On Sat, 05 Feb 2005 13:33:48 -0800, ay
wrote:

On Sat, 05 Feb 2005 12:42:32 -0800, Tim Wescott
wrote:

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.
:
:What they said, plus: alt.crafts.blacksmithing; there are some
:_serious_ sword makers there. You may be able to speed things up if
:someone has a blade ready to go that just needs fittings and a scabbard.
:
:FYI, what folks were referring to is that the WTC steel and the
:meteorite will be very low-carbon steel, which just ain't good blade
:material, unless you don't mind him having a pretend sword.

I figured that the WTC steel would be bad by itself, but I figured
it's basically Iron. Couldn't enough carbon, nickle, moly, etc, be
added to it to make it into a reasonable blade material?

I would think so. However there's one guy who could give you a much
better read on the situation. Jim Hrisoulas, or 'dr jim', as he's
known on the net, is one of the leading swordsmiths working in this
country today. He's also a PhD metallurgist. The web page for his
business, Salamander Armoury is at
http://www.atar.com/index.php?&MMN_position=1:1

--RC

Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit;
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad

-- Suzie B