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Post by Cybermortis on Nov 10, 2012 23:58:27 GMT
{I think there is enough information here to justify moving it to show ideas - CM}
I recall this being posted back on the MBFC as a show idea. But I think that at the moment I'll just make it a question for the Oracle.
Historically smiths have used a lot of liquids to quench swords in the belief that these liquids improved the quality of the sword.
Two of the more icky liquids I can think of were blood and urine.
I'm wondering if anyone A; Can recall any other liquids that were used. And B; Has any idea if these liquids were in fact 'better' than just using water.
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Post by the light works on Nov 11, 2012 0:20:47 GMT
I read a book in which it was said that the best quenching of a blade was in the belly of a drunken serf. I don't know whether there was any historical basis or it was just to make the antagonist seem that much more cruel. that would involve water, blood, and alcohol.
the knife books I read when I was interested in forging recommended used motor oil. - they said water cooled the blade TOO fast for optimum results.
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Post by freegan on Nov 11, 2012 0:57:40 GMT
Quenching in nitrogen rich materials, such as oil, blood, urine, dung and human captives, has long been practiced and modern metallurgy has shown that it produces a nitride surface coating to the metal, hardening its surface and producing a more resilient edge to the blade.
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Post by jphrisoulas on Nov 17, 2012 10:05:15 GMT
Freegan: Please cite your sources on the "human captives" cause a human body is not a "uniform quenching medium"..Plus..how do you get a butter soft blade to penetrate a body without bending like a pretzel??
Now the use of urine, both human and animal has been documented many times, same with blood..in fact I have done a significant amount of research into this some 25 plus years ago. It's mostly the salt in the liquid that makes the quench work.. Nitriding the surface takes a whole lot longer that the few seconds that it takes for a blade to cool, in quench.
TLW: that all depends upon the steel..oil hard steel will crack in a water (actually brine) quench while some water (brine) quench steels can harden in a very light oil...
Dr JP Hrisoulas
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Post by freegan on Nov 17, 2012 11:08:15 GMT
Freegan: Please cite your sources on the "human captives" cause a human body is not a "uniform quenching medium"..Plus..how do you get a butter soft blade to penetrate a body without bending like a pretzel?? Now the use of urine, both human and animal has been documented many times, same with blood..in fact I have done a significant amount of research into this some 25 plus years ago. It's mostly the salt in the liquid that makes the quench work.. Nitriding the surface takes a whole lot longer that the few seconds that it takes for a blade to cool, in quench. TLW: that all depends upon the steel..oil hard steel will crack in a water (actually brine) quench while some water (brine) quench steels can harden in a very light oil... Dr JP Hrisoulas Will this suffice? depts.washington.edu/matseed/mse_resources/Webpage/Metals/metalprocessing.htmRegarding the efficacy of the various methods of quenching, I shall bow to your expertise on the subject. Welcome to the Citadel and make yourself at home. |
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Post by jphrisoulas on Nov 19, 2012 17:29:57 GMT
Freeganm: The source you cited is a classic example pof the spreading of old wives talkes. There simply is no "hard" documentation of using captoives, slaves, virgins or otherwise for quenching. It is all hearsay. Now there are numerous cited and record incidents of criminals being used for sword testing ( usually this happened in Japan and the results of the test are inscribed upon the blade's nakago ).
As I stated the salinity of the quench makes the difference and you get pretty much the same results by using either common table salt, sodium chloride or sodium hydroxide (lye) in the proper proportions as well as quench starting temperature.
Urine, given all the minerals and other "stuff" in there does work and there are quite a few written documents mentioning the proper diet to be feed to goats ( ferns mostly) for the proper quality of urine, plus several mentions of using the urine from red heads.
So the use of "biological fluids" is true, using the human body is not.
JPH
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Post by Cybermortis on Nov 19, 2012 18:00:27 GMT
Thanks for the replies.
Out of interest how would you test (or could you test) the effectiveness of each technique? I ask because this was posted as a show idea at one time elsewhere, but I was never clear how to show the differences each quenching medium might have on a blade (or at least metal).
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Post by the light works on Nov 19, 2012 18:08:46 GMT
you would run tests of hardness, brittleness, ductility, and wear resistance, of course.
I see grant's sword swinging robot coming out of storage.
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Post by jphrisoulas on Nov 20, 2012 4:34:09 GMT
Hello:
The only problem is not all steels are created equal..you have air hardening, oil hardening, water hardening and some really weird ones like precipitation hardening steels so unless you want to just limit the experiment to one specific "family" of steels (and even then there are some "overlaps"..) you really couldn't make a fair comparison..
So take your pick..what steel with what HT??
