Rolling Roman Iron for Segmentata Plates

[Hibernicus]

Sim has done some extensive research.... I believe that Beyond the Bloom, 1998, was based on his Doctoral Thesis. In it he seems to hint at rolling as a possibility.

The pressure needed to cold roll bar into sheet is high.

Could the Romans produce enough pressure to cold roll hand hammered sheet to thin it further inorder to harden it AND cause the effects he notes in the "grain" of the iron he's studied?

Conversations with others, in the past... that simpler methods for further shaping thin hand hammered (flattered) sheet say via a tool similar to an English wheel will not likely produce the "grain" Sim uses for his evidence of the possibility of rolling. Hand hammering does. It is possible that annealed sheet iron might show miscrosopic evidence of rolling in a tool like an English wheel.

I mention an English wheel because it is relatively simple to make and use. Its primary use is to put a curve into metal,(compound curves too!) by pressing the sheet between two wheels under pressure, one wheel being larger than the other. If the two wheels are essentially the same size you can elongate sheet.

It's frustrating.. I can get iron, have a load of it in the workshop, made some pilum from it! Making that seg and forge welding will now make it possible for me to finish it.

I'm not sure Sim can do more than say that rolling was a possibility... or that rolling was the likely method for fashioning the particuular sheet iron he studied. We'll see. Hurry up JRMES!!!

Mike, how about a preview???