RomanArmyTalk

Came across this webpage that has, at the very bottom of the page, a description that defines how Roman smiths worked. Question is, is it right or wrong?

http://www.sharpblades.net/

Quote:To extract water bubbles the ore was crushed into little pieces in an iron mill. Still the most harmful were oxygen impurities, they were able to cause blade crashing if some bubbles persisted after forging. To exclude oxygen content the ore was put in a furnace with charcoal. The furnace was sealed, in that way the oxygen needed for fire to burn was pulled from the ore. Thus, Romans obtained iron blocks which latter was hammered to become wonderful blades.

Don't go by that extract alone, but read the whole piece.

Sounds right. Couldn't swear to it, but it's generally the same way other peoples did the same function.

If you are interested in this subject then get Sim's book, "Iron for the Eagles".

I second Dan's comment. Iron for the Eagles is a great read!

The book's been mentioned many times and on my list for future reading, but I was really asking for your lot's opinion on that description's accuracy :wink:

Do a search for "bloomery" and/or "bloomery iron" and you'll probably get a better description. The text is describing, rather convolutedly, the bloomery process for producing iron, the common iron-producing process during the entire iron age and well into the high middle ages and beyond (depending on location). Elsewhere, as in japan, the tatara bloomery has been used until our times.

As far as I know, the romans got hold of steel from the bloom the same way everyone else did - by sorting the bloom by eye after cutting or crushing it into bits (The japanese seperate the bloom by dropping it into water - This might have been the case some places in Europe as well, but it doesn't leave much archaeological tracks). The carburization process described in the article is part of the bloomery process (I think...it is a bit confused). Other methods for carburizing wrought iron into steel available to the romans would be case-hardening or forge-hardening, but the precice appearance of those techniques are a bit uncertain.

Even Wikipedia has a better description than the cited page, though - look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomery .