Ask me about swords.

[wordwalker]

Excellent points, Malik. But I have to nitpick:

Volcanic glass worked fine until someone came up with something better suited to swordplay: copper. No one ever used a sword made of volcanic glass. Arrowheads and spearpoints and the occasional knife, but not a full-sized sword.

Not a sword made of one huge shard, but some central american tribes used wooden swords studded with obsidian shards. They had a very nasty high-powered slash, but tended to break or lose their "teeth" after a hit-- or, I guess, trying to beat their way past shields and things.

--That's another side of the question: how much of swords' weakness was that their edge got blunted after a few hits?

As for:

Modern swords are hardened differentially; the spine and tang is drawn back to a forgiving temper and the edges are hardened separately. This makes the sword flexible but still super-sharp with excellent edge retention.
...
The ability to differentially harden a blade didn't exist until the industrial revolution. Until then, all steels were a compromise.

The classic katana also used this method, by coating different parts of the blade in clay (the varying heat also gave it its bend). Not the same process or results as an industrial-age approach to it, but the principle was out there.

 

[Malik]

You are correct. I was going to mention both the things you brought up, but figured it would complicate the issue: "Why can't I have someone clay-forge a gran espee de guerre?" Kill me.

 

[Malik]

--That's another side of the question: how much of swords' weakness was that their edge got blunted after a few hits?

That was really the trick back then. There were no tools to truly determine the carbon content of a sword other than the "spark test," where you held steel against a grindstone. Steel sparks differently than iron, and to a degree you can tell the carbon content of steel by the spark, but it takes a practiced eye.

For those of you who don't understand steel, the short of it is that steel is a Goldilocks zone of carbon content in iron. We're talking about a few tenths of a percent -- usable steel for our purposes is in the rough range of .5% - 1% carbon -- and the exact "ideal" percentage of carbon in steel is still, to this day, a point of contention. When added to iron, carbon changes the characteristics considerably. This is why steel is awesome.

Before the invention of the blast furnace, the predominant form of steel was shear steel, which was made from baking iron bars in mounds of charcoal and then folding and hammering them to disperse the carbon (charcoal) throughout the metal. The problem was, this method was wildly inaccurate. Too little carbon and you have wrought iron, which is ductile (flexible); too much carbon and you get cast iron, which is brittle. (Cast iron is called cast iron because carbon lowers the melting point of iron; with enough carbon you can pour hot liquid iron into molds and "cast" it.)

There is no way to know if a sword you buy is wrought-iron, good steel, lousy steel, or cast iron until it either shatters, bends, or successfully gets you through a fight. Further, every smith would have his own "recipe" for steel, which would be a closely-guarded trade secret, so it's very unlikely you would know how they made their steel . . . or if it was steel at all. You're not going to take your new sword to a grindstone to find out.

Without blast furnaces, you cannot make sheets of homogenous, slag-free steel. You simply can't. Most plate armor was iron. So was mail; iron wire is far easier to make and sheet iron is far easier to punch and rivet. Plus, iron has ductility that steel does not; its ability to deform under a blow makes iron mail more practical (Edit: and easier to repair) than steel mail. Riveted steel will break. Riveted iron, however, will bend.

In my fantasy society, soldiers are paid in steel coins. Having a suit of mail and field harness built from shear steel would be like having a Ferrari made of hammered gold.

One alternative to shear steel was Damascus (or "Wootz") steel, which is iron and carbon folded many times. The folding is what gives it the pretty patterns. It is also ridiculously expensive because it is time-consuming. I was just reading recently that Damascus steel edges have been found to contain carbon nanotubes that make them super-sharp and immensely durable, not unlike the needle-like microcrystalline structures that result from Martensitic tempering of modern steel.

This wide variation in quality among otherwise indistinguishable swords -- and the jaw-dropping superiority of a sword that comes from a far-off land and has a stunning appearance -- is where legends of "magic swords" came from.

Some swords will dull, bend, or crack after a few blows. Some will seem nearly indestructible and their wielders unstoppable. Your protagonist won't know if their sword is a lemon until he or she gets into a real fight. One more reason that having an heirloom sword, proven in battle, was such a major deal throughout history. If it came off a battlefield in one piece once, it will likely do so again.

 

[Malik]

On that, tempering plays a huge role. Different qualities of steel with different carbon contents will result in radically different blade characteristics from the same tempering process; way too many variables to go into, here. But suffice it to say, a lot can go wrong and the flaws -- or strengths -- will be invisible until your life depends on your sword.

