Posted on 02/04/2024 8:56:59 AM PST by Eleutheria5
Step-by-step time-lapse video of how to make a Roman sword from what appears to be leaf stock.
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
Home Depot had replica William Wallace (Mel Gibson Braveheart) swords for $49.95, but I’m pretty sure they’re sold out.
The end product is probably fine. I’m sure the Japanese Smiths had fine products in their day. That’s not debateable.
It’s just that the more time you have to fold the metal, the less products you can create. I suspect that European swords were cheaper to make because they could output more swords. If I had to buy a sword in Europe or Japan, given a choice, I’d probably buy a European sword for that reason.
Europe did have higher quality steel into the Middle Ages, but the Japanese developed a lot of advanced forging techniques to compensate. In the end, European swords tended to be lighter and springier.
Just buy one at Cal Ranch. They’re not expensive.
What I’m interested is basically the ultimate material for swords. The best material that I’ve been able to find is 5160 steel. I’d love to know if there was something better than that.
One recurring theme I keep hearing is that there is no “perfect” steel. It all depends on the intended use, balancing toughness and hardness, and how much you want to pay. But 5160 is very popular for swords and machetes because it’s tough and springy. A lot of makers use it.
Thanks!
That would be true in principle, but we are living in the age of designer metals so that may not be as true as it used to be when you were limited to finding the best possible steel.
I prefer polymer battle swords, they are invisible to the metal detectors at airport security.
Again, it’s all about intended use. For a short sword that doesn’t require flex, you can even go with modern particle metallurgy super steels. But on the more practical side, even plain steels today are better than they had in the Middle Ages.
The ancients had no idea as to this "concept." All they were doing was following a process that had been discovered by accident and then handed down for generations. Take ore from a certain mine (which undoubtedly was of a composition that suited to the process), then smelt it and forge it in a certain fashion, and you had a product that was "tougher" than most other irons.
There was a Bronze Age iron works in Anatolia (ca. 2000 BC) where a few steel objects have been found but these probably were just lucky flukes.
That's why some of the finest weapons from that era were made from meteorites, because iron meteorites usully also have a smidge of nickel. The stuff was so rare and valuable that the buried King Tut with a meteorite dagger.
The Chinese were quench-hardening steel by about 400 BC. By 200 BC they were tinkering with blending wrought iron with cast iron for better hardness. They had no idea of the underlying chemistry but what they were doing (without realizing it) was optimizing the carbon content of the finished product. It bears mention the Chinese also invented gunpowder by accident while trying to invent the elixir of life.
The Japanese method was born out of necessity because the Japanese islands have no sources of iron ore, only iron-bearing sands. It took an elaborate process that required decades to master to produce even a mediocre ore (unless I'm mistaken, the Vikings also had a similar problem but never came up with so elegant a solution).
The methods got more refined over the centuries and the product became more consistent but it wasn't until the early 18th Century that the element carbon was identified. That introduced science into steel-making and a bit more than 100 years later someone finally devised a scientific method for repeatedly, predictably and precisely controlling the amount of carbon in the steel.
The Romans knew how to make steel and they did. They just didn’t make it mass quantities because it was too expensive for them.
I’m not claiming to the degree they had the process refined. Our steel is superior that was made in the past, including the Turkish Wootz steel.
I just said they knew how to make it, but it was very expensive for them. I’m also not claiming the quality of the steel they made, just that they knew how to make it.
https://worldhistoryfaq.com/did-the-romans-have-steel/
Why go to the trouble when you can pick up one from a Farm and Ranch store like Atwoods. Only 44 dollars.
I think I can corroborate that because I read an article about it in Scientific American around that same time. What they call “Damascus steel” today is really just pattern-welded, imitation Damascus. The method was lost because it was held so proprietary that when the people who knew how to make it died, they didn’t pass the secret on. And only recently did they find out what the material was composed of. A carbine lattice, strewn throughout the steel.
Carbide lattice, that is.
How’s the heft?
A pizza joint where I worked circa 1970 had giant knife for cutting pies. Some local guy used to make them out of leaf spring stock and shop them around to restaurants.
That knife held a great edge and was easy to sharpen. It also would have made an excellent weapon of war.
I hunted for the Paul Harvey segment and found this instead:
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/wootz-damascus.987857/
“Wootz? Damascus?”
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