gladius construction

[Crispvs]

David Simm told me that he thought that the hardening of only a single face of the armour scale which he demonstrated might have been achieved by putting two scales back to back and then encasing them in clay of a consistant thickness. When this was placed in the forge the carbon would gradually penetrate through the clay and into the outer surfaces of the scales. The experienced smith operating the process would have a good idea of how long the carbon would take to penetrate to the iron surfaces and would remove the clay billet from the forge before the carbon could penetrate right through the scales, thus combining a flexible back with a hardened front. He said the only problem with this was that he had not seen any evidence to date of the baked clay fragments which the process would, by necessity, have produced in large numbers. I hope I have not earned his lasting emnity by posting this in a public place.<br>
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Crispvs <p></p><i></i>