Material Science Sword Project
MSE 170 was the one and only class I took through the Material Science and Engineering program. The class was an introduction to material science, and mostly focused on metals and how to treat them for different purposes, but we also studied composites and plastics a bit.
Halfway through the quarter the professor gave a lecture on how Japanese Samurai swords are made, and how various heat treating methods were used in their construction. He jokingly commented that if anyone in the class could make a sword, he would give them a 4.0. I decided to take him up on it, and made a sword at home over the weekend and brought it to class. He didn't give me a 4.0, but I'd like to think it helped my grade at least a bit.
Below I have included photos of the process I used to make the sword. I started with an old plow shear, cut a piece out of it with a cutting torch, and beat it with a hammer under intense heat. I used extensive quenching and annealing, and even tried to implement the Japanese method of clay protection of the blade, but my class was of poor quality.
Halfway through the quarter the professor gave a lecture on how Japanese Samurai swords are made, and how various heat treating methods were used in their construction. He jokingly commented that if anyone in the class could make a sword, he would give them a 4.0. I decided to take him up on it, and made a sword at home over the weekend and brought it to class. He didn't give me a 4.0, but I'd like to think it helped my grade at least a bit.
Below I have included photos of the process I used to make the sword. I started with an old plow shear, cut a piece out of it with a cutting torch, and beat it with a hammer under intense heat. I used extensive quenching and annealing, and even tried to implement the Japanese method of clay protection of the blade, but my class was of poor quality.