Is this safe ?

[Peisho]

My friend has been making swords for quite a while and he asked me if I would like a katana made out of Tungson Carbide steel. The same kind of steel used to make gerber folding knifes with the light grey color.
Is this safe to use in test cutting and practice?

[dbeaird]

I'll start out by saying I don't know all the properties of the material you're talking about. I do know that it used as a tool steel, and therefore can be heat treated to extreme hardness.

The problem is that extreme hardness is not a necessary or even a desireable property for swords. Swords must flex, bend and absorb a great deal of energy that would cause a hard blade to break. In the range of hardness you want for a sword, steel does the job just fine and would probably be much easier to work with than tungsten/steel alloys. I have never to my knowledge handeled a sword made with tungsten alloy steel.

I'm not a sword maker or expert in metallurgy, but I know a bit about swords. I hope it helps.

[Alain Boyer]

You should post your question on Bugei's forum in the metallurgy section. Chances are you'll get a reply from Howard Clark. Expert as he is, he's probably able to give you a good idea of what this metal is about.

Regards,

Alain Boyer

[Chip]

You also may want to post on the sword forum.

http://swordforum.com/main/

They have a forum called the bladesmith cafe. Howard Clark is there too. You will probably run into some of the same people on either one.