10-18-2003, 05:58 PM
Pete,Oct 18 2003, 07:36 AM Wrote:... A carbon composite blade with ceramic edges would give you speed and power that these replicas will never match :) ...There has been some discussion on exotic modern materials for the manufacture of swords at SFI. Namely, "..can you make a sword out of depleted uranium? It'd be 2.5 times denser than any steel.." and hypotheses on titanium and ceramics, even diamonds (not micro-diamond edged-- but the bevels themselves made of crystallized carbon).
A carbon/ceramic composite blade will be very light and very sharp, but doesn't transmit the shock of a hit in the same way a steel sword is made in consideration of. Furthermore, the durability is a question. Ceramic edges retain their sharpness in two ways: very fine spalling that creates micro-serrations at the edge, and the fact that the ceramic edge will spall evenly-- essentially wearing itself down from an fine edge to a finer edge (but wearing away nonetheless).
The most accepted conclusion in that: steel is still the king of sword metals, and any possible contender to that title hasn't been thought up yet (still wondering just what the heck the much-lauded "duranium" of the Star Trek universe is).
So, the question of the best sword material comes to be one of what is the best sword steel. And steel ain't steel-- the variations and alloys of steel are wide and complex. Though I have heard furtive whispers about the near-magical properties of the "L6 bainite katana"... ;)
Political Correctness is the idea that you can foster tolerance in a diverse world through the intolerance of anything that strays from a clinical standard.