Springy Wall Hanger?

First off, there are no ignorant questions, just some condescending answers from time to time. Second, yeah, stainless can be made into a good sword,but I'll those better than I explain the metallurgy.
You should be able to twist the pommel and unscrew it to see the tang, which I PROMISE you is poor.
The biggest problem with these types of blades is the length. If not done right, a stainless blade over.....say 14 inches is too brittle and will snap. Add to this a welded rat tail or just extremely thin tang and you have a recipe for disaster.

But to answer your main question, yes stainless, if done correctly, can make a helluva blade. Again, I'll let others more knowledgeable chime in on the "how".

Stainless can be somewhat flexible. I guarantee you that the blade is not heat treated though. Stainless can be heat treated but not the same way as high carbon steals.

Just because it can flex and return true does not mean it would stand up to impact.

Stainless is also a very poor material when it comes to holding an edge.

With that said, you can cut water bottles with a *short* stainless blade. Just don't expect to perform as well as tempered steel.

I've cut water bottles with a large knife made out of mild steel! That thing was soft to the point that it hardly held an edge at all.

Really, most of the stuff we do with our swords pales in comparison to what real swords were used for.

However, water bottles can be dangerous if you flub a cut. It poses little danger to a real sword but batting a heaver container of water across the yard could be all it would take to make a stainless blade snap in two.

Thanks, guys, for taking the time and trouble to answer my newbie question. It is a pretty thin blade so that could have a lot to do with it's flexibility. What little I had learned, just enough not to really know anything, was telling me this blade had qualities it shouldn't have. Thanks for helping me understand some of this.

Not trying to be condescending......
Not a rant either.

Just trying to clear up a few misconceptions. Fellows, there are lots of different stainless alloys with all sorts of different properties. Let's not make too many generalizations about "stainless steel" since there are enough variations in the materials to fill an entire encyclopedia.
Yes, you CAN harden and temper stainless steel alloys, but the methods used for hardening most all of them are exotic in the extreme and are not something you do in a coal forge. For instance, some alloys harden by hydrogen nitriding, some by copper precipitation, some by cyclic stress aging (like copper) and some simply harden from getting them hot.

Then again, some of them harden and temper EXACTLY like carbon steel.

Cryogenic treatment may help some alloys, won't make a bit of difference to others. The primary purpose is that around -300F chromium carbide molecules tend to fall apart, causing the chromium atoms to redistribute throughout the matrix as the blade warms back up. Since Chromium Carbide is a HUGE, gigantic, GRANDE molecule it creates stress points in the matrix which can cause stress fracture, so cryogenic treatment helps to get rid of these molecules which CAN make for a tougher blade.
Most stainless alloys do not hold an edge well. Some of them (440V, CPM-V) hold an edge to the point of radical extremity.
The difference between 440A, 440B, and 440C is the nominal carbon content which is .60, .80, and 1.0 respectively; In this regard they are comparable to AISI 1070, 1084, and 1095 respectively. This statement is directly akin to saying that 1070 and 1084 are pretty much useless (I doubt you would ever say that, but you get my point?). None of these steels are "useless" and any of them will respond properly if handled according to what they are.

Okay, some metallurgical facts about steel alloys which contain chromium content above 10% (which includes D2 and A2, which are NOT stainless alloys:

High-chromium alloys are far more susceptible to degraded austenite formation and retained austenite than non-chromium bearing steels. This means that the level of control needed by the smith is much greater and it is much easier to screw up. This reason alone is enough to cause any normal bladesmith to avoid making long blades from stainless, it is too much of a pain in the arse to control. So, you either don't do it, or you sweat/strain/curse a lot and end up tossing out most blades anyway, or you simply say "I don't give a shite if this fails and kills someone" and go along your merry way. I personally choose the first approach.

Second, high-chromium alloys are susceptible to what is called "chromium depletion stress cracking" which means that as the blade flexes over time the relatively HUGE chromium atoms migrate away from the points of flexion, which then cracks. In practical terms a stainless steel blade can and will fail with little or no deformation and with little or no warning. Your blade can last for years or it can snap the first time you swing it and there is no way to tell which is going to happen other than detailed destructive testing, after which it doesn't much matter, does it?

Wow Dan, thanks for that encyclopedic post I think I will copy it to my computer for future reference ;D

Maybe I need to make a metallurgy bookmark folder? Thanks for the informative post Dan.

Could you have returned it for one that was put together better?

swordmonger, I never bothered to find out...I bought mine at least 5 years ago or so...I still have it, too. lol

I had a stainless steel blade that I chopped up planks of wood with. Dumb, yes, but at the time I did not know any better. It had a bad temper and had next to no flex, but it was tough!