Everything you ever whated to know about Maraging!

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!


A fencer with metallugical knowledge has written a quite detailed treatise on Maraging steel, and its fencing use, from all possible aspects. Highly worth a read. However, you will get most out of that reading if you happen to master written Swedish.

http://www.safare.se/nyheter/vad-ar-en-maragingklinga/


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[magic_moose]

Interesting. Especially after running it through the Google Translator.

But I am still puzzling over "If you draw in a chewing gum may be a significant plastic deformation before the crime, while this is not the case when a coffee break."

[Fencergrl]

"If you draw in a chewing gum may be a significant plastic deformation before the crime, while this is not the case when a coffee break."

It must be an old Swedish saying.

[erooMynohtnA]

Interesting. Especially after running it through the Google Translator.

But I am still puzzling over "If you draw in a chewing gum may be a significant plastic deformation before the crime, while this is not the case when a coffee break."

If you bend the chewing gum, there will be significant plastic deformation before the break. This is not the case when a coffee mug breaks.

[magic_moose]

If you bend the chewing gum, there will be significant plastic deformation before the break. This is not the case when a coffee mug breaks.

Thank you for returning this conversation to a serious level.

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

Interesting. Especially after running it through the Google Translator.

But I am still puzzling over "If you draw in a chewing gum may be a significant plastic deformation before the crime, while this is not the case when a coffee break."

That is hilarious!

Here is the offending paragraph:

Skillnaden mellan segt och sprött brott är som att jämföra ett tuggummi med en kaffekopp som trillar i backen. Drar man i ett tuggummi får man en betydande plastisk deformation innan brott medan så inte är fallet när en kaffekopp går sönder. Slutsatsen av detta är att värjklingor skall vara hårda, men inte spröda. En kompromiss mellan hårdhet och sprödhet som klassiskt har lösts genom seghärdning, där man först härdar stålet. Då får man dock ett stål som är oanvändbart för värjklingor. En battement skulle slå av klingan och därför anlöps stålet så att man ökar materialets seghet, men minskar hårdheten. Seghärdning = härdning + anlöpning.

A better translation (than G-trans) is:
The difference between plastic and brittle fracture is like comparing what happens when a chewing gum vs. a coffee cup falls on the ground. If a chewing gum is pulled, there will be a significant plastic deformation before fracture, which is not the case when a coffee cup breaks. The implication of this is that epee blades should be hard, but not brittle. The compromise between hardness and brittleness has usually been attained by tough hardening, in which the steel is first hardened. However, that alone gives a steel which is useless for epee blades. A batté would break the blade, and therefore the steel is annealed so that the material toughness is increased, while the hardness decreases. Tough hardening=hardening+annealing.

Maybe I should ask for copyright before translating the rest.

OTOH: I had expected that, given the word translators (not whole-text translators!) currently available, and that you understand another germanic language, that you would manage to chew your way through that text! Were you asleep during the comparative lingustics lessons in your 2nd and 3rd language classes during jr. high and high school? Or have you been submitted to such crappy school systems so that those lessons were not present at all?


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[chase]

at least were not socialists.

[erooMynohtnA]

Keep it in the politics forum you little retard.

[magic_moose]

OTOH: I had expected that, given the word translators (not whole-text translators!) currently available, and that you understand another germanic language, that you would manage to chew your way through that text! Were you asleep during the comparative lingustics lessons in your 2nd and 3rd language classes during jr. high and high school? Or have you been submitted to such crappy school systems so that those lessons were not present at all?


Peter Gustafsson

Such glorious expectations! I probably should have begun by translating it word by word into Flemish and from there.....

Alas, my facility with languages is mainly limited to English. The gift for picking up languages is not among my many talents.

So I say "Thank goodness for full text mechanical translators". I can nearly always figure out what it is supposed to be but unfortunately the beauty is rather lost amid the crime of chewing gum destruction. On the other hand, the giggles make up for it.

As an anthroplogy major, I did rather thorough structural and comparative linguistics. Unfortunately, since I was interested in the Polynesian Islands at the time, my comparative, was focused on the Pacific language groups. Not much help with this, I must say.

Although perhaps, Swedish to Maori, and then from there..........

[Nolano]

Hi!

A batté would break the blade, and therefore the steel is annealed so that the material toughness is increased, while the hardness decreases. Tough hardening=hardening+annealing.

