Laser forged swords.

I was thinking about katanas and such again and realized that lasers can heat steel quite accurately i believe. What if instead of all the labour and hard work of hammering and forgeing by fire you could just put the sword underwater and heat the edge with lasers to exactly the right temperature where it will cool rapidly as well underwater.

sorry about it all being clumped and rushed but i had a very tight time limit to write this.

I don't know too much about sword making, but I know with katana's. There is a special method they use to make them. They go through this process of folding the metal over and over again. I believe this helps make the blade stronger and helps keep it's sharpness. Although I might be remembering that wrong.

Either way. I don't know for sure if just using a lazer to cut out a sword would be the best. It might not have as good of durability, but who knows.

The speed of heating and cooling is equaly important as the temperatures used when forging something like a katana or any other kind of combo or high carbon steel.
The time and method of heating and cooling results in the wished metal microstructres of the steel.

Heating to fast or to slow can ruin your previous work. Cooling to fast can result in microscopic cracks, warping of the metal and all sorts of adverse effects.

At anyrate, if you cut out a sword from metal it would not be forged. As noted above, there is alot going on when forging a sword or any other metal. Using a laser to cut a blank that is then forged may have merit however.

EDIT: accidental repost please delete

[edit on 19/3/06 by thematrix]

As previously stated, the metal is folded repeatedly (in katanas), often with other metals. As it's folded, the qualities of the two metals merge so you can get a blade hard enough to cut slice and stay sharp and such but ALSO soft enough to be sharpened when needed. (plus then there's all the tempering that has to be done) If you had a sheet of previously folded metals and just cut it with a laser to exact precision, you'd probably end up with the crap you find on the home shopping network because it didn't go through the long tempering process. But then again, who knows. Don't actually KNOW what would happen until we buy a multimillion dollar high power laser and try it. (but we could guess all we want)

[edit on 19-3-2006 by DemonicAngelZero]

This idea does have merit, though I'm sure purists will balk at the suggestion that techniques many centuries old could possibly be improved upon.

Traditionally, a Japanese bladesmith will go by the color of the steel. More modern methods may actually bring assembly line speed to something that used to be an art form.

I would say, using chemical lasers and water jets, instead of the good old fashioned forge and barrel, you could have much greater control over the temperature.

Of course, no modern army utilizes swords of this quality, so it's a moot point. Shame about that though...

I see no problem with using a super-duper robot-machine to fold the steel of the blade. I'm guessing that sharpening the blade is the final touch, and not necessarily a part of the tempering process. It might be a darn good idea to do the final sharpening process with a laser.

But while you guys are busy equipping yourselves with swords, I'll buy an $800 Colt 1911 pistol and start pluggin' any ninjas I see

I take that back. Swords are cooler weapons than guns. They have that mystical aura to them - the kind that plays heavenly choir "aaaaahh" music when you pick them up. Not to mention all the cool dialogue you get to say when fighting your opponent:

"But you are forgetting one thing... I am not left-handed!"
"You're not my father!"
"FREEEEEEEEDOOOOMMM!!!"

With guns you get some cool catch phrases, but really only AFTER you killed your opponent. Like "one shot... one kill" or something.

The important thing here is the rate of cooling of the blade. The edge must acheive a crystalline structure whilst the back of the blade is rather amorphous and soft. This gives rise to the beautiful Hamon, the wavy edge, which my wondrful Paul Chen katana has! So if you could forge your steel with your laser then the cooling rate determines the crystalline structure. This is controlled by the thickness of clay the swordsmith applies, before quenching.

Why not just build a katana from carbon nanotubes

Im sure it will be sharp and durable enough

Wyrdeone, I am a purist of the sword I am not however averse to adapting high tech to something to make it work.

Iwasn' saying the whole sword is cut from a chunk of steel.
The laser heating would simply be to liquify the edge of the sword underwater and could be cooled instantly or slowly depending on the water temperature.

So before some of you guys start saying this method is stupid, don't forget i have probably read all of the intricacies about the blade as well.

I like the nano tubes idea though silver surfer, you were reading the bionic muscles thread to..... is that where you got the idea

Not really i think it was one of the space elevater topics that really mentioned how durable this material is-

I think it could become very hard and very durable.. and also very thin.. the only problem with CNT would be if the material will shatter like glass instead of flexing... thats an if since i dont really know what would happend if you hit say rock spot on.. but maybe it will take great effort to brake it even if its not flexible.

I've been interested in swords my whole life, but it wasn't until I was 14(I’m currently 16) until I started buying some. Currently I own a katana, a few cheaper swords, a 3-headed mace, a double sided axe, a few daggers, and my babies- Kit Rae's Valermos Gold edition #0411/1000, and a Russ Farrell/Frost Cutlery Pirate of Skull Island sword/dagger set, unserialized 1/10,000. Anyhow, I thought I’d mention that to add that I have some background into swords.

Anyhow, back to making katanas. The katana is made up of about 95% iron. The rest of the compounds in it vary from carbon to copper, all the way to silicone, silicone and carbon giving the sword its most important features-strength, weight, flexibility, and durability.
They sometimes, but not all the time, fold the metal repeatedly. They do this because it spread the compounds throughout the sword.
After creating these katanas for over a hundred years, the Japanese realized that the sword wasn’t all that great. The folding created a weaker sword after exaggerated use and the quality of the steel wasn’t excellent to begin with. So they started cross-folding or overlapping metals. They took a metal they composed of mostly titanium and silicon and compacted it down tightly; using the folding method, then took plain steel and wrapped it around the titanium/silicon core, then hammered a blade into it. This created a sword light enough for fast use, but heavy enough to fight strongly with. Because when using a katana, you don’t swing it around crazy and fight like European style sword fighting, like in brave heart, where its sword to sword combat, you swing the sword in a figure eight style and use your feet, quickness, agility, and reaction time to do the fighting for you. That’s why samurais wore all that gear.

So that’s today’s lesson in katana making. So go ahead buy your multimillion dollar laser machine and do it. But remember, make sure it under 62cm long other wise its a diato, not a katana. So back to the discussion, it would be a waste of time, nobody really uses them anymore, and most are mass produced except the hand-crafted really expensive ones and with those, you get what you pay for.

Schmidt1989