10-27-2006, 10:25 AM
Hi Adrian and welcome. Unfortunately, your "simple alternative" is not so simple. Romans couldn't just wander into a hardware store and purchase a spool of wire.
In order to make a welded link you first need to create a bloom and beat it either into flat plate and cut off a strip for drawing, or you need to beat the bloom into a rod which is thin enough to pass through the largest hole in your drawplate. Then you need to create the wire - a laborious process involving repeated passes through successively smaller holes in the draw plate. Then you need to wrap the wire around a mandrel and cut off individual links. Then you need to beat the links flat. Then you need to forge weld them together.
Punched rings require two steps. Hammering (or rolling?) the bloom into a flat plate. Then punching out the rings.
This ignores the fact that wrought iron needs to be of better quality to be drawn into wire than hammering into plate. If there is too much slag or it is unevenly distributed, it is very difficult to draw through a drawplate.
It also ignores the fact that it is very difficult to hammer-weld a small iron ring. The anvil sucks out the heat too quickly. Steve Sheldon proposed an alternative method which makes more sense. The ring is held in the furnace with a pair of tongs and the tongs themselves are used to apply the pressure and create the weld.
It seems to me that the Romans were abiding by their stereotypical practical and efficient nature when they made punched rings ;-) )
In order to make a welded link you first need to create a bloom and beat it either into flat plate and cut off a strip for drawing, or you need to beat the bloom into a rod which is thin enough to pass through the largest hole in your drawplate. Then you need to create the wire - a laborious process involving repeated passes through successively smaller holes in the draw plate. Then you need to wrap the wire around a mandrel and cut off individual links. Then you need to beat the links flat. Then you need to forge weld them together.
Punched rings require two steps. Hammering (or rolling?) the bloom into a flat plate. Then punching out the rings.
This ignores the fact that wrought iron needs to be of better quality to be drawn into wire than hammering into plate. If there is too much slag or it is unevenly distributed, it is very difficult to draw through a drawplate.
It also ignores the fact that it is very difficult to hammer-weld a small iron ring. The anvil sucks out the heat too quickly. Steve Sheldon proposed an alternative method which makes more sense. The ring is held in the furnace with a pair of tongs and the tongs themselves are used to apply the pressure and create the weld.
It seems to me that the Romans were abiding by their stereotypical practical and efficient nature when they made punched rings ;-) )
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen & Sword Books
