The young man, not understanding the intricacies of sword forging, frowned and asked with some confusion, "Why is that?"
"This isn’t something I can explain clearly in just a few words. Anyway, it can’t be repaired."
"Can I take a look?" At this moment, after observing for a while, Li Younan suddenly spoke up.
Everyone’s eyes turned towards Li Younan.
The young man looked at Li Younan with some suspicion, then handed his knife over to Li Younan.
Li Younan picked up the knife, looked at it, and then lightly scraped the blade with his finger.
This knife was an outdoor tactical knife, even larger than his long hunting knife, with a deep nick on the blade.
It was clearly not a handmade forged knife, but among industrially forged knives, it was relatively good. The material used couldn’t be identified by the naked eye, but it definitely wasn’t powder steel; it should be high-hardness stainless steel, slightly inferior to powder steel.
Li Younan handed the knife back to the young man and said, "It’s a good knife."
It wasn’t merely a compliment.
Even though, in terms of cost and craftsmanship, this knife couldn’t compare with his two powder steel hunting knives, it was still a top-quality industrially forged tactical knife, second only to powder steel.
The young man smiled at Li Younan, then looked at his knife, thinking seriously, and persisted in asking the silversmith, "Is there really no way at all?"
The old silversmith’s expression turned somewhat peculiar, and he patiently said, "Young man, you should trust my words. I actually used to be a swordsmith, but since our area doesn’t produce iron ore, I switched to silversmithing. This knife, once repaired, just won’t be usable."
The young man, still confused, asked, "Why is that?"
The old silversmith chuckled and asked, "Young man, do you know the steps involved in making such a knife?"
A young man nearby immediately replied, "I’ve often watched sword forging competitions. There are mainly two steps to making a knife: shaping and quenching."
The old silversmith glanced at the young man who interrupted, and said in less-than-perfect Mandarin, "That’s essentially correct. Since you’ve mentioned it, let me tell you about it."
"For shaping, you need to heat the knife with charcoal until it’s very, very hot, glowing red; at that point, the knife becomes very soft."
"Then you shape it. Once shaped, plunge it into water with a ’hiss’, and the knife hardens — that’s what you call quenching."
"And the reason this knife can’t be fixed lies in the quenching."
The old silversmith continued, "I used to forge knives in Kazuo; there, we forged knives using iron ore from the mountains."
"After many years of forging knives with that iron ore, I gained experience about how red the knife should be, and how quenching should be done."
"Later, when I moved to a new place and used the local iron ore, the knives either became too soft or shattered after two chops. Do you know why?"
The young man thought for a moment: "Is it because the iron ore is different?"
The old silversmith laughed heartily: "Exactly, it’s because the iron is different in the two places!"
"The quenching of different iron requires specific temperatures, which is quite particular."
He then pointed to the knife in the young man’s hand, "Your knife is a steel knife. Reshaping it is already tricky, and if you mishandle the quenching, it’ll either become brittle or soft, rendering it useless. So I said... it can’t be repaired."
Li Younan nodded slightly on the side. Even though the silversmith’s experiences came from personal practice without scientific accuracy, what he said was not far off.
The modern industrial knife-making process can be roughly categorized into four types: forged knives, stamped knives, CNC cut knives, and laser-cut knives.
Among them, stamped knives are the cheapest and lowest cost, mainly used to make blades for utility knives and fruit paring knives.
CNC cut knives are used to make precision functional knives, such as precision surgical knives, and their advantage is high precision and complex shapes.
Laser-cut knife technology is used to make thin-bladed knives for special industries.
Therefore, most commonly seen quality functional knives on the market are still primarily forged knives.
Industrial forged knives are divided into three forging processes: hot forging, cold forging, and isothermal forging.
The young man’s modern craft forged knife is made using a cold forging process, applying high pressure to the steel at room temperature without needing heating.
This forging process greatly preserves the steel’s original precision and hardness, which cannot be achieved manually.
This brings up an issue: once manual repair is attempted, any rise in temperature will destroy the knife’s inherent molecular structure, and during quenching, an ordinary smith surely can’t control the temperature accurately, inevitably affecting the knife’s hardness or toughness.
Of course, compared to handmade forged knives, industrially forged knives’ biggest advantage is stable quality, but that doesn’t mean handmade forged knives can’t reach the standards of modern crafted forged knives.
If the forging level were scored out of a hundred, the top modern craft forged knives could consistently meet a 90-point standard... just like Li Younan’s own two powder steel hunting knives.
Meanwhile, handmade forged knives, even those made by renowned swordsmiths, have some variability; today’s might be an 80-point knife, next time a 70-point, and the time after that an 85-point... Yet, handmade forged knives occasionally can reach 90, 92, 95, or even 99 points, surpassing industrially forged knives!
The odds are small, but the possibilities are limitless and fascinating.
That’s why handmade sword forging remains timeless and swordsmiths maintain their status.
However, this silversmith surely doesn’t possess such sword forging skills.
After leaving the silver shop, Li Younan took Liu Li for a walk around the town.
Liu Li bought an artisan Tibetan clothing piece in a clothing store. Unlike the authentic Tibetan robes worn by the real Tibetan people, it was light and colorful, which Liu Li liked very much.
They wandered for another two or three hours before returning to the car to continue their journey.
As the car just left the town, the road ahead became desolate.
At a riverbank, a few tents stood there, beside them parked a pickup truck, and coal fires were burning.
Li Younan slowed down, originally thinking someone was barbecuing there. But just as his car drove past, he glanced towards the coal fire and was astonished.
Next to the coal fire were the earlier three young men they met in the silver shop, and if he wasn’t mistaken, they were putting a long outdoor knife into the glowing coal fire.
Li Younan couldn’t help but roll his eyes and slammed on the brake.
Liu Li, who was drinking yogurt at that moment, ended up with it all over his face, then looked at Li Younan with a grievance.
But Li Younan had no time for that, shifted to reverse, backed up a bit, and parked the car on the side of the road.

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