English blades

[fernando]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

... In forging steel in places in Europe there were instances of adding horseshoes which were from combat horses which had seen battle, and other similarly venerated items. Clearly these associations were irrelevant, but the iron from the horseshoe itself added carbon or whatever component was necessary to the metal forged and its quality...

News for me Jim. I had it as a fact that great Spanish barrel makers used ground beaten horseshoe ends to make excelent gun barrels but, such esoteric part on them having seen battle, i was not aware of !


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[urbanspaceman]

It was vital that the correct leaves and twigs were added to the crucible when making Wootz. Just adding charcoal/carbon didn't do it as there needed to be trace elements of Molybdemum, Vanadium and Chromium along with nanowires of cementite.
What is produced is a hypereutectoid steel which is hard, high carbon steel that remains malleable.
Contention exists over whether Wootz blades were quenched at all. It has been suggested that: "if high carbon Wootz is heated to the extent that a substantial amount of the carbides are dissolved, then upon quenching and tempering its microstructure would turn into a proverbial dog's breakfast with very uncertain mechanical properties".
Dr. John Verhoeven continues:
There is a general myth in some of the popular literature that genuine Damascus steel blades possess outstanding mechanical properties, often thought superior to modern steels. This idea was shown to be incorrect as long ago as 1924. A famous Swiss collector, Henri Moser, donated 4 genuine Damascus steel swords, one with a non typical carbon content and microstructure, to B. Zschokke, who performed extensive careful experiments including metallographic and chemical analysis in addition to mechanical testing. A series of bending tests compared samples from the swords to a pattern welded blade and a cast blade from the famous German knife center in Solingen. The 3 good Damascus blades showed significantly inferior bending deflection prior to breakage than the 2 Solingen blades in spite of the fact that the Brinell hardness of the 3 ranged from only 193 to 248, compared to 347 and 463 for the pattern welded and cast Solingen blade, respectively. This is not too surprising in view of the now well known fact that toughness of high carbon steels is inherently low; the Solingen blades had carbon levels of 0.5 to 0.6% compared to 1.3 to 1.9% for the 3 Damascus blades. The reputation of Damascus steel blades being superior to European blades was probably established prior to the 17th century when European blades were still being made by forge welding of carburized iron. It is hard to avoid embrittlement of such blades due to imperfect welding during the forging process as well as difficulty with the carburizing process.
Damascus blades: sharp... yes, but brittle.

[urbanspaceman]

My Shotley Bridge sword (which was actually forged in Solingen and brought over with the immigrants: it has a Passau Wolf along with the script Shotley Bridg; see images) is still fantastically sharp but also very flexible. I'm too scared to subject it to excessive bending but I suspect it would survive.
So, while the Germans adopted the Damascus skills, they progressed way beyond such Middle Eastern results.
It must have seemed like magic to those 17th century soldiers. I can not agree more with you Jim regarding the superstitions culture back then. These guys lives depended on the quality of their blades. Let's face it: a bent blade is as useless as a broken blade on the battlefield. Any magical help would inevitably be seriously desired.
Incidentally: the Blacksmith was always regarded as powerful against dark and demon elements and forces - and the smithy a place of safety. If he put a symbol on your blade you were definitely well off.

[urbanspaceman]

Note the very distinctive forge weld of the blade up at the forte and the gouge under the letter B in the softer metal.

[fernando]

A superstitious resource ... or no clock available ?
We may read in works like one of Ada Bruhn de Hoffmeyer that, time counting for blade tempering was done by saying prayers ... at least by Japanese and Toledans. Could it be that, equivalent to 'modern' clock, their available resource was the one they have achieved with then primary (unique) culture; religion.

In Libro de Alexandre it is mentioned that an outsanding blade was tempered ten times.


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[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by fernando

A superstitious resource ... or no clock available ?
We may read in works like one of Ada Bruhn de Hoffmeyer that, time counting for blade tempering was done by saying prayers ... at least by Japanese and Toledans. Could it be that, equivalent to 'modern' clock, their available resource was the one they have achieved with then primary (unique) culture; religion.

In Libro de Alexandre it is mentioned that an outsanding blade was tempered ten times.


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This is absolutely fascinating Fernando! and while I had always been aware of superstition and 'dark forces' (occult not evil) at play in forging of metal and blades, I had not realized the religious aspects.

Considering the profuse representations of religious invocations and phrases in inscriptions on blades, this seems perfectly placed.
Thank you again for sharing all this valuable information.

