Forest Xavier

Thank you Jeremy and Alan all your guys help is always appreciated. One more question related to this topic, what is the depth that the steel hardens to? I do know it is proportional to the time it is kept at critical temp and thickness of the steel, which I’m sure has to do with the heat being consistent through the entire piece, but as a general rule of thumb if one were to heat treat a deep hardening steel, soak 15 min @ critical what would be the depth that it would harden to?

My question is this, with a deep hardening steel (1084,5160,etc) could one just cut out a blank profile, harden, temper, then grind the bevels in? I know this is a bit backward but with a thinner knife (say under .25”) shouldn’t the hardness be the same through the entire blade and wouldn’t matter? Or am I just an inexperienced noob...also I’m sure there is the short yes/no answer but also why it would or would not be advantageous to do it this way? Thanks in advance!

Gorilla glue works well for certain things but absolutely piss poor for others, for porous materials (wood, cloth, some foams) it works fantastic as the expansion of the glue actually seeps into the material you are glueing, that’s why wetting the wood (in the directions of you read them) actually allows the glue to do that. Now with non porous materials is bonds very poorly and sheers very easily off the materials, an example is that I used some gorilla glue to mount a ceramic plate onto a metal mounting bracket for a bird feeder, well it lasted a year and then wind storm hit and off flew the plate. It will bind to metal but poorly. However on that same project the stake to hold said bird feeder was a copper pipe and to make it more ridged I glued a dowel down the center, the gorilla glue is still holding fine, but that also has very low strain on it as well. Also if by chance anyone has seen the “overflow” from curing you will notice it is full of air gaps and hollows as it forms a foam...this foam is the same thing that would happen in a tang with any gaps and that foam is fairly easy to crush so I bet with time and use the tang would loosen up quite badly. Gorilla glue isn’t a bad product but also it’s not as versatile as it states binding of material that is porous and can be clamped with very minimal to no gaps I’d use it all day...anything else use another product if it needs to hold long...just my humble opinion and observations

Alan..1” thick at the base (where the blade meets the cross guard) and equallateral triangle Charles...I don’t know man it might look sweet but I’m not looking to make a steel pig tail lol

I’ve been mulling around in my mind about making a rondel dagger with a triangular crossection (haven’t even dedicated pencil to paper yet so very early development). I was thinking of making it 11ish inches (blade alone, not including tang), and a width at the base of the blade of about 1 inch, then a linear taper to the tip. The tip is going to be started at a point in the blade where the width is 1/4” and taper from there rapidly to the point at a 30° degree angle, hopefully giving a more reenforced tip. Lastly I was thinking of doing a hollow grind on the blade for the first 2/3rds and leaving the last 1/3rd of the blade to the tip a flat grind, by doing this I was hoping to give a slightly better cutting/slashing edge on the lower part of the blade (as well as looking pretty cool, and yes I do realize that a rondel was a thrusting/stabbing weapon I’m not going for complete historical reproduction). I was thinking that it would be made from 1095 and it’s going to be a stock removal blade. Now with all that being said my immediate questions are this; 1) will 1095 work for this design? I understand it can become brittle at longer lengths, that combined with the relative thinness of the blade could just be a recipe for disaster. 2) during the heat treat I have the uncanny feeling that it has a very high probability of corkscrewing due to the hollow grind. 3) will the hollow grind take to much meat away from the blade making it flimsy 4) I’m worried if my tip would be reenforced enough to thrust into hard targets without breaking off the top of my head those are my main questions or issues...can’t wait to hear back on ideas or comments...thanks guys

Thanks Guys...Jerrod I agree that in a battle scenario it is unlikely that any sort of repair is possible, that's why I said "some what doable", perhaps could be done but probably never would in a real life scenario. Alan...when you say socketed but not welded I'm guessing it was a single piece of steel/iron that was formed over a mandrel or some other similar tool to form the socket either before or after forging out the spear? And I guess I did get some what off my question...sorry rambling a bit at 5 am trying to stay awake at work ....but more using todays metals (monosteels) which would be a better design and why?

The basic question I have is which is better... a socketed spear head or a tang spear head, and why? With little research it can be seen that both have existed thru history, as I understand it most eastern spears were designed with a tang and it appears most western spear were socketed. Obviously the first historic spears were made with a tang as they were stone and you can't very well carve a socket from flint, during the bonze age there was a divergence where socketing became more popular in western civilization. I assume that this was due to the ease of casting the bronze, making a socket would be just as easy to cast as casting a tang, albeit with the know how to make the mold. However the use of a tang spear head did not completely drop out of fashion even though those civilizations had advanced bronze casting capabilities, and this trend seemed to carry on through the iron age up to the current era, that both exist separate but equal. This is what leads me to this question...there would be pro's and cons to both designs...for manufacture (when working with iron/steel) the tang design, obviously, would be much easier to make than a socketed design. Attachment to shaft the tang design would also appear to be superior as it is much quicker to split a shaft slide the tang in with some cutlers resin and wrap with rawhide/leather/sinue and maybe a nail/pin versus; having to shave down the shaft and using cutlers resin and a nail/pin attachment, I believe the latter to be very difficult during battle whilst the former being somewhat doable during a battle. That leads us to the next category, durability and longevity, the tang design does seem to have some fall backs in this category as the split shaft is a major weakness that can easily break during battle as well as the attachment point (the weakest point) being not shielded, but I believe the socketed design has some inherent flaws as well, consider the weld seam on the socket (or weld seam at the head/socket junction) this could be a potential major failure point if the weld is not absolutely perfect causing the weapon to be unusable and irreparable. Lastly aesthetics, and in this category the socketed spear blows the tang spear out of the water, it's the flowing nature of the head to the socket into the properly fitted shaft is a thing of beauty versus the more cobbled together look of the tanged style. With all this in mind I have trouble deciding which would make the superior spear? Is there a specific mechanical advantage to either design or does it come down to personnel preference? Please if I have left any thing out or am incorrect in any of my research/assumptions/thoughts pipe up, I relish in hearing differing thoughts and correcting my own if they are incorrect....thanks all