[Picture Hvy] Some of my Orishigane for Japanese Blades.

[Daniel Cauble 81]

I've been talking with several archaeologists and even Skip William's (which reminds me that I need to get back in touch with him) about these structures.

At any rate, I've gotten better at polishing for pics. Heres some more of steel under 2% C but right at it. Super nice stuff. This material is going into my nihonto projects and kitchen knives.

What you see is saturated pearlite with grain boundary cementite. Once the steel is eutectoid, perlite can no longer store cementite.

 

Edited August 23, 2019 by Daniel Cauble

[Daniel Cauble 81]

And some crazy widmenstatten structures that are probably widmenstatten ferrite, but based on my sparks on some of it, I swear its widmenstatten cementite.

[Alan Longmire 2,714]

Good for you, dude!  You're getting above 2% in a hearth?  

[Daniel Cauble 81]

17 minutes ago, Alan Longmire said:

Good for you, dude!  You're getting above 2% in a hearth?  

I've hit above 4%, lol. Some of that ledeburite pics show carbon in the 3.8-4% range.

 

I've also managed to make some gray cast with precipitated graphite. However, it doesnt play nice so its avoided.

 

 

[Daniel Cauble 81]

This will make things clearer .

[Jerrod Miller 443]

That is a fun phase diagram.  Thanks for sharing.  

[Alan Longmire 2,714]

Indeed it is!  Right on the edge of my understanding, too!    I've never looked at diagrams for cast iron, so a lot of that is new to me.  

[Daniel Cauble 81]

You are welcome Jerrod. I knew I was pushing into crazy territory, but didnt fully understand cast characteristics until most recently, and what to look for in my product.

 

As stated earlier in this or my crucible thread, I had various samples of my crucible steel and some hearth steel for a researcher to look at. On of the samples was a 4fold piece of hearth steel. He had mentioned then that I had a clean band of heavy cementite, or iron carbide in the piece. At the time it was a mystery, but now things are getting so clear. This is why I love metallurgy and steel creation. Theres so much I learn the further I go in my journey that I am able to critically inspect previous work and findings a refine my understanding.

Anyway, the piece was cool and he did take a micrograph, albeit not as bright as mine are.

He also used a Vickers hardness test that the microscope was outfitted with to determine between ferrite and cementite structures. Inside that dark band it was showing all of or most of the white to be cementite at the grain boundaries.

Edited August 23, 2019 by Daniel Cauble

[Jerrod Miller 443]

I would like to point out for those that don't know, these are the indentations from the Vicker's hardness test.  This is a very small (localized) hardness check. 

 

[Daniel Cauble 81]

26 minutes ago, Alan Longmire said:

Indeed it is!  Right on the edge of my understanding, too!    I've never looked at diagrams for cast iron, so a lot of that is new to me.  

It was really bizarre to see and try to decipher. Skip messaged me and said ledeburite, and my hunt for knowledge took off. I delved into my microscopy book and many items online. Found a lot of good information, and even stumbled across a bit of research that connected me with an archaeologist in Europe who happened to have already been following my work on IG, lol.

Thanks Jerrod, I meant to make that clear.

[Daniel Cauble 81]

He mentioned the test end was 5x5 microns with a 1g charge. The left side was a pearlite and ferrite strike with the indention being 15% larger and the centered hits are smaller, being cementite or iron carbide.

Edited August 23, 2019 by Daniel Cauble

[Daniel Cauble 81]

That kitchen knife with 9 fold oroshigane I kept and finally used recently. The patina revealed some fun stuff. The stone polish that followed revealed it even more. Bands of spheroidized cementite, quite large in fact. I need to peer down the scope to see what's going on, but it most certainly is cementite from here.

[Alan Longmire 2,714]

Interesting...  Scope pics, please!

[Daniel Cauble 81]

So I finally decided to combine then 2 bars together the same way I have seen a smith in Japan do it. Where one does the first stage of refinement which is the first 6 folds and combine it with a 6 fold billet made.from a previous sword project. It was done by alternate stacking them as a 4 layer bar and folded 6 more times. I did that with this one.

 

Early etching revealed a difference in composition as one was made from wrought and bloom that I had melted, and remelted the melt product again to further refine and improve the slag removal. The other billet was clean modern steel melt material. I had suspected P levels being the difference maker, but am interested it peer at the structures with the scope soon.

