Interested in Roman Riding?

[Robert]

I shall attempt not bore you with "iron-lore", but you can't "overtemper" a blade to make it brittle, because tempering is meant to reduce brittleness and normalise the iron to the desired strenght after the quench, which brings steel to its full hardness. So if you feel a blade is too hard (test it with a drill-bit for iron at not too great a speed and see if it bites), heating it redhot to the point when the iron is no longer magnetic (test with a magnet on a steel rod to prevent singing your fingers) and then allowing to cool slowly will make it a lot less brittle. What you are actually doing is annealing the blade. You do not need a blastfurnace for that, any long coal fire will do the trick. Why long? Well, that allows you to heat the whole blade at once to about the same temp. Having done that, the blade may bend, but will no longer break on impact, save for the spots I mentioned, but that is just bad construction.

Actually, mild steel is fine for making Roman blades to hit things with. This is less expensive then the EN45 steel manufactures in India are using now !! Heat treatment may be done to relieve stress after forging, but will not improve the hardness, as you need more carbon in the steel for that. A modest tool grade steel is beter for keeping a keen edge, but is not a steel prone to shatter.

I believe the Hod Hill spatha Adrian sells is by Al Hammd, DSC does not do blades as far as I am aware (no weapons licence), for if they did, I would be happy to help them correct at least these elementary mistakes (welding on tangs, thin shoulders). As for Deepeeka, I fear they couldn't care less, as long as it still sells ad: