The main driving force in the development of metalworking and metallurgy was the manufacture of weapons. Any metal open man, immediately adapted for the production of these tools, discovering and developing new technologies. These studies led to the discovery of iron, and later steel, and the quality of the latter was constantly being improved.

Forging a sword is still a rather difficult technological process. How can it be made in your workshop and from what materials? And also what you need to know about the manufacture of swords?

They tried to forge the first swords from bronze, but their quality was, to put it mildly, not very good, too soft material was used. The first iron and steel samples were also of poor quality, they had to be leveled after several blows. That is why at first the main weapon was a spear with an ax.

Everything changed with the invention of several new technologies, for example, layer-by-layer welding and forging, which gave a strong and, most importantly, ductile steel strip (harluzhny steel), from which swords were forged. Later, phosphorite grades of metal appeared, the production of this type of weapon became cheaper, and the methods of their manufacture were simplified.

What can be used to forge a sword today? Many experts recommend using the 65G steel grade. This is a spring-spring grade of metal used in the production of springs, shock absorber springs, bearing housings. The brand has a low percentage of carbon in its composition and is supplemented with such alloying elements as nickel, chromium, phosphorus. Such steel has excellent strength indicators, and, most importantly, it is springy, which will not allow the sword to bend under load.

When choosing a material for making a sword, you first need to decide how it will be used. If just as a decorative interior decoration, then the quality of the metal is not so important. For reenactment battles, good steel will be required, which will need to be additionally hardened.

You can also look for elements of springs from cars or tractors, which are made from steel grades 55HGR, 55S2GF and other similar analogues.

For decorative swords, you can simply buy rolled products in the form of a bar or strip at the nearest metal depot. However, when choosing a material, it is worth considering that part of the volume will be lost during forging, which means that the dimensions of the workpiece should be larger.

After acquiring steel, you need to take care of the availability of equipment for its processing.

What do you need to forge a sword

The main problem of processing the workpiece when forging a sword is the availability of equipment corresponding to the dimensions. Samples of such weapons have a length of 1000-1200 millimeters. Therefore, you need to have a hearth that will allow you to heat the metal completely over its entire length.

A forge with the required parameters can be folded with your own hands using refractory bricks. To do this, lay out the oven, for example, with an open top and a long hearth of 1.2-1.4 meters.

You will also need a standard blacksmith set: anvil, tongs, chisel. You will definitely need a handbrake hammer, which is used for all blacksmithing. Metal cutting and grinding can be done with a grinder.

The presence of mechanical forging greatly simplifies and speeds up forging.

Another important point is the tempering of the sword. Especially if you need to get a durable product. To do this, you will have to look for some kind of dishes along the length of the blade, pouring machine oil or water into it.

When everything is collected necessary equipment, you will need to make at least the simplest drawing, according to which further forging and assembly of the sword will be carried out.

When everything is ready, proceed directly to forging.

How to forge a sword

Regardless of what will serve as the initial blank for the future sword (a bar or a strip from a spring), it needs to be heated. The main thing is to observe the temperature limits of steel heating.

The lower limit of ductility of low-carbon steels is 800-850 degrees. Without devices, there are two ways to determine the heating of the material.

• The first is that at a certain heating temperature, steel acquires an appropriate color. At 800-830 degrees - light red and light cherry tones.
• The second is the magnetic properties of the material. They are checked with an ordinary magnet. When steel is heated to 768 degrees or more, it loses its magnetic properties. After cooling, they are restored.

So, the workpiece is heated, how to form it by forging?

• If this is a bar, then it must be forged along the length, making a strip of the desired section out of it.

During forging, a scale layer will form on the metal surface. Part of it will fall off by itself, but the entire surface must be periodically cleaned using a metal brush.

• The descents of the future sword can be formed after forging, using an emery wheel, or they can be forged, forming the approximate shape of the blade.
• At the end of the strip where the handle will be assembled, you need to make a shank. To do this, part of the strip is forged from the ends and planes, forming a cone.
• In the place where the shank connects to the blade, the shoulders of the sword are formed by forging.
• Valleys must be forged along the planes of the blade. They are formed using punches or templates.
• The guard is usually made separately and is not forged together with the sword blade.
• After the end of work, the product is cleaned of scale and stabilized (released). To do this, the blade is heated in the forge to red and left to cool along with the hearth.
• Hardening is done after cooling when the metal is stabilized. The sword must be heated evenly along its entire length, making sure that the supplied air does not fall on the blade. When the metal becomes barely red, it is quickly lowered completely into the water. After that, you need to release the material again. To do this, it is pre-cleaned and heated to a golden color. Cooling is carried out already in the open air.