 

Also, I dont talk about it much here, but I am a collector and user of japanese natural stones for my sanmai kitchen knives I make, and I have all of the sword related polishing stones and a lot of fingerstones for sword polishing (not pictured). So traditional stone polish with Hadori. The blade is a test blade. A tanto in size but no kissaki and was more of a shobu-zikiro in a way.

 

I used traditional rice straw ash and ball clay mud slurry

Nugui

There were a few flaws on this end of the billet.

 

Edited June 7, 2020 by Daniel Cauble

[Alan Longmire 2,714]

That polish is looking good.   

[Richard Furrer 55]

Nie and Nioi Daniel.........and I have a Tukon micro Vickers hardness tester...just need a few thousand simple repairs to get it working. At one time I wanted a metallurgical lab...no so much now.

AND...very well done!

 

[Daniel Cauble 81]

10 hours ago, Richard Furrer said:

Nie and Nioi Daniel.........and I have a Tukon micro Vickers hardness tester...just need a few thousand simple repairs to get it working. At one time I wanted a metallurgical lab...no so much now.

AND...very well done!

 

Thanks

 

Feel free offload equipment like that on me if you dont want it

[Daniel Cauble 81]

Recently I decided to run experiments out of my Japanese style Hoda. Japanese bladesmiths make oroshigane traditionally in their forges. I've always ran melts in a dedicated furnace similar to Emiliano's, the Evenstad for many years. It's been good to me, as one could tell from the thread. I wanted to see how well the traditional approaches worked and if results were any different.

 

I did a series of melts throughout a week or so to build up material for nihonto inspired work.

 

First run's aim was to make UHC steel but little to no cast. I've made a lot of steel-cast mixed material in the past, but my aim is for higher workability.

 

Placed brick on ends of forge to retain charcoal in the shape of a shaft. They just make a mound of charcoal in Japan however.

 

It is apparent there is a chunk of steel in front of the tuyure on the burn down

 

 

Next day...I often leave still in furnace over night. For research purposes and learning, I tend to leave steel in until its.fully cool so that I can see how the chunk formed and its orientation to the tuyure. This also makes extraction highly anticipated. Like christmas morning every time.

 

 

 

‐---------

 

The next run I wanted to make pure iron for shingane.

 

The idea was to create an atmosphere that was reducing. An easy way to tell if you are on the right track is to check the color of the flame. This was one is reducing-neutral.

 

 

-------

This run I was finding any bit of thin scrap steel and clean iron I could find.

 

 

-----

 

On this last run, I wanted to decarburize white cast iron I have made in the evenstad in the past, and some white cast I had made on accident in the crucible making wootz. This is a little tricker than carburizing iron. I achieved success however.

 

Here is a crucible puck I recently made that went cast iron and I didnt know until it was baking in my electric kiln.

 

Inside. The pockets of higher concentrated carbon melted first. It was rendered trash unless recycled like what I'm about to do.

 

The bits of white cast scrounged up to be remelted and decarbed.

 

Examples of white cast iron I made in the evenstad. Now to be sacrificed again.

 

 

More UHC steel made. A success.

 

 

With some white cast made however.

 

Spark of the steel.

 

 

Some 30 pounds with included around 10 pounds of UHC steel and white cast mix in chunk form and some forged down into plates already.

 

 

Edited January 8 by Daniel Cauble

[Alan Longmire 2,714]

Awesome stuff, Daniel, thanks for posting! 

[Daniel Cauble 81]

Thank you Alan. I'm always, even in my current rehabilitating from a shoulder injury state, busy doing something.

[Daniel Cauble 81]

I went back to that test blade I made from this material and went to the side I had left off with Uchigumori-Ji benchstone. On this I had used very hard and fine Jizuya, and then kanahada nugui. The base polish can use some work toward the tip as there are some coarse remnants left, making it harder to discern hada.

 

After Jizuya

 

 

Then after Hadori, with nugui

 

 

 

Edited February 10 by Daniel Cauble

[Daniel Cauble 81]

Making plates.

[Daniel Cauble 81]

More pics of the test tanto blade in the thread.

 

[Alan Longmire 2,714]

Nice hada!  That last pic especially.

[Daniel Cauble 81]

Thanks. I have another sunobe ready from the same bar for a longer tanto, except hira-zakuri and will try to mimic a historical example.