12-31-2014, 03:55 PM
Quote:so, for not hijacking the "roman edged weapons" thread any more, I begin a new one here.
heat treatment of steel (I will use the word steel in the whole, because all we talk about here is steel by chemical definition: "an alloy of iron with other elements, mainly carbon") only makes sense and has an effect if there is an amount of carbon higher than ~ 0,4% contained in the steel. Steel with carbon below that can be quenched and tempered as often as you want, there will be no effect of hardness, flexibility or anything else.
I sure agree that what Philon describes here is a blade which was correctly heat treated, but this effect is not possibly in a blade made in a composite construction with mainly soft steel used and steel with more than 0.4%C used only for the cutting edges. such constructions and weaker ones are the mass of the blades examined for a long timeframe.
See bold. Then the conclusion is the swords with iron blades with low carbon content couldn't be made to be flexible, nor could they be hard. So these might be the crappy swords even Polybius discusses that were commonly bending. Meanwhile, those iron blades that were case hardened on the edges, or pattern welded, or made with quality iron, and then heat treated, could be made to be flexible (as stated by Philon).
XorX wrote:
well, you can`t take originals and bend around a bit to see what happens, but I`ve made some reconstructions the last years using different original shapes and different proven composite techniques and period materials e.g. different welded steels. tests showed that these blades perform exactly as physical laws and the characteristics of the materials let suppose (see: "Die römische Armee im Experiment")
So other than your own recreations, how do you know that Roman era blades weren't springy? Any iron blade with blade edges that had been case hardened can have been tempered to make it flexible. As demonstrated in numerous finds, the carbon content of Roman swords and where the carbon was concentrated varied immensely, as would there quality of construction.
However, if you have a sword with proper steely iron makeup (which there is evidence of), how can you be sure it wasn't heat treated? It is because you just don't think a gladius needed to be flexible or is there something else? As previously stated, Philon knew all the way back in the 2nd Century BC that some people (Celts) considering a good sword one that was highly springy. Now considering that Celtic ironsmithing heavily influenced the Romans, and that there are numerous examples of Gladii with med. carbon blades, where are you getting the idea that the Romans didn't have the ability or desire to have any springiness in their swords?
XorX wrote:
This level of springiness was not the norm up to the 10th century, it was something special. the known forms of composites to make blades are mostly not able to provide such flexibility, but a blade made from a single bar of quite high-carbon-steel is. because it can be hardened and tempered. there are some blades of this type throgh the ages, but it was never a mass of them.
What were the Celts doing to their blades that allowed only them to have springy swords? Did not the Iberians also have the capability to produce well made swords? What about the great iron workers of Noricum (Iron Road), where the Romans are known to buy their iron for sword construction?
XorX wrote:
]mass production of single-bar-swords begins as late as ca. 900 a.d.. a good example are the non-patterned ULFBERHT-blades
From the 3rd Cent BC to the 1st Cent. BC, 40,000-125,000 Romans would serve in the legions every year. Every one of them was armed with a sword. An equal or higher amount of Latins and Italians served yearly with the Romans, they too were all armed with swords. Meanwhile, their enemies, the Celts, the Iberians, the Hellenics, etc., most of all the warrior types also had swords. Are you stating that the ancients didn't have the ability to mass produce swords?
In a case of the Romans, when by the 1st Cent. BC, the state was responsible for providing arms, I doubt the standard gladius issued out would be a perfected constructed sword, with a perfect carbon content and perfect heat treatment. It didn't need to be. However, if a soldier wanted quality, they could just pay for it themselves. In that case, the technology to make quality swords had already existed.
XorX wrote:
flexibility is not necessary for the use of a cutting sword. best example everybody knows of are traditionally made katana: they have a superhard edge, tough sides and a soft core. when improperly used, they bend, some of them even crack in the cutting edge in such a cause.
there are some composites in katana blades which are a bit stiffer, but none of them provides flexibility like a spring. they aren`t even able to do so because most of the blade doesn`t contain enough carbon to get a proper heat treatment. springiness normally is achieved by hardening a complete bar and then tempering it.
The techniques used to make katana blades were completely different then weapons grade iron weaponry in ancient Europe/Mediterranean area of the classical period. The iron material (iron sand) was different, different furnaces (Tatara), different blade design (sandwich different grades of steel), and lastly, used completely differently. So I don't expect two different sword types, separated by a 1,000 years and half the distance of the world to be similar.
XorX wrote:
So: no carbonno hardeningno temperingno flexibility
Did examples of Roman swords not have carbon? Yes. Is there evidence that they didn't case harden? Yes Did they not temper? Yes If they did all those things, and they did, then they were flexible. Just like Philon says.