Think about this when your protagonist loses his or her sword, or it breaks, or whatever, as happens in fantasy so often. I envision a fighting man's attachment to a good sword that mirrors a man's attachment to a good dog. It makes me nuts when authors write about a hero getting another sword at the local smith in the next town, or worse, picking one up off a dead mook at random to replace his broken one. It doesn't work that way.

It would be emotionally damaging to have a battle-proven sword ruined or stolen, and anyone who fights for his life would be hesitant and uncertain when using a new sword. You're gambling with life, limb, and eyesight until that sword is proven trustworthy.

 

[wordwalker]

Here's another fun read on the basics: A Hammer with an Edge: Swords in Fantasy Literature | Apex Magazine

 

[Guy]

I disagree with what the article said about doing things in threes. Most sword traditions I've studied wanted to put the enemy down as quickly and efficiently as possible, not with a set number of moves; do what it takes. There's a concept called a single-time defense. It means defending and counterattacking simultaneously. For example, one guy executes a downward cut. His opponent responds by cutting up into his sword arm. Then there's the Japanese martial art of iado (sp?), which focuses on drawing and cutting the target in a single motion. Cultural influences on martial arts take a back seat to what works. Compare the stances in German longsword to those of Japanese longsword and you'll see more than a passing resemblance. Body mechanics are body mechanics, regardless of culture or period.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Just a question to check my facts and terms for accuracy. I have a character with a two-edged sword - the fuller is made of a fantasy metal of my own creation, Sidhe Steel, and the edges are regular modern steel. This forging method of combining two metals into one blade is called "pattern welding," correct? I know it's also the term used for creating the rippled pattern on steel, but is it was correct for both techniques?

Thanks!

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

I've always thought pattern welding only referred to the process developed to mimic the look of Damascus steel. Once the steel is acid etched, the ripples in the steel show.

There are modern blades similar to what you're referring to. The knife maker Kershaw makes a composite blade which is stainless along the spine but the blade is D2 tool steel bonded to the main blade body (flexibility, toughness, and hardness in mind). The model is called "The Rake" in case you want to look at images.

Stainless steels in sword blades are not very good though. Carbon steels are preferred. What can be done is a different tempering of the edges and the blade body, harder toward the edges and softer (more flexible) toward the center line. For an image of what I'm talking about, look to a Japanese hamon on a sword. The line is traditionally made by wrapping part of the blade in clay, protecting that portion from the extremes of heat during tempering. The result is a differing hardness/toughness scale for different portions of the blade.

Also the fuller is not actually a piece of metal. It is the groove, cut from between the two edges. The purpose of the fuller is to reduce weight.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Thanks for any help you can give me. This is so incredibly not one of my areas of expertise and I am a menace with what little information I possess!

So this is called a "composite blade," then? In the scene I have a POV character looking at it who is familiar enough with swords to know what everything should be called. Plus, the character wielding the blade is the one who originally forged it.

And, yes, the modern steel portion is carbon steel, not stainless. I love the idea of incorporating carbon nanotubes in both steel types for wicked sharpness and durability.

 

[Guy]

Just a question to check my facts and terms for accuracy. I have a character with a two-edged sword - the fuller is made of a fantasy metal of my own creation, Sidhe Steel, and the edges are regular modern steel. This forging method of combining two metals into one blade is called "pattern welding," correct? I know it's also the term used for creating the rippled pattern on steel, but is it was correct for both techniques?

Thanks!

This is essentially how Vikings made a lot of their swords. The edges would be steel while the core of the blade was iron. They got away from it once they figured out how to forge a monosteel blade.

Pattern weld, Damascus steel, wootz are all pretty much the same thing. Ecery society that has forged iron has developed some form of pattern welding.

 

[Malik]

Just a question to check my facts and terms for accuracy. I have a character with a two-edged sword - the fuller is made of a fantasy metal of my own creation, Sidhe Steel, and the edges are regular modern steel. This forging method of combining two metals into one blade is called "pattern welding," correct? I know it's also the term used for creating the rippled pattern on steel, but is it was correct for both techniques?

Thanks!

That's just plain welding. That's historically how most good swords were built, only with steel edges folded into iron spines.

Pattern welding is folding two or more metals together numerous times until the metals swirl together, making an alloy of sorts; also referred to as Damascus steel or Wootz steel.

Above is a close-up of a spearhead. The point is to your left. The pointy part in the middle is a wrought iron core which leads back to the haft. The iron core is flanked by pattern welded metal (this is what Damascus / Wootz looks like), which is in turn surrounded by a carbon steel edge. This is some intense welding.

