Hank Reinhardt's The Book of the Sword (7 page)

As with many things, we do not know who first developed pattern welding. We do know that it was in use from at least the 2nd century AD, and continued up until about 900 AD. There are at least two Roman swords that we know were pattern welded after modern spectrographic analysis of the swords. These date from the 2nd century, and the workmanship on both is quite good, so it's clear the technique was around well before that. There are many swords dating from the 10th century that were pattern welded.

Pattern welding developed when it was found that if long thin bars of iron were placed in a container filled with charcoal and heated up red hot you got a steely iron. This is essentially case hardening. However, if you do this several times, then the iron bars became steel, with a good amount of carbon. The smith would take a few of these iron bars, wind them around each other and forge out a blade. Then additional steel bars would be forge welded to the edges and the point. After being filed to final shape it would be hardened and tempered.

The forging would cause carbon migration from the steel bars to the iron bars, and if there was a sufficiency of carbon to start with, you ended up with a good, tough blade. But as you can easily surmise, a lot could go wrong. You might not have enough carbon to start with or, even if you do, it might leach out. This is where a very good smith was quite important, and why his reputation was his livelihood. A good smith did everything he could to assure that the swords he made were as good as he could make them. One thing he did was use the best ores he could get.

Iron ore comes in many forms. Bog iron was a very impure ore that contained all sorts of inclusions, such as phosphorus, arsenic and sulfur, that made it very difficult, if not impossible, to make a good sword. Other ores might contain manganese, which increased the toughness of the steel. Vanadium and titanium might also show up, and these also helped to make the sword tougher and stronger.

Pattern welding did not produce a magical sword, but if the smith was lucky, he could produce a good sword. Several of these swords have been tested, and the carbon content varied from .03 to as high as .06 percent. Rarely was this evenly distributed throughout the sword, but there was enough to produce a tough, rather flexible blade.

The term "Damascus steel" is a very confusing one. It originally referred to swords that were purchased in Damascus, then it came to mean shotgun barrels that were forged together after being wrapped around a central core. Some also use the term to mean a type of steel produced in India that is now termed "wootz." In modern knife making it refers to taking bars of steel, forging them together and etching them to produce blades with patterns. And the term "Damascene" refers to gold work inlaid on the blade. For this book the term refers to Eastern swords, both where the blade is made of one type of steel, and one where the blade is forged with another steel to produce patterns.

The Indians developed a superior method of producing steel, and they did this quite early, approximately 200 BC. This seems shockingly early to most people, but Indian steel has long been regarded as the best. This was done by heating the iron ore in a crucible combined with various carboniferous items. As the iron began to absorb the carbon, the melting point lowered, and more carbon was picked up and dispersed throughout the iron. This produced a bloom of steel with a carbon content as much as three percent.

This method of manufacture produced a bloom of steel that is called "watered steel" as the various minor impurities and crystalline structure of the steel gives a watermark effect. This could be heightened by various forging and even mechanical Damascus methods to produce swords of incredible beauty. Not only were they beautiful, they were excellent swords. This is the real source of the tales of Damascus swords that could cut through steel and do all sorts of wonderful things. European knights encountered these blades during the Crusades; much of the steel work was traded in and around Damascus, and there were even swordsmiths there. So the legend was born, but the actual source of the steel, and many of the swords, was India.

The Japanese did not have this method of turning the iron ore into steel. Although they used rather sophisticated methods of heating and purifying the ore, heating, reheating, beating the metal to remove impurities, and doing this with the usual Japanese thoroughness, the basic ore they started with was not quite as good as the Indian. But excellent techniques of manufacture, great care in the construction, and strict observance of ritual (which aided keeping to the precise time required for various operations) and the Japanese were able to produce truly excellent swords. Not the magic swords of movies, but truly fine weapons.

There is one incontrovertible fact about steel. The harder it is, the more likely it is to break, shatter, or chip. All of the efforts the swordmaker exerts are intended to minimize this. The Japanese wrapped soft steel around hard steel, and vice versa; differential tempering, with the edge left hard and the body soft, was also used. Oftimes the smith tried "packing" the edge (repeated hammering to make the edge denser and thus stronger). Most times the sword was tempered so that the whole blade had a tough spring—able to cut well and still be springy enough to absorb the shock of a blow. All of these things worked to a degree, but none of them produced the perfect sword. Since each weapon is made for a specific type of combat, each will have different requirements. There
is
simply no perfect sword.

De la Bedoyere, Guy,
The Finds of Roman Britain
. B.T. Batsford, Ltd., London, 1989.

Grancsay, Stephen, V.,
Arms & Armor: Essays from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin
1920–1964, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1986.

Spring, Christopher
, African Arms and Armour
. Smithsonian, 1993.

People have been designing swords since the discovery and use of copper. They found that copper, even with a central rib down the blade, was not really a good material for swords. With the invention of bronze, swords became more practical. But even here the material helps to dictate the shape of the sword and consequently its capabilities and usage.

Iron gave a much wider range, and steel increased it even more. But there is so much more involved in sword design than merely the material involved. How was the sword to be used? How was it to be carried? What was the type armor it was likely to face? How strong was the individual carrying the weapon? And just as important, what was the fashion of the day? These are just a few of the questions that might be asked regarding the design of the sword. So let's examine it bit by bit.

In discussing the sword most people like to start with the blade and separate it into three parts: the forte, which is the strong section of the blade near the hilt; the middle of the blade; and the foible, which is the weak section of the point. This is fine if you happen to be talking about rapiers or nothing but straight-bladed European weapons. If you happen to be talking about a kora it makes no sense at all. (The kora is a down-curved Nepalese blade that ends in two cusps.) To me, when talking about swords and sword design it makes more sense to divide the sword into two basic parts, and then subdivide them and discuss each.

The two basic parts of the sword are the blade and the handle. The handle can be broken down into the grip, the guard (if it has one) and the pommel (if it has one).

The blade can be broken down into the body of the sword, the edge, and the point. Now it is quite possible for the sword not to have a point, as in the case of the above mentioned kora. It can also not have an edge (many thrusting swords did not have edges).

Even the kora shares the subdivision into two basic parts: blade and handle.

The body of the sword, the blade, governs which working part, the point or the edge, is the most important, and it also governs how the sword is to be used in general.

There is some confusion about the development of fighting styles and swords. I have encountered people who believe that the fighting style was projected, and the sword designed around it, and others who believed that the sword was developed and the style evolved around it. Both of these ideas are true, and both are false. Confusing, isn't it?

The truth is that swords and fighting styles revolved and evolved around each other. This was particularly true in Europe, if less so in other parts of the world. A sword can have many purposes. It can be a cutting sword, it can be piercing sword, it can be both a cut
and
thrust weapon. It can be made to oppose lightweight armor, heavy mail, or even plate. It can be made to slice cleanly or to rip and tear, or even to crush. Japan, for instance, developed a particularly effective sword that was suited for their early forms of combat. Fighting and dueling styles evolved around this sword, and the sword remained essentially the same for close to a thousand years. Now, I know that the purist will scream that there were many differences over the years. But all of these differences are rather subtle, and to the casual observer, they all look pretty much the same.

The basic parts of a handle—grip, guard and pommel—may be further subdivided, as this drawing of a rapier demonstrates.

Europe, however, seemed to revel in constantly trying new sword forms. This was due to constantly shifting and improving armor, as well as to changing tactics and concepts on the battlefield. Social changes allowed the carrying of swords during the normal course of the day, and this also caused differences in the style of swords. But it is not the purpose of this book to discuss all of the relevant sociological changes that took place. Nor, as it has been previously stated, to discuss the history of the European sword. Ewart Oakeshott has covered this better than anyone else, and I strongly recommend his books. You should start with
The Archeology of Weapons
.

For a sword that has a cutting function, the working part of the blade is the edge. There is nothing mysterious about an edge, it is simply a wedge. It cuts by exerting a tremendous amount of pressure on a very small area. It will also cut when the blade is slid along material being cut. This is a result of both the wedge and the friction that the blade encounters. In addition to this, in many blades there will be very tiny teeth (when observed through a microscope), and these act as a saw by actually tearing the material.

Now, not wishing to be particularly bloody, I still have to point out that the sword is basically designed to cut flesh and bone. However, most people are rather reluctant to be cut, so they make many efforts to defend themselves with armor. So the swordmaker has to take into account the armor that his sword will be facing. This is reflected in the type of edge, as well as the shape and dimensions of the sword.

But let's look at the edge.

The edge of a sword must have support, and it must have mass to allow it to cut. The mass is achieved by either the width or the thickness of the blade, and this also supports the edge. Generally speaking a thin, flat blade will cut quite well. When a blade cuts into a substance, it must displace the substance it is cutting. Therefore, it is an advantage for the blade to be flat, and thus offer less resistance. There are problems with blades that are too thin. The temper of these blades must be exactly right. If the blade is too hard and not flexible enough, it will break. If it is too flexible, then the blade will flex during the cut, and may even turn slightly and thus not hit the object properly. In the many years that I have been playing with swords, I have seen both. I have encountered one sword that is extremely flexible and have seen a gentleman in India so skilled in its use that he could cut a lime while a friend stood on it, and not take off his friend's foot. But this takes skill and practice time far beyond that allotted to the ordinary soldier. Nor would it work particularly well in battle, as there is not the time to get set up.