Constructing swords from meteorites

[george trotter]

You make a good point Ken. It will be interesting to see the product in time. Can't blame the smiths for trying to keep the craft alive.

The pic already posted shows some "brightness" (nickel?) which we see down in this part of the world in the Kris and related blades from Indonesia etc. It seems the people in this region have been using meteorites as a metal source for ages, and as they laminate and etch the blade we sometimes see some brilliant "layered" displays. Maybe we'll see a "sub-group" of nihonto blades become established.

Regards,

[Eric Santucci]

Ken,

Very interesting stuff here - I am looking forward to seeing that sword polished up and learning more about your future meteorite blade.

 

Many years ago I was fascinated with the subject of using meteorites in blades and did some research on the subject. I have seen Japanese-style swords made from meteorite by American smiths and discussed the topic with them - as described by others - it indeed does look very much like western damascus in the blades that I saw. It does all depend on the amount of meteorite that is added to the blade and certainly knowing what the meteorite is made from has a bearing on the outcome (as was noted already some meteorites have more iron, others nickel, etc.).

 

I own small pieces of meteorite myself and have two rings fashioned from such as well. My wedding ring is partially made from a Gibeon meteorite inlay that is set into titanium. No one can ever guess what it is made from and are really fascinated at it when they see it. It is quite subtle looking (not flashy or gaudy), but folks know there is something "different" about it when they see it.

[Curran]

Interesting thread revived by Ken.

 

@ Eric, have any pictures of the ring?

[Eric Santucci]

Hi Curran,

 

Here's a link to some pictures directly from the website and I have to say that prices are incredibly reasonable for these pieces.

 

http://www.arizonaskiesmeteorites.com/Damascus_Rings_Meteorite_Rings/

 

If you scroll down all of the way to the bottom of the home page, you will also find a little surprise. This person also collects and sells Nihonto. I've actually seen this on numerous occassions now - sword enthusiasts who are interested in meteorites or vice versa.

[Curran]

Yep...

Absolutely interesting to me.

Thanks for posting that Eric.

 

I'm hell on my platinum wedding band, so switched to a simple stainless steel one that holds up better.

Yet the functional steel it is plain jane. I enjoyed the meteorite rings and wonder how they'd hold up to the abuse I put on rings.

 

I also loved their comment about magnets and the meteor ring. I admit it was fun to watch the post docs (PhDs) to turn on one of the big old MRI machines back in 1992-1993 and see things react in the clean room. Watches and rings.... bang zip right across the room.

[Brian]

I know it's off topic..but wondered...

Will these meteorites / rings / etched slices.. rust?

 

Brian

[Ronin Akuma]

Brian-

 

According to their website:

 

Meteorite Ring Care

 

Our custom rings are quite durable. That being said, if you want your ring to stay looking nice you should care for your ring as you would any fine jewelry. Some common sense will go a long way in this regard. Don't wear your jewelry while doing yard work, construction work, automotive work, or similar activities or while handling abrasive or corrosive materials. Don't abuse your jewelry, or hit it against hard objects that could dent or scratch it. The Gibeon and Seymchan meteorites tend to be naturally rust-resistant, so while hand washing and showering is, in our experience, not a problem, we do not recommend exposing your meteorite jewelry to excessive moisture. As with any fine jewelry, our rings should not be exposed to chlorine, bleach, chlorides, house hold cleansers or acids (you hands probably shouldn't either). Don't wear your jewelry in salt water, the hot tub or swimming pool. We have noticed that some hand lotions can cause staining of our finger so we avoid wearing hand lotions with meteorite rings. In cold weather or if you go swimming, your finger can shrink quite a bit causing your ring to fall off, so don't go swimming with your jewelry. After a number of years, the etched pattern of your meteorite ring may be less sharp. If this occurs, the ring can be re-etched.

 

http://www.arizonaskiesmeteorites.com/Damascus_Rings_Meteorite_Rings/About_The_Meteorite/

[Eric Santucci]

Hi Curran,

 

Glad you like the site and info. I hear you about plain durable rings. Used to have a solid platinum ring and that got banged up pretty badly overtime, dulled, and scratched too. The solution to that is to have it buffed/polished, but we all know that just means that top material is getting buffed away and eventually you will have a thinned out piece of junk. Just like overpolishing swords. These rings are light, durable (speaking of the titanium of course), and look really nice with the meteorite band. I love telling folks the material after they try and guess what it is. I have never had anyone yet even come close to guessing correctly.

 

Hi Brian, Ronin,

 

I've found my ring to be quite good so far with no issues with rusting, pitting, or even scratching after a full year of service so far. My ring gets bumped around a lot during the day, but I don't shower or swim with it and therefore heed the recommendations of the jeweler. It does get numerous doses of handwashing during the day though. So far so good.

 

(Sorry to de-rail the thread slightly from Ken in talking about meteorite rings - now back to swords!).

[Ken-Hawaii]

No problem, Eric. Brian, anything made of iron will rust, but depending on what you alloy it with, that can be minimized. Basic oxidation of iron usually forms red-brown rust (http://corrosion-doctors.org/Experiments/iron-products.htm), but obviously meteorites have some other type of oxidation. I have some large (50-pound) specimens that have been with me for almost 50 years - 10 years in New Orleans & 21 years here in Hawaii - & there is no sign of rust of any type, so there's some type of surface coating that keeps them looking black & shiny. My guess is that the extreme heating as the meteor passed through the atmosphere created a fusion coat that isn't very susceptible to rusting. I've also read that chlorine in air & water are the main reasons that meteorites rust (http://www7.pair.com/arthur/meteor/archive/archive5/July98/msg00284.html)

 

Okay, I'm packaging up my Campo de Cielo meteorite to ship off to Piers tomorrow morning, & I thought you might be interested to see what it looks like before it gets converted into a Gendaito: http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/2373/meteoriteforgendaito.jpg. It weighs just over 1300 grams (45+ ounces), & is very solid with no sign of rust. So we'll have a 4.5 billion-year-old chunk of nickel-iron that will be turned into a blade that may last for a thousand years...hmmm.

 

As the average Gendaito katana weighs in at about 38 ounces, I'm now wondering just how much of this meteorite Ando-san is going to use. Piers, could you please check with him to see if he knows how much (what percent versus tamahagane) he used on his katana? I think this may be the very first time that we can measure how much material other than tamahagane will go into a blade, unless someone has info on how smiths mixed in Namban tetsu after 1600. An NMB post a couple of years ago referenced http://www.tokensugita.com/NT.htm, but I don't see any indication of how much of what was used. I can just hope that the hamon & jihada on the meteorite blades come out as nicely as the wakizashi in that article!

 

Ken

[cabowen]

If I recall correctly, most katana require 3-4 times the finished weight in raw materials....

[Danocon]

Here is a discussion of meteorite that may shed some light on the difficulties of using it for blades.

http://forums.dfoggknives.com/index.php?showtopic=22540&hl=meteorite&st=0

 

This post form Dan Fronefield http://meteorforge.net/ was quite informative.

 

Well, I guess I can probably add something to this subject since I specialize in using meteorite in my knives (all kinds: iron, stone, stoney iron, Mars, Lunar, etc)

 

You'll only be forging iron meteorite and as noted the forgability varies between different falls and within a single fall. At this time, Campo is the cheapest most plentiful iron meteorite avaiable. The widmanstatten pattern is fairly large and not really suitable as knife furniture (too coarse a pattern). Any iron meteorite can be forged ... with care. Most are crumbly at first. Forge at welding heat with lots of flux. I frequently will just take a meteorite section and run weld beads all around it, just to get it to hold together for the first heat. Tap, tap, tap ... don't hammer until it get consolidated. Don't forge cold or cool, stay at a welding heat as you forge and fold until it starts to feel and sound like a solid piece of steel. There are silicates and graphite nodules and other crap in meteorites, which will all eventually come out with the flux/forging. I usually lose about 1/4 of the original weight when done. From there on, treat it like a no-carbon, high-nickel steel.

 

Remember that iron meteorites are about as hard as an old coat hanger and will not hold an edge. There are lots of ways to get around that, all methods I've used. I'll frequently make a damascus twist of meteorite layered with HC steel. In high layer counts, you end up with micro-serations as the softer meteorite wears. Or, take the same twists and laminate on either side of a HC steel core (san-mai) so that no meteorite is on the edge. Or, the meteorite can be melted and alloyed appropriately with carbon to make a meteoritic base HC steel. And so on ... The iron meteorite will be a bright line in damascus due to the high nickel content.

 

Most speculation on the Tutankhamen's iron dagger is that it was forged from meteorite. Because of the low/no carbon, it is not a "hard" blade.

 

Should you have any specific questions, let me know.

[kauai1800]

This is so cool Ken. I cannot wait to see the outcome.

 

I've done some meteorite hunting at Canyon Diablo and Tuscon and have a 4kg Campo on the living room table. I also made a small Sikhote Alin that I made into a necklace. It doesn't rust at all, and has very high nickle content. The Campo will rust a bit if I get lazy, but I generally keep it slathered with WD40. I live on the windward side so...

 

One thing I know is that often these Iron meteorites from Campo will contain micro-diamonds in them or various pseudomorphs of graphite...do you think these might be an issue when forging? Maybe you'll have a diamond nie!

 

Sounds like the smith you chose has experience, so all the best of luck!

[Ken-Hawaii]

Thanks, John (you really should sign your posts per Brian's rules). Didn't know about the micro-diamonds, & in fact have no idea how they could form in a massive iron meteor(ite). Where did you get that info?

 

Dan, that's really valuable info in the other Dan's post. Interesting that he considers most iron meteorites to be "crumbly" - all the ones I have are as hard as, well, iron. I've never tried to melt or forge one, but cutting into them to make a Widmanstätten slab, even with a diamond blade, takes bloody forever. I was wondering whether a coarse Widmanstätten pattern would make any difference in the sword's hada or hamon; I guess we'll see.

 

Ken

[Danocon]

T

 

Interesting that he considers most iron meteorites to be "crumbly" - all the ones I have are as hard as, well, iron. I've never tried to melt or forge one, but cutting into them to make a Widmanstätten slab, even with a diamond blade, takes bloody forever. I was wondering whether a coarse Widmanstätten pattern would make any difference in the sword's hada or hamon; I guess we'll see.

 

Ken

Ken,

Being crumbly while forging is fairly consistent with hard materials. In this case it is junk in the iron that prevents the iron from sticking to itself. It takes a very high heat and careful hammering to liquify the junk and drive it out of the iron. It is the same, though to a lesser extent, with tamahagane. All the folding and welding is simply a method to purify and refine the material-like kneading bread dough. The beautiful patterns are a side benefit. All the junk is also the reason it is so hard to cut.

 

I am interested as well as to how the meteoric iron will affect the appearance of the blade. Pretty cool deal.

[kauai1800]

I learned about the micro-diamonds the "hard" way...trying to cut meteorites with a diamond saw to make jewelry. If the blade hits a cluster of diamond psuedomorphs it will bind up and stop cutting. Under magnification you'll see there's often large patches of these tiny crystals in a iron and those are all micro-diamonds.

A great book (probably the best) on all this is Nortons Rocks From Space. Used to be hard to find but now they've reissued it...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0878423737

 

Cheers John