Rolling Roman Iron for Segmentata Plates

[Cerco 21]

I fear that I'm already boring you...

Not one bit! I enjoy learning such tidbits.

Another helpfull thing to know, one I imagine a series of smiths learned the hard way, is that after cold bending metal you'll get a stress acumulation over the "bent" part, this stress can be relieved by re-heating the metal, however re-heating will cause the crystaline structure to change again, so you'll need to do a new heat treatment, new tempering etc. If you don't relieve thoses stresses the part will be very fragile were it was worked.

There are 2 very interesting books called "Engineering in the Ancient World" by J.G. Landel and another called "Engineering the Ancient World" by Dick Parry (notice the almost same title). In them you can find several photos, diagrams and interesting and usefull information.