I am working on making a Mainz style gladius and have a few questions. I would like to use the stock removal technique and want to know what steel is as close as I can get to being an average of what would have been available at the time. I know that the carbon content was not homogenous and that blade quality varied from terrible to pretty good. Carbon (.15-1.5%) My main concern is balancing blade accuracy with easy of manufacture (hence stock removal). What is a good healthy average? I basically want to make a very historically accurate blade using steel as close to the originals as I can get. I am willing to compromise by buying commercially available steel instead of trying to recreate it. It will be a wall hanger that sees little abuse but I want it to be accurate.
I want to pattern the blade after the Sword of Tiberius specifications by Jim Bertagnolli that I found at https://sites.google.com/site/historical...on-gallery. I am also thinking a round pommel but with a hilt like the #1 on the aforementioned site under the "hilt components" pdf. Bone handle, octagonal shape, brass butt jointed on top of the guard. Not sure of the wood to use. Any recommendations for steel types, historically accurate wood, pommel nut washers, handle carvings etc.? Anyone know what the Romans used for final blade grinding/ wood sanding?
If it turns out well I might even make a scabbard.
John.
I don't know where your picture of the Tiberius blade came from but it is not exactly correct in its shape for there are no sharp angles to the blade one third the way up from the point it is indeed a gentle curve.
Here is a picture of one of the many that I have done of this sword over the years, this is more to the smooth edging of this particular sword that is needed.
[attachment=10020]tiberius.jpg[/attachment]
Unfortunately Brian some people are interpreting the curved side as a result of corrosion, it seems.
I still prefer the gentle curve myself! Nice to see you posting photos with gusto!
Visne partem mei capere? Comminus agamus! * Me semper rogo, Quid faceret Iulius Caesar? * Confidence is a good thing! Overconfidence is too much of a good thing.
[b]Legio XIIII GMV. (Q. Magivs)RMRS Remember Atuatuca! Vengence will be ours!
Titus Flavius Germanus
Batavian Coh I
Byron Angel
I can't see the images posted on my mobile phone so will only comment on my drawings.
I had originally put in the curvature that appears in the British Museum images but had found that most accepted opinions claim the Mainz points to be straight sided. Also that, as stated above, the seeming curvature is due to high corrosion. It is after all more rust than steel.
I think it is difficult to say with certainty and have thought about putting both in my drawing as either could be correct. The hilt hardware is of course pure conjecture so other examples would have to suffice.
Although I put many grip styles in my drawings generally i would avoid square grips and stick to round, hex or octagonal. Square grips are mostly a modern aberation or what some would even call abomination. I have never seen a straight cornered square grip in archaeological finds. Mainly they appear on Deepeekas.
Thanks for the input guys, I really value it. Jim big thanks for the drawings easily the most helpful thing I have found for actually trying to make one and for tang and handle variations. What type of steel or is it a crapshoot trying to guess? Definitely going with the octagonal grips.
Glad you are finding the drawings useful John. You said you were only making a wall hanger so I would think mild tool steel would be okay. It can be moderately hardened and is easy to find.
As for stock removal the quickest way I've found is to use a belt sander. If you don't have access to one an angle grinder works well. The blades I've made I used the belt sander to rough it out and grinder to get close. After that it's sandpaper and polishing to get whatever finish you desire.
If you harden and temper it then that's done before final grinding and polishing I think. Check with Robert Wimmers or some of the other very talented smiths on here. They are much more experienced than me. Good luck with your project.
Just be aware that mild tool steel is fairly low carbon but cheap and plentiful and makes a good wall hanger. I wouldn't want to give it any serious abuse which the better steels can take (like EN45 spring steel or similar).
The drawing of hilt styles is a bit of a hodge-podge of possible styles and not any specific find or period. For a Mainz I think a round pommel would also be okay though the football shaped one seems to be very suitable and common for a Mainz as pictured above in Brian's example. Any input on this from the others on here might be helpful or directly ask someone more knowledgeable than me.
I might go with a better steel. I will draw up a few designs and then post them to get some feedback. Can you buy better steel in 1/4" x 3" flat stock?
Quote:Glad you are finding the drawings useful John. You said you were only making a wall hanger so I would think mild tool steel would be okay. It can be moderately hardened and is easy to find.
Jim
Isn't our mild steel closer to what was available back then than our "normal commercial grade steels?"
I seem to have this discussion quite a bit with archaeologists when I take my repros to presentations at the Penn Museum. Most of my swords have the better modern steel, yet it is my "wall hanger" blades that appear to be closer to Roman iron/steel.
Definitely 1/4 inch (6mm) John and Max width 70mm for the finished blade at the base, Get whatever steel suits you and you will be happy with. The steel I have I only have because it was free. The plant I worked for was a food production facility and they banned the use of anything other than stainless due to plain steel needing painting which would then flake off and cause product contamination. So all the steel laying outside on the rack turning to rust became free for the taking. I had to flap disk the steel a lot to get rid of the pitting. I mark the steel outline with a marker then used a cutting disk to get the basic shape. On the Mainz I cut the sides straight then worked the side curvature in after getting close to a finished profile. One small hint on using an angle grinder and flap disk is that it's easy to turn a diamond profile into a hollow ground if you run it up the length with the centreline of the disk at the midline of the blade half. Make sure you work it back and forth side to side. Stop a lot and try to keep the spine straight.
Do you have someone to harden and temper the blade or are you doing it yourself? I may attempt to harden one of mine but haven't yet attempted it. I don't have a forge so would possibly use a torch. Let's just say it won't be an expensive risk lol. The steel I have is probably tool steel but in a few instances where I had over heated the metal and cooled it the steel got pretty hard and difficult to grind so maybe it isn't as low a grade as I think.
Brian,
When making my drawing I scaled the high resolution Tiberius image from the British Museum to the correct length and created a polyline in Autocad to match the blade profile on one side then mirrored it to create the full blade. I thought this would be the best method of getting the proper dimensions and the resulting blade outline very closely matched the image when overlaid. Any further tweaking or notes came from descriptions and opinions from multiple sources. It was the descriptions that caused me to straighten the point from my original lightly curved point. Anyway that's how my final drawing was done for the Tiberius. That's a nice looking sword you made.
Quote:Isn't our mild steel closer to what was available back then than our "normal commercial grade steels?"
You're right Joe. The Roman steels from what I know varied greatly in quality. Some had soft cores with hard edges. Some were soft iron throughout. The quality was all over the place and even our cheap steels are better than the average used then though some of the Roman steel was quite good. Some of the other guys may know more specifics or might disagree with me. I think that steel by the Viking era was so good that even now it's hard to beat.
Steel used for a replica is really just whatever the maker prefers and some of the replicas made by many of the people here are of a quality that emperors would have been proud of.
Jim
Thanks for the updates, Jim. I think I will go the cheaper route to start with and then make a second blade if the need arises. I do not have a forge or anything but do have a fair amount of power tools. Why would you hollow grind a Mainz blade? I thought they are diamond profiled. I am sure I will use that tip later though.
Sorry if I wasn't clear. You want a straight diamond profile. That was a caution above so as to avoid hollow grinding. I have done quite a few and even the flap disk will start hollow grinding if you go in a straight path up the blade. Hollow grinding isn't a bad thing on some blades but nothing Roman for sure.
My apologies if I sounded like I wanted you to hollow grind. Working off my phone sometimes makes it hard to see a whole paragraph at once.
Okay thanks for the clarification. I have trouble on my phone too. I will hopefully post some final designs this weekend. I drew out a full size one but need to scale it down again.