This is the simplest technology of how to forge a sword at home. With practice, it will be possible to make an excellent blade.

It is important to observe the heating temperatures, as well as to properly harden the blade. After overheating the metal, a very fragile product will turn out, and a poorly hardened material will be too soft.

Having finished the forging processes, they make a hail, a handle and a pommel.

Of course, it is possible to make swords without blacksmithing technologies, using locksmith techniques. However, it is the forged product that will be durable and natural.

In primitive conditions, it is very difficult to follow the correct technology for making a good quality forged sword. Especially without blacksmithing experience. It is best to practice initially by forging, for example, short knives or other similar products.

A huge advantage is the availability of mechanized equipment. As an example of making a sword by blacksmithing using a mechanical hammer, you can see the video provided:

Do you have any experience in making long objects and, in particular, swords? Share the methods and techniques of metal processing, take part in the discussion in the comments block.

It is difficult to name an invention that would have such a significant impact on the development of our civilization that a sword can boast. It cannot be considered as a banal murder weapon, the sword has always been something more. In different historical periods, this weapon was a symbol of status, belonging to a military caste or noble class. The evolution of the sword as a weapon is inextricably linked with the development of metallurgy, materials science, chemistry and mining.

In almost all historical periods, the sword was the weapon of the elite. And the point here is not so much in the status of this weapon, but in its high cost and the complexity of producing high-quality blades. Making a sword that you could trust with your life in battle was not just a laborious process, but a real art. And the blacksmiths involved in this work can be safely compared with virtuoso musicians. Not without reason, from ancient times, different peoples have legends about outstanding swords with special properties, made by real masters of blacksmithing.

The price of even an average blade could reach the cost of a small peasant farm. Products of famous masters were even more expensive. It is for this reason that the most common type of edged weapons of the era of Antiquity and the Middle Ages is a spear, but not a sword.

For centuries in different regions world developed metallurgical centers were formed, the products of which were known far beyond their borders. They existed in Europe, the Middle East, India, China and Japan. The work of a blacksmith was revered and very well paid.

In Japan, kaji (this is a blacksmith-gunsmith, "sword master") in the social hierarchy was on the same level as the samurai. Unheard of in this country. Craftsmen, to whom, in theory, blacksmiths should belong, were even lower than peasants in the Japanese table of ranks. Moreover, the samurai sometimes did not hesitate to take on the blacksmith's hammer. To show how respected the work of the gunsmith was in Japan, one fact can be cited. Emperor Gotoba (reigned in the 12th century) declared that the manufacture of a Japanese sword is a job that even princes can do without detracting from their dignity. Gotoba himself was not averse to working near the forge, several blades that he made with his own hands have been preserved.

Today, the media write a lot about the skill of Japanese blacksmiths and the quality of the steel that was used to create the traditional katana. Yes, indeed, the manufacture of a samurai sword required great skill and deep knowledge, but it can be responsibly stated that European blacksmiths were practically in no way inferior to their Japanese counterparts. Although there are legends about the hardness and strength of the katana, the manufacture of a Japanese sword is not fundamentally different from the process of forging European blades.

Man began to use metals for the manufacture of edged weapons as early as the 5th millennium BC. At first it was copper, which was quickly replaced by bronze, a strong alloy of copper with tin or arsenic.

By the way, the last component of bronze is very poisonous and often turned ancient blacksmiths and metallurgists into cripples, which is reflected in the legends. For example, Hephaestus, the Greek god of fire and the patron of blacksmithing, was lame; in Slavic myths, blacksmiths are also often depicted as crippled.

The Iron Age began at the end of the 2nd - beginning of the 1st millennium BC. Although, bronze weapons were used for many more hundreds of years. In the XII century BC. e. wrought iron was already used to make weapons and tools in the Caucasus, India and Anatolia. Around the 8th century BC. e. welded iron appeared in Europe, the new technology quickly spread across the continent. The fact is that the number of copper and tin deposits in Europe is relatively small, but iron reserves are significant. In Japan, the Iron Age began only in the 7th century AD.

Making a sword. From ore to crack

For a very long time, the technologies for producing and processing iron remained practically in one place, they could not properly satisfy the ever-growing demand for this metal, so there were few iron products and they were expensive. And the quality of tools and weapons made of this metal was extremely low. Surprisingly, for almost three thousand years, metallurgy has not undergone any fundamental changes.