JPH
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Post by Cybermortis on Nov 20, 2012 14:09:23 GMT
Now you see why I asked the question in the first place...  Could you test using a very 'basic' type of steel similar to what would have been produced during the middle ages? I'm thinking along the lines of creating multiple 'blades' using the exact same batch of steel, then reheating and quenching each of them using different techniques/liquids to quench them in. From there they could run their tests to compare the effect on each 'blade', and if one of them may prove to be better suited for a swordsmith. The alternative - making a literal sword using each technique - strikes me as time consuming, expensive and since we'd only be interested in seeing the effect on the metal unnecessary. (Especially if you wanted or needed to have spares so you could run multiple tests without having to worry about damaging or destroying each blade.) |
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Post by WebDragon on Nov 21, 2012 6:03:56 GMT
What the F !! Sorry, I just spent 1/2 an hour writing a disertation on metallurgy, comparing steel constituancy vs quench mediums, tempering and secondary treatments, the evolution of techniques over the past 1000 years... Suddenly, it all disappeared. Maybe I'll "re-contribute" another time.  {If you hit 'back' on most browsers you should be able to recover lost posts. A little late in this case, but something to keep in mind should it happen again - CM} |
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Post by jphrisoulas on Nov 22, 2012 7:13:58 GMT
Hello:
Cyber: The only problem here is that the materials used during that time period were very inconsistant and varied greatly in trace element content so there was no "standard" for steel or iron..as that came much later (late 19th Cent) so how can you even start to compare fairly?
Now if you want to take a simple carbon, shallow hardening steel with very little Mn (none would be ideal ) I would go with a 10XX series steel like 1060 or 1070 and work from there as they can be both oil and water (brine) quenched. Still there would be a lack of P in those steels that was present in a lot of the "old swords" that were examined....and P does play a part in all of this.
It would be interesting though..
Now if someone wanted to invest the time and effort in smelting and refining bloomery iron and then cementing C into it to make blister steel, and then further working that into shear steel, then that would be probably the best way to go about it.. But that is a whole lot of work...
JPH
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Post by Cybermortis on Nov 22, 2012 13:33:19 GMT
What about historical re-enactor's or 'living history' groups? Might not one of these groups have (or be able to make) a suitable smelter?
As you said I think this would be rather interesting, being both a mixture of history and science - and of course the added 'yuck' factor when they use urine or blood to quench a blade.
The concern I can see is an over reliance on experts. So apart from making the steel and pouring it into moulds could the rest of the process be done by the MB themselves? Could you simply heat the blades up and quench them in the shop after they'd be made elsewhere?
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Post by freegan on Nov 22, 2012 17:26:19 GMT
I don't know how dedicated medieval re-enactors are in the US but the UK group that I used to know used old Ford leaf springs as their raw material for sword manufacture; obviously not comparable to real medieval swords.
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Post by the light works on Nov 22, 2012 17:32:05 GMT
I don't know how dedicated medieval re-enactors are in the US but the UK group that I used to know used old Ford leaf springs as their raw material for sword manufacture; obviously not comparable to real medieval swords. here they tend to use steel cable. it makes a really pretty pattern welded blade. |
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Post by jphrisoulas on Nov 23, 2012 6:24:58 GMT
Helo:
I have done the making a "blade from dirt" many times and it is very labour intensive to get a decent material and every time I have I have gotten more or less (withing parameters) the same results..but the amount of material that would be required to make the dozen or more swords would be beyond my capabilities as in order for things to "be fair" all the blades should be made from the same smlt, refining and cementation and then made into shear steel and I am simply not set up for it. The most I can do without totally screwing the pooch is enough for two "average" swords at a time... THen again I am a one man opperation.
Still it would proove to be interesting to even be able to watch that much of a mass of steel to be be made. Oh it has been done 100 times over..look at those HUGE welded iron cannon in India..Man I would of loved to of seen those being made...
JPH
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Post by the light works on Nov 23, 2012 15:34:53 GMT
do the blades NEED to be sword sized? I would think large-knife sized would be adequate for testing.
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Post by Cybermortis on Nov 23, 2012 16:07:55 GMT
A large knife might be suitable for testing some elements of the idea, but I suspect they would want larger blades for impact testing or cutting tests. Maybe a Gladius (sp?) type blade would be a good compromise?
Just wondering, but if we are interested purely in seeing if the 'quality' of the metal is changed - rather than just if it makes a good blade - could we initially skip a few steps in the process? Could we, for example, just make one 'large' batch of metal 'blades' in moulds - smelt, pour, test - to get basic data on what each medium does to the metal. Then maybe take the most promising medium and make a much smaller number of swords from those?
I'm also wondering if it would be possible to take very cheap and low quality modern steels and add something to them so their chemical composition is comparable to steels that would have been produced at the date such techniques were in use?
Yes, I know that there was no such thing as a standard for steels for a long time, but if we limited the scope of investigation to, say, Europe we could pick the most commonly used source of iron ore for the period as a benchmark...couldn't we?
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Post by the light works on Nov 23, 2012 16:15:07 GMT
I would think one option would be to make a representative billet, and then select the grade of modern steel that was most metallurgically similar.
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Post by Cybermortis on Nov 23, 2012 16:41:19 GMT
Good thinking, in fact if they are having to do some research into how much blades were made they may as well take a trip to see it first hand - and of course film it for the show. They can, as you said, then use a completed blade as the benchmark both for the steel they need to produce and to compare their later blades against.
Of the top of my head here, but how much steel would you need to make a sword from? (Assuming they are melting down existing steels rather than trying to make it themselves)
From memory 'longswords' usually weight around 3 lbs, which doesn't seem that much metal even for a dozen swords.
I think what we need is a list of the potential medium they need to look at - the more disgusting the better I'd think. (Well, for the show...the cast may not agree when they have to deal with the stench of boiling pigs blood and urine....)
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