Legio IX Fire blued Segmentata

[santell]

Legio IX has some interesting pictures on their site of segmentata that they have put together with a hammered finish and heat bluing. Anyone have any thoughts as to the authenticity of this? I have never examined actual plates up close, do they have hammer marks or were these polished out? Polishing would have removed the blue color also so what do you think? They do look nice though!

Juan Santel

[scythius]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheLegioIXHispanaGroup/

You may need a Yahoo profile to access.

[Matthew Amt]

Avete!

Haven't we had a couple big fights about blued loricas already? As I recall, there is no evidence that armor was blackened or blued, but lots of evidence that it was bright, shiney, or even tinned sometimes.

I'd certainly agree with a surface that isn't perfectly smooth like modern rolled steel, though yes, some hammer marks would be removed in the finishing process. There are surviving brass and bronze helmets that show hammer and spin marks, so they clearly weren't too bothered by that, but most iron pieces have corroded enough to eliminate the original surface.

Valete,

Matthew/Quintus, Legio XX

[FlaviusCrispus]

Avete, IX Hispana amici!

Sorry, I'm having trouble locating the images of the hammered / blued segmentata. Which photo file is it in on the Yahoo site?

Also, are these segs made from sheets hammered out from ingots of iron or steel, or are they sheet steel which has been given a hammered appearence?

[santell]

It's the photo file labled "A Segmentata Album" Should be the first one.

[Hibernicus]

The pics are of hammered mild steel. 18g

The steel is significantly harder/stiffer than the unworked sheet steel and are far more resistent to edged blows.. had to hack at a piece didn't we?

The look is remarkably like that of the iron sheet I've produced on the charcoal/coal forge with the exception that the forged blackening is deeper into the metal.

It takes 15-20 hours to hammer mark a mild steel seg by hand, about the same to it takes to make one! We're building a treddle hammer to speed the process up and guesstimate that it'll take about 3 hours to hammer mark a seg.

My iron segmentata is still a few months off. Moving into the new workshop has put a few projects behind schedule. I've resheduling work on the iron seg in order to complete it by October. There's a regional SCA war during which I'll use it. Can't wait to see how it holds up under simulated combat!