Before proceeding to the description of the process of manufacturing bladed weapons in antiquity, several definitions related to metallurgy should be given.

Steel is an alloy of iron with other chemical elements, primarily carbon. It determines the basic properties of steel: a large amount of carbon in steel provides its high hardness and strength, while reducing the ductility of the metal.

The main method of obtaining iron in the era of Antiquity and in the Middle Ages (until the 13th century) was the raw-blowing process, so named because unheated (“raw”) air was blown into the furnace. The main method of processing the resulting iron and steel was forging. The cheese-making process was very inefficient, with most of the iron leaving the ore with the slag. In addition, the resulting raw materials were not of high quality, and were very heterogeneous.

The production of iron from ore took place in a raw-hearth furnace (raw-hearth or domnitsa), which had a shape resembling a truncated cone, from 1 to 2 meters high and a base diameter of 60-80 cm. Such a furnace was made of refractory bricks or stone, coated with clay on top, which was then burned. A pipe for supplying air led to the furnace, it was pumped with the help of bellows, and in the lower part of the blast furnace there was a hole for removing slag. A large amount of ore, coal and fluxes were loaded into the furnace.

Later, water mills were used to supply air to the furnace. In the 13th century, more advanced ovens appeared - stukofen, and then blauofen (XV century). Their productivity was much higher. A real breakthrough in metallurgy took place only at the beginning of the 16th century, when a conversion process was discovered, during which high-quality steel was obtained from ore.

The fuel for the cheese-making process was charcoal. Coal was not used because of the large amount of impurities harmful to iron that it contains. They learned to coke coal only in the 18th century.

Several processes take place in a cheese-blast furnace at once: waste rock is separated from ore and leaves in the form of slag, and iron oxides are reduced by reacting with carbon monoxide and carbon. It fuses and forms the so-called kritsa. It contains cast iron. After receiving the chicken, it is broken into small pieces and sorted by hardness, then they work with each fraction separately.

That cast iron is today the most important product ferrous metallurgy, it used to be different. It cannot be forged, so in ancient times cast iron was considered a useless waste product (“pig iron”), unsuitable for further use. It significantly reduced the amount of raw materials obtained during the smelting. They tried to use cast iron: in Europe, cannonballs were made from it, and in India, coffins, but the quality of these products left much to be desired.

From iron to steel. sword forging

The iron obtained in the cheese-blast furnace was extremely heterogeneous and of low quality. It took a lot more effort to turn it into a durable and deadly blade. Forging a sword included several processes at once:

• cleaning of iron and steel;
• welding of different layers of steel;
• blade making;
• heat treatment of the product.

After that, the blacksmith had to make a cross, a head, a sword handle, and also make a scabbard for it.

Naturally, at present the cheese-making process is not used in industry for the production of iron and steel. However, by the forces of enthusiasts and lovers of ancient edged weapons, it was recreated to the smallest detail. Today, this sword-making technique is used to create "authentic" historical weapons.

The crack obtained in the furnace consists of low-carbon iron (0-0.3% carbon content), metal with a carbon content of 0.3-0.6% and high-carbon fraction (from 0.6 to 1.6% and above). Iron, in which there is little carbon, is highly ductile, but it is very soft, the higher the carbon content in the metal, the greater its strength and hardness, but at the same time the steel becomes more brittle.

To give the desired properties to the metal, the blacksmith can either saturate the steel with carbon, or burn out its excess. The process of saturation of metal with carbon is called cementation.

The blacksmiths of the past faced a serious problem. If you make a sword from high-carbon steel, then it will be strong and keep sharpening well, but at the same time too fragile, a weapon made of low-carbon steel will not be able to perform its functions at all. The blade must be both hard and elastic at the same time. This was the key problem that confronted gunsmiths for many hundreds of years.

There is a description of the use of long swords by the Celts by the Roman historian Polybios. According to him, the swords of the barbarians were made of such soft iron that they became blunt and bent after each decisive blow. From time to time, Celtic warriors had to correct their blades with their foot or knee. However, even a very fragile sword posed a great danger to its owner. For example, a broken sword almost cost the life of Richard the Lionheart, the English king and one of the most famous fighters of his time.

In that era, a broken sword meant about the same thing as failed car brakes today.