[urbanspaceman]

The issue I was opening for debate is that Wootz may not have been tempered.
This seems like a contradiction to everything we have come to understand about blade forging.
Are there any blacksmiths or metallurgists out there?
I think if it was to be tempered and quenched then the temperature will have had to have been very accurately controlled, so some form of clock was a must, or great accuracy in the colour of the metal, which I thought was how the Japanese did it.

[Peter Hudson]

Originally Posted by urbanspaceman

My Shotley Bridge sword (which was actually forged in Solingen and brought over with the immigrants: it has a Passau Wolf along with the script Shotley Bridg; see images) is still fantastically sharp but also very flexible. I'm too scared to subject it to excessive bending but I suspect it would survive.
So, while the Germans adopted the Damascus skills, they progressed way beyond such Middle Eastern results.
It must have seemed like magic to those 17th century soldiers. I can not agree more with you Jim regarding the superstitions culture back then. These guys lives depended on the quality of their blades. Let's face it: a bent blade is as useless as a broken blade on the battlefield. Any magical help would inevitably be seriously desired.
Incidentally: the Blacksmith was always regarded as powerful against dark and demon elements and forces - and the smithy a place of safety. If he put a symbol on your blade you were definitely well off.

Hello Keith, I have just-re read your excellent book on the swords of Shotley Bridge and I recall a while ago you were actually in Solingen searching their archives most thoroughly ! The sword you illustrate is in my opinion extremely rare .. Regards Peter Hudson

[urbanspaceman]

Hello Keith, I have just-re read your excellent book on the swords of Shotley Bridge and I recall a while ago you were actually in Solingen searching their archives most thoroughly ! The sword you illustrate is in my opinion extremely rare ..

Hello Peter. I will get a new copy of the book to you soon. It has not been officially published yet, nor proof read and edited, as it is intended as a companion piece to the BBC documentary - if it ever gets made what with this dammed virus hanging everything up.
In the meantime, I continue to amend and augment the book as more and more details surface, even after six years of research.
I have had the book privately printed for interested parties who are content to accept it in its present form - which is actually a far more luxurious product than the official publication will be.
The sword is the one from the cover of David Richardson's famous book and is in exemplary condition: they are very, very rare, for reasons explained in the book.
It belonged to Hon. Thomas Watson-Wentworth, son of Edward Watson 2nd Baron of Rockingham. It passed to his son of the same name: 1st Marquess of Rockingham who had a custom-made mahogany casket to put it on display when he built Wentworth Woodhouse (see below). Even he did not know the full story of the sword and described it as Shotley Bridge circa 1680 on the plaque.

[urbanspaceman]

I made a mistake... my sword is not the Wentworth-Woodhouse sword.
The casket is as described, but the sword is in the possession of the Royal Armouries.
It is virtually identical to mine except the binding is missing.
As I said earlier, the information just keeps creeping in.
Now I have to find out where my sword came from.
My apologies.

[Jim McDougall]

I just wanted to say in agreement with Keith, Fernando's outstanding insight into Toledo steel production as shown in the excerpts he has added is most helpful.
While it has been noted that the work of blacksmiths and blade forgers has often been portrayed by writers as regarded somewhat fearfully by people as having them in league with the forces of darkness (evil, magic, etc)...this information illustrates that religious aspects were at play in many cases.

The integration of prayers and the timing in accord with the observation of the metal being worked certainly would have been in place in these processes.
This seems well supported by the inscriptions, markings which are often placed on the blades, which while with religious and pious themes, also used symbols and devices associated with 'magic'.

Though Spanish steel was much celebrated, it was never as far as I have known, ever exported. While of course, India furnished the fabled watered steel to the Middle East and parts of the orient, it was not known in Europe.

While these centers in Europe, and England ,often had good resources for raw materials, it was more effective to purchase the high quality ingots of steel from Sweden to forge blades. This is not to say that smelting and processing did not take place in these locations, there was a notable dependence on the Swedish steel to augment their supply.

[urbanspaceman]

Originally Posted by urbanspaceman

I made a mistake... my sword is not the Wentworth-Woodhouse sword.
The casket is as described, but the sword is in the possession of the Royal Armouries.
It is virtually identical to mine except the binding is missing.
As I said earlier, the information just keeps creeping in.
Now I have to find out where my sword came from.
My apologies.

Just to keep the record straight I have found and supply an image of the mistaken sword.