This is a close-up of a section of a 9th-Century double edged sword. On the left half of this, you can still see that the center of the blade is made up of a herringbone pattern; likely iron bands twisted and hammered together. This would have given the blade some resiliency and "spring" that would equate to toughness and durability. You can clearly differentiate the steel where it was folded into the iron to make the edges. This is basic welding. (Well, it was super-advanced at the time, but it's "basic welding" as opposed to pattern-welding.)

 

[Malik]

One more. Tool-steel edges hand-folded into a spine of pattern-welded nickel-iron. Not pretty, but very authentically done. The 9th-C sword in the post above would have looked something like this in its heyday.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Just the man I was wanting to see! Thank you so much for the pictures, they're super helpful.

So, basically my character would just say the sword has been welded together, then?

 

[Malik]

That should work well. You might go into brief detail for those readers who think that historical sword blades looked like this:

 

[Malik]

If you're reading this and you don't know why that last picture is ridiculous, and haven't scrolled back through this thread: homogenous steel wasn't viable for European-style swords until the advent of heat-treating and differential hardening, which required science, which required the Renaissance, and didn't really get dialed-in until about 100 years ago. In fact, homogenous steel wasn't consistently possible until the invention of the blast furnace in the 1700's. We're still working on dialing in heat-treating steel. No joke; engineers have spent their entire careers working on it.

An all-steel sword in a "Planet England" fantasy setting would be outrageously expensive, and either be so hard it snaps on the first bad hit or so soft that it bends or dings against armor.

And mirror polishing? By hand? With the amount of work (and hence expense) that it would require, a polished steel warsword would be the medieval equivalent of owning a Bugatti.

But hey. You know. Use magic to treat your edges. Problem solved.

 

[Jabrosky]

I'm almost 1,000 words into a short story set in the late 17th century. My male lead is a English pirate privateer who escapes to a remote island with his girlfriend to escape Spanish pirate-hunters. This island has dinosaurs living on it, so my hero needs some kind of sword to defend himself (the girlfriend is an African sorceress who can use her powers for her own defense). I think in the climax he will fight a T. Rex.

What kind of sword available to 17th century privateers would best suit this purpose? My first pick was a rapier since that's the weapon I most readily associate with the time period, but I believe those were used mainly for man-to-man duels and so wouldn't work so well against a large and presumably thick-skinned animal.

 

[FatCat]

I'm almost 1,000 words into a short story set in the late 17th century. My male lead is a English pirate privateer who escapes to a remote island with his girlfriend to escape Spanish pirate-hunters. This island has dinosaurs living on it, so my hero needs some kind of sword to defend himself (the girlfriend is an African sorceress who can use her powers for her own defense). I think in the climax he will fight a T. Rex.

What kind of sword available to 17th century privateers would best suit this purpose? My first pick was a rapier since that's the weapon I most readily associate with the time period, but I believe those were used mainly for man-to-man duels and so wouldn't work so well against a large and presumably thick-skinned animal.

No expert here, but fighting such a physically imposing animal would be near-suicidal with a close range weapon like a sword. A spear, at the very least, would be needed to prevail, not to mention a bow/crossbow or the more lucrative idea of setting a trap. Either a pit with sharpened spikes or a bundle of heavy rocks dropping on his head would be idealistic. If you're dead set on a sword, I think at this point the style of sword becomes irrelevent outside personal satisfaction.

 

[Jabrosky]

No expert here, but fighting such a physically imposing animal would be near-suicidal with a close range weapon like a sword. A spear, at the very least, would be needed to prevail, not to mention a bow/crossbow or the more lucrative idea of setting a trap. Either a pit with sharpened spikes or a bundle of heavy rocks dropping on his head would be idealistic. If you're dead set on a sword, I think at this point the style of sword becomes irrelevent outside personal satisfaction.

I should note that the African sorceress is the proper protagonist at the time being, so perhaps she'll be the one to go up against the T. Rex instead. I'm working with a fairly loose outline at the moment.

 

[Malik]

There were heavy rapiers. Schlager still makes a fairly big rapier blade, with a diamond cross-section and zero taper past the ricossa until the last few inches from the tip, which makes it a wonderful slashing and chopping blade more than a stabbing blade. Heavy rapiers often had swept hilts, which made a cage of rings and branches around the hand. The weight of the swept hilt helped offset the forward balance of the blade. Inigo's Six Fingered Sword from The Princess Bride was represented in the movie as having a Schlager-type blade. It was a beast of a rapier.

EDIT: As mentioned, it would not, of course, take down a T. Rex.

 

[Kit]

If you really want to slice up the T Rex, how about poisoning a tempting carcass and then hitting him when he's sick?