Other places of interest

Metallurgy of Steel

for

Bladesmiths & Other Hammer Heads

who

Heat Treat and Forge Steel

Several years ago May of 2001, I had the honor of attending a seminar at Bob Kramers shop, at Ferndale, WA, put on by Al Pendray and Dr. John D. Verhoeven.

Al and John had spent a lot of time researching the rediscovery of wootz steel and did indeed shed a lot of light on the subject of true Damascus steel. After many failed attempts to discover the secrets of the magical steel they did indeed find the one ingredient that made up the steels characteristics.

Vanadium was the one ingredient of the steel that only showed up in very small trace amounts and was ignored until all other avenues had been tried with out the results sought after. For further reading about this endeavor please log on to The Key Role of Impurities in Ancient Damascus Steel Blades.

The Subject covered at this seminar was Metallurgy of Steel for Bladesmiths and Others who Heat Treat and Forge Steel.

It was a very intense couple of days as we waded through much material until our heads were swelled well beyond our capacities to absorb. But luck was with us as John had been taking notes and had started a book about it all.

Years later he has finally finished the long awaited book and it is probably the best written book on metallurgy as far as the bladesmith goes. He has managed to write the book in terms that can be understood by any layman and he has left out material that the knifesmith does not need to make a blade.

I contacted John about the eyestrain and printing problems of running 200 pages and he agreed to let me have it printed so that I could get it to my students and any one else who wanted a hard copy to read.

However, You can no longer log on to my shopping cart and get a copy of this wonderful book as ASM is going to print it and offer it for sale to the professional world for big bucks I'm sure.

John and I have been working on a problem that I encountered with 1095 cold rolled and annealed steel that I have used in the past to manufacture Hoof Knife Blades for the Double L Brand.

I will in the near future try to assimilate all of this material along with Johns reports and findings and post it right here on this web page. In the mean time, good reading.