It would be more accurate to say that the steel is tempered. Annealing is the process of actually completely softening the steel, which would give you steel once again useless for an epee blade.

[counterattack]

Keep it in the politics forum you little retard.

Hey, Peter started it with his explicit dig on our system. He also implied that if Sweden were such a large and geographically isolated country that the vast majority of its citizens never needed to understand a word of another language to be successful adults that somehow Swedes would magically be unlike any other equivalent nations that don't really learn other languages unless have a passion or a need (Japan and the U.S. are great examples). It really is needlessly insulting. On the other hand, I appreciate Peter's contribution of the link to this text. But if you aren't going to attack Peter for starting it then don't attack Chase for firing back.

-ph

[TodG]

So how is 'tough hardening' different than tempering after quench?

What's the typical Rc of an epée blade anyway, and the most common alloys used?

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

So how is 'tough hardening' different than tempering after quench?

What's the typical Rc of an epée blade anyway, and the most common alloys used?

I am an mechanical engineer, but heat treatment of metals is not my speciality. I translated as good as I could without getting out specialist books or spending several hours, and I did not run the translation past the original author, who has scientific publishings in that field to his name.

I have since contacted him to ask for permission to do a translation of the whole thing. Once I do that, I will run it past him before I publish it here.

I think, but am not sure, that Rc values are listed in some rules appendix. The composition of a Maraging alloy is listed in the original article.


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[migopod]

Maraging steel is both due to a process and also to alloy. Actually maraging steels are a class of steels that tend towards the low carbon and have additional alloy components that cause the heat treatment processes to result in the desired mechanical properties.

It's not a pure heat/quench cycle such as you would want for a sharp blade hardness profile, more like a cycle of furnace heat treatment that gives you a desired proportion of martensite in the finished piece. Remember of course that a desired fencing blade properties are quite different from a functional sharp blade. You don't care about keeping an edge so much as you care about being able to sustain repeated bend cycles without becoming embrittled and breaking.

[TodG]

D'oh!

A quick google turned up this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maraging_steel

In the sport of fencing, blades used in competitions run under the auspices of the Fédération Internationale d'Escrime are often made with maraging steel. Maraging blades are required in foil and épée because the crack propagation in maraging steel is 10 times slower than in carbon steel. This results in less blade breakage and fewer injuries. The thought that such blades break flat is actually a fencing urban legend. Testing has shown that the blade breakage patterns in carbon steel and maraging steel blades are identical

[migopod]

d'oh!

A quick google turned up this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/maraging_steel

in the sport of fencing, blades used in competitions run under the auspices of the fédération internationale d'escrime are often made with maraging steel. Maraging blades are required in foil and épée because the crack propagation in maraging steel is 10 times slower than in carbon steel. This results in less blade breakage and fewer injuries. The thought that such blades break flat is actually a fencing urban legend. Testing has shown that the blade breakage patterns in carbon steel and maraging steel blades are identical

ha! A falsehood:

maraging blades are required in foil and épée

Shame on you wikipedia, shame....

[Purple Fencer]

ha! A falsehood:

Actually.....it says at tourneys run by the FIE, maraging blades are required (actually, there are non-maraging blades that have been certified, this this was in the maraging article, so it's a minor goof). And the breakage patterns were exaplined not only by my own experience as an armorer (I wrote that reference inteh article...and I have seen maraging's break with a spike and non-maragings break flat), and from Dan DeChaine, who's FAR more experienced that I'll ever be.

Shame on you wikipedia, shame....

Not really....there's no requirement for FIE in sabre....not even at FIE events.

[migopod]

Actually.....it says at tourneys run by the FIE, maraging blades are required (actually, there are non-maraging blades that have been certified, this this was in the maraging article, so it's a minor goof). And the breakage patterns were exaplined not only by my own experience as an armorer (I wrote that reference inteh article...and I have seen maraging's break with a spike and non-maragings break flat), and from Dan DeChaine, who's FAR more experienced that I'll ever be.



Not really....there's no requirement for FIE in sabre....not even at FIE events.

actually my critique of the article was in your first parentheses. In that there are indeed FIE certified non-maraging blades, which makes maraging blades not an inherent requirement for FIE epee and foil.

* i edit, Of course the non-maraging FIE blades are a relatively new phenomenon, so maybe the article predated their certification

** still, way better than how in the How Stuff Works article on fencing equipment it still says that your light goes on when you are touched