Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 14:52:45 +0100
From: Stefano Moretti <S.Moretti@agora.stm.it>
To: baidarka@lists.intelenet.net
Subject: baidarka cheap and sharp steel
Gene Smith wrote:
>
> >quality sharp tools can't be made from cheap steel.
> >
> >spano
>
> This is absolutely true - but you have to define "quality" and you have to
> define "sharp".
Quality:
Let's change "cheap" to "low grade". We will thus have a definition that
high grade or best - appropriate grade - steel is good for tools.
This can also be cheap (financially speaking) if part of some discarded
piece of metal.
> interesting pictures of Native American made knives. Mr. Hunt states,
> "Indians...prefer to get steel from common carpenter's saws,
Drawing on my own aborigenal experience, I can tell you it has been for
decades a traditional approach here in Italy to make knives, thin and
very sharp, to slice raw ham, a quite difficult task (cutting the ham in
thin slices), from discarded metalsaw blades, 5/4" wide and 12" long.
I did the same sharpening on a water cooled grinding tool from springs
made of "harmonic" steel from a fiat 500 to make a heavy machete-like
knife.
As long as you do not over heat the steel changing the temper, which is
difficult to restaure for an amateur.
My definition for sharp: anything that gently pulled against my nail
slices thin curls of the same or that would cut a piece of paper held on
edge with one hand without bending it (my actual mays of testing sharp
tools).
That level should do with almost any bark on green ribs.
Stefano