Re-temper windlass update
Mar 31, 2008 21:45:03 GMT
Post by brotherbanzai on Mar 31, 2008 21:45:03 GMT
I had this old windlass blade lying around that I purchased ten or so years ago that is far too whippy to be of any use. What follows is a brief chronicle of my attempt to remedy this:
When holding the blade parallel with the ground, the tip actually droops 1" under it's own weight. Sam Salvati pointed out to me that whippiness was due more to blade design than temper so I decided to re-grind the blade to have more distal taper and then re-temper it. When I started grinding the blade I noticed for the first time the root of the problem. There is a serious flaw in the blade, a thin spot about 8" up from the shoulder. It's hard to see it in a photo but here it is...
Since I had already begun grinding, I figured I might as well continue with the project to see what would happen anyway. I ground away some thickness beyond the thin spot but couldn't really make the rest of the blade as thin as that area or I would have ended up with a belt instead of a sword. I thought I might still be able to make an improvement though. Here you can see the tang end of the newly reshaped blade poking out of the top of my heat treat kiln.
That's my quench tank next to the kiln. As per Sam Salvati's recommendations I first normalized the the blade at 1500f and left it to slowly cool in the kiln overnight. Then I hardened it at 1500f and quenched it. Here it is after the quench.
Then I tempered it at 450f for an hour, let it cool and then tempered again at 475f for another hour, again as per Sam's advice. Then I cleaned the blade up and re-sanded it. Here is the cleaned up blade (you can see some scallops along the ricasso where I was playing around with the plasma cutter).
I would say that the heat treat in itself was successful but was not able to overcome the flaw in the blade. Meaning that the portion of the blade beyond the thin spot is much stiffer though still flexible but the blade as a whole still wobbles terribly from the thin area. Here it is with the new hilt (which I made for it several years ago).
Note that I made this hilt before I actually understood how a functioning sword should handle and be balanced so the pommel is much too small.
Here it is with the original hilt. ew.
So now I'm wondering what I should do with this stupid thing. I could 1) try to sell it as a wall hanger only, 2) put the old hilt back on and try to sell it as a really lame wall-hanger and just get enough to pay for a new piece of high carbon steel to make a new blade, 3) I could cut the blade down and only use the portion after the thin spot as blade and let the area before the thin spot be tang. As photo-shopped below.
Opinions?
When holding the blade parallel with the ground, the tip actually droops 1" under it's own weight. Sam Salvati pointed out to me that whippiness was due more to blade design than temper so I decided to re-grind the blade to have more distal taper and then re-temper it. When I started grinding the blade I noticed for the first time the root of the problem. There is a serious flaw in the blade, a thin spot about 8" up from the shoulder. It's hard to see it in a photo but here it is...
Since I had already begun grinding, I figured I might as well continue with the project to see what would happen anyway. I ground away some thickness beyond the thin spot but couldn't really make the rest of the blade as thin as that area or I would have ended up with a belt instead of a sword. I thought I might still be able to make an improvement though. Here you can see the tang end of the newly reshaped blade poking out of the top of my heat treat kiln.
That's my quench tank next to the kiln. As per Sam Salvati's recommendations I first normalized the the blade at 1500f and left it to slowly cool in the kiln overnight. Then I hardened it at 1500f and quenched it. Here it is after the quench.
Then I tempered it at 450f for an hour, let it cool and then tempered again at 475f for another hour, again as per Sam's advice. Then I cleaned the blade up and re-sanded it. Here is the cleaned up blade (you can see some scallops along the ricasso where I was playing around with the plasma cutter).
I would say that the heat treat in itself was successful but was not able to overcome the flaw in the blade. Meaning that the portion of the blade beyond the thin spot is much stiffer though still flexible but the blade as a whole still wobbles terribly from the thin area. Here it is with the new hilt (which I made for it several years ago).
Note that I made this hilt before I actually understood how a functioning sword should handle and be balanced so the pommel is much too small.
Here it is with the original hilt. ew.
So now I'm wondering what I should do with this stupid thing. I could 1) try to sell it as a wall hanger only, 2) put the old hilt back on and try to sell it as a really lame wall-hanger and just get enough to pay for a new piece of high carbon steel to make a new blade, 3) I could cut the blade down and only use the portion after the thin spot as blade and let the area before the thin spot be tang. As photo-shopped below.
Opinions?