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#1 |
Member
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Belgium
Posts: 37
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For a study, i should like to know the materials used in medieval times to forge pattern welded swords.
Perhaps a subject discussed before, but can anyone help me to find metallurgical information about the subject? Are there results available from research on unearthed swords? What are the materials causing the contrast in the coloring of the blade? |
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#2 |
Vikingsword Staff
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: The Aussie Bush
Posts: 4,138
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Seerp:
I'm going to send this one over to the European Armory Forum where you are likely to get more attention to this topic. Ian |
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#3 |
Member
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: FRANCE
Posts: 1,065
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#4 |
Member
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Europe
Posts: 2,718
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Hi Seerp,
This may help you - if not, I will try to dream up some other books. Sachse, Manfred:Damaszener Stahl.Verlag für neue Wissenschaft GmbH, Bremerhaven 1989. |
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#5 |
Member
Join Date: Mar 2012
Posts: 422
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You might find what you want in http://www.amazon.com/Sword-Crucible.../dp/9004227830 (and you'll find some of Williams's stuff in his papers online).
The simple answer is iron and steel, with the steel ideally having about 0.7% carbon, though this wasn't always achieved. Some surviving swords show a lot of contrast due to differential corrosion; when new, they were (at least sometimes) polished and showed very little contrast (IIRC, one source describes a sword blade being breathed on so that the condensation would show the pattern). For high contrast patterns, stain the blade (like keris blades). There's discussion of staining methods in al-Kindi's book, available in English translation: http://www.amazon.com/Medieval-Islam.../dp/0906094526 (though not European). |
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#6 |
Member
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Nipmuc USA
Posts: 495
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There is also the root url of this site that shares numerous articles.
http://www.vikingsword.com/ Cheers GGC |
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#7 |
Member
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Germany
Posts: 525
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"The simple answer is iron and steel"
It is not as simple as you may think, because they had dozens of different types of steel and iron without any industrial standard. The quality of the different types was also very different. It is also almost impossible to find out more about medieval european steel and iron, because we have no written sources from that period. Only one country in the world has a complete history of its steel manufacturing, Japan. |
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