Hey Mister Mag... Cool! Though... I do already have a copy of Talhoffer. Haven’t gotten to it yet. But Hans Talhoffer is certainly one of the reference standards. I know that it’s good stuff just from the comments I’ve seen on it from others so far. I’ll be getting to that soon.
Right now I’m still studying Liechtenauer and Ringeck, more or less in parallel, but Talhoffer is supposed to be an excellent companion to those.
Good choice if you want a primer in the use of the sword.
Speaking of iron and steel:
I think we often underestmate the metallurgical skills of our priors. Of course in this last century we’ve advanced metallurgy far beyond what our ancestors could possibly have done. But they did some pretty impressive stuff back then, too. Only lately have we figured out what “damascus” steel really probably was. And we have precious few examples left from those days. Steel just doesn’t survive after that many centuries. Bronze does. That’s why we have more hilts in museums than blades. The hilts were often bronze, and the blades were steel. Steel just dissolves over those centuries. Bronze lasts.
But for example, the concept of folding a steel blade many times and reforging and re-pounding the layers into one piece perhaps 300 layers deep has been around in Europe for far more than a thousand years. There are 8th and 9th century Viking swords made in this way that have survived. Those guys travelled. And they bought stuff.
But don’t tell that to the Japanese samurai dudes.
:-)
I watched a special on Nova about making Japanese swords the old way, in modern Japan. There's only one ironmaker who makes a batch of iron for the "artisan" swordsmiths each year. Ore from one particular location has just the right amount of "other" trace elements to make a superior steel. He builds a single-use blast furnace, and works 48 hours straight to produce the melt. Then the furnace is busted open, and he hands out chunks of "hard" and "soft" iron to the lucky smiths.
They then build these ragged pieces into bars by heating and hammering them together. A piece of soft iron is wrapped around the hard iron, and a soft iron tang is hammered onto one end. After that it's heat-hammer-shape many times until the sword blank is heated one last time and hardened by the dunk into cold water (oil would work better, but they didn't have oil). The differing properties of the hard core and soft backing produces the curve of the blade.
I think it was the differential tempering that set Japanese swords apart. That left the cutting edge crystal hard, while everything else got softer and more flexible. I think it took longer to polish and sharpen the blade than it took to forge it.
And I guess there's a lot of interest in swords in Japan even today. Of course, the "artisan swords" are never sharpened. They're there only to admire the skill of the smiths, and those who produce the elegant and expensive decorations. Martial arts groups use unsharpened aluminum swords. I takes a special government license to possess "live steel".
I also notice, from my time at Nissan, is the Japanese (at least the engineers) are fascinated by our "gun culture". Those with green cards buy guns like us folks. Those on temporary visas learn to hang around Japanese or Americans who own guns. For all I know, when they go back home, they probably denounce us to their fellow citizens as "clinging to their guns and religion". Where have I heard that before?