaining the forging process from billet to primary forging through trimming (and repeating the process) and in explaining why forging works (see the wood splinter/metal crystal grain analogy at about 0:40).

(By the way, that whole "I've been doing it for years" is a lie. It was just too easy a joke to make, though. Really, I'm pretty much just into frisbee and miniature golfing. In total, I think I've played 27 holes of real golf. Thanks, Brian and Brian for taking me out for those two rounds.)

The Difference Between Casting and Forging

That's a simple enough title for a webpage - the difference between casting and forging - but it's a terrifically important topic, so I greatly appreciate that ATC group (which provides both cast and forged parts, so would seem to be willing to provide neutral and positive spins on both processes) has put together a great summary on the two topics.

I'll give just a taste of the simplicity by showing their casting information...

We use castings for a wide range of wearparts and components that are too large, complicated, intricate or otherwise unsuitable for the forging process. We can forge parts up to 50kgs but the sheer energy required to forge larger items make casting a much more viable alternative.

We currently cast mining and earthmoving components to 580 kg. We can cast up to 3000 kg if required. Manganese work hardening screens are one of our specialities. We have found that by carefully choosing alloys and applying proven methods of heat treatment, we can produce castings of high quality, strength and wearability. The casting process better lends itself to making parts where internal cavities are required.
The advantages of casting include:

• No real upper size limit in casting weight
• Large range of alloy choices
• As forgings remain solid, custom alloys are far more difficult to get into production whereas with casting, alloys including Chrome, Nickel and Moly can be added at the molten stage.
• Tooling is often less expensive than forge dies
• Smaller production “runs” required
• Complicated/complex parts are no problem

For general GET as well as large and complex components - casting is a fantastic method of manufacture.

You'll have to visit the webpage to see why you should forge parts.

The Forging Advantage

Sometimes in our summer workshops, things don't work exactly as we'd planned. Technology doesn't work quite as we expected. The spot plates we planned to use aren't on the shelf where we'd left them the year before. Heck, the FIERF bags with the forging cd don't show up in time for Tuesday's day of metals to show the above video in camp.

No matter what, though, we forge ahead.

What Manufacturing Means to America

We are what we make. If we make poor materials...if we make sub-standard products...if, heaven forbid, we don't make anything, then we have to seriously question our value as a nation.

This is one of the undercurrents that most of us teaching material science teaches through the course of a semester, a year, or - in a few cases - two years.

Along the same lines, check out this Jeep commercial.

Apple Watch (various materials)

That is a straight up gorgeous piece of film making and advertising.

The sights of the aluminum being forged, poured, machined, anodized, and finished are absolutely stunning. Go watch it again before you start looking at the science of what's happening.

We get the full gamut of processing (forging, machining) and materials (metals, alloys, ceramic - zirconia - beads for the finish).

Beautiful...

And that doesn't even being to touch on the gold and steel videos that I'm putting after the jump.

All of these are available on Apple's watch craftsmanship webpage along with text and photos of the zirconia chosen for the crystal covers, the ion-x glass for the Sport face (potassium ion soaked to increase strength), or the sapphire facing for the Watch and Watch Edition editions (that sounds incredibly stupid to read).

There is also a webpage from Atomic Delights (a blog with sadly only three posts in two years - better quality than quantity, I guess) that does a far better job breaking down the three videos and speculating on some of the science therein than I ever could.

Extraction of Iron (Blast Furnace)

Any chance somebody out there would want to add in a little Ennio Morricone music overtop of this video to make things a bit more exciting?

The process in reality (as shown below) is just a bit more exciting, but the chemistry explained above is fairly spot on (if a bit simplified) as to what's happening in the furnace itself.

Blacksmith demo at Eisenman Materials Camp 2012

Yeah, most of the time when we have high school students forging something, we aren't happy.

Here, though, we're thrilled to see the students at the Eisenman student material science camp doing a bit of forging.

I need to get up to one of the summer student camps sometime to see just how cool they are.

...or how hot in this case...