ay wrote:

My son will be graduating from Annapolis in June 2006.

I want to make him a sword. I have 4 ounces of nickle-iron meteorite
that I've collected over the years, and a couple of pounds of iron
from the WTC that I kept (I worked on the removal for 4 months)

Would it be possible to analyze the exact metal that I have, melt it
down and alloy it into a good steel for making a sword? I know I'll
have to find a good knife maker to make it.

Cut straight to the chase.

Have a bladesmith make the blade of whatever he can make best use of.
5160 gets a lot of reccomendations if I recall correctly. Something nice
in a nickel laced pattern welded steel if your tastes run that way.

Then have the fittings and furniture made from some of the salvaged WTC
material and trim it out with some of the meteorite bits or work the
meteorite iron into the fittings with the WTC material. Get some nice
engraving done (not done by anybody using a pantograph fercryinoutloud,
real engraving) The sword will need a sheath and fittings appropriate to
it's style and intended usage. More opportunity to use the stock in
hand.

The bladesmith may be able to use some of the steel in a pattern welded
blade as a lower carbon content component (Layers of higher and lower
carbon steels are welded together to form pattern welded steel billets).

No personal experience in the smelting or refining of steel alloys, but
I'll go out on a limb and say that the way I suggest above will be MUCH
less expensive than to do as you propose, melting and alloying.

However you go with this, best to get on it quick as the lead times for
work like this can be longish.

Oh yeah! Post pictures of the end results in the dropbox at
www.metalworking.com. Please!

Cheers
Trevor Jones