The first attempt to solve this problem was the creation of the so-called laminated swords, in which soft and hard layers of steel alternated with each other. The blade of such a sword was a multi-layered sandwich, which allowed it to be both durable and elastic at the same time (at the same time, however, the correct heat treatment of the weapon and its hardening played an important role). However, there was one problem with such swords: when sharpening, the surface hard layer of the blade quickly wore off and the sword lost its properties. Laminated blades appeared already among the Celts, according to modern experts, such a sword should have cost ten times more than usual.

Another way to make a strong and flexible blade was surface cementing. The essence of this process was to carburize the surface of a weapon made of a relatively soft metal. The sword was placed in a vessel filled with organic matter(most often it was coal), which was then put into the oven. Without access to oxygen, organics charred and saturated the metal with carbon, making it stronger. With cemented blades, there was the same problem as with laminated ones: the surface (hard) layer wore off rather quickly, and the blade lost its cutting properties.

More advanced were multi-layered swords made according to the "steel-iron-steel" scheme. It made it possible to create blades of excellent quality: the soft iron of the "core" made the blade flexible and resilient, well dampened vibrations upon impact, and the hard "shell" endowed the sword with excellent cutting properties. It should be noted that the above blade layout is the simplest. In the Middle Ages, blacksmiths-gunsmiths often "built" their products from five or seven "packages" of metal with different characteristics.

Already in the early Middle Ages, large metallurgical centers were formed in Europe, in which a significant amount of steel was smelted and weapons of a sufficiently high quality were produced. Typically, such centers arose near rich deposits of iron ore. In the IX-X centuries, good blades were made in the state of the Franks. Charlemagne even had to issue a decree according to which it was strictly forbidden to sell weapons to the Vikings. The recognized center of European metallurgy was the area where the famous Solingen later arose. Iron ore of excellent quality was mined there. Later, Italian Brescia and Spanish Toledo became recognized blacksmithing centers.

It is curious, but already in the early Middle Ages, the blades of famous gunsmiths were often forged. For example, the swords of the famous master Ulfbrecht (lived in the 9th century) were distinguished by excellent balance and were made of perfectly crafted steel. They were marked with the personal sign of the gunsmith. However, the blacksmith simply could not physically make all the blades that are attributed to him. And the blades themselves are very different in quality. During the late Middle Ages, Solingen craftsmen forged the products of blacksmiths from Passau and Toledo. There were even written complaints of the latter about such "piracy". Later they began to forge the swords of Solingen himself.

The selected strips are heated and then welded into a single block by forging. During this process, it is important to maintain the correct temperature and not burn the workpiece.

After welding, the forging of the blade begins directly, during which its shape is formed, valleys are made, and the shank is made. One of the main stages of forging is the process of compacting the blades, which concentrates the layers of steel and allows the sword to retain its cutting properties longer. At this stage, the geometry of the blade is finally formed, the location of its center of gravity is determined, the thickness of the metal at the base of the sword and at its tip is set.

Medieval blacksmiths, of course, did not have thermometers. Therefore, the required temperature was calculated from the color of the metal glow. To better define this characteristic, in the past forges were usually darkened, which added even more mysticism to the aura of blacksmiths.

Then the heat treatment of the future sword begins. This stage is extremely important, it allows you to change the molecular structure of the steel and achieve the necessary characteristics from the blade. The fact is that forged steel, welded from various pieces, has a rough grain structure and a large amount of stress inside the metal. With the help of normalization, hardening and tempering, the blacksmith must get rid of these shortcomings as much as possible.

Initially, the blade is heated to about 800 degrees, and then hung by the shank so that the metal does not “lead”. This process is called normalization, for different types of steel this procedure is carried out several times. Normalization is followed by a gentle annealing, during which the sword is heated to a brownish-red color and left to cool, wrapped in an insulating material.

After normalizing and annealing, you can proceed to the most important part of the forging process - hardening. During this procedure, the blade is heated to a brown-red color and then rapidly cooled in water or oil. Hardening, as it were, freezes the steel structure obtained during normalization and annealing.

Differentiated hardening. This technique is typical for Japanese masters, it lies in the fact that different zones of the blade receive different hardening. To achieve this effect, layers of clay of various thicknesses were applied to the blade before hardening.

It is absolutely clear that at any stage of the process described above, the blacksmith can make a mistake that will be fatal for the quality of the future product. In Japan, any blacksmith who valued his name had to ruthlessly break failed blades.

To improve the quality of the future sword, the method of nitration or nitriding was often used, that