gladius construction

[Anonymous]

Just hoping someone could ease my confusion. I have read that the romans did not have the metal working skills to make steel, other sources I have read say that they made their gladii from steel allowing for a hard, sharp edge.<br>
Thanks for your help <p></p><i></i>

[Crispvs]

The original way to make steel is by 'case hardening'. In this process, the forged iron object is placed in a surrounding mass of carbon rich material (normally charcoal I believe) in a forge. In the high temperature of the forge, carbon will seep gradually into the iron (this will make sense to anyone who remembers anything about basic chemistry) until the outer layer of the iron has become recognisable as steel, due to its new found carbon content.<br>
When talking about the production of Roman swords it important to realise that whilst some of them are of very high quality, many are not! Some blades, on being analysed, can be shown to have been case hardened all over, producing weapons with a consistantly hard outer surface. Some of these had been quenched in water whilst hot, which would have made them hard but also slightly brittle sometimes. Other blades had been hardened along the edges but not the centre of the blade, whilst others still had simply been queched without having been otherwise hardened at all. Some others appear to have been forged into the right shape and then just ground down to an edge without any attempt having been made to harden them at all. The best quality blades which have been found were made up of a series of iron and steel bars forged together side by side with steel bars outermost which would have had hard cutting edges but retained a good deal of flexibility otherwise. This type of blade is the forerunner of the 'pattern welded' blades common in the early middle ages which seems to have developed properly during the late Roman period.<br>
I hope this helps a bit.<br>
<br>
Crispvs <p></p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

Thanks alot Crispvs.<br>
you have just doubled my knowledge of roman sword constuction in one post (gotta love this site).<br>
P.S my chemistry recollections are vague at best. <p></p><i></i>

[derek forrest]

Dr David Slim at the Carlisle conference was pointing to the very low slag content of Roman iron which pointed to it being produced by a non bloomery process at high temperatures and of the same quality as found in the finest medieval armour. The armour was face hardened 140-110 of a nearly uniform thickness of .9mm +/- .2mm <p></p><i></i>

[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>
<br>
Crispvs <p></p><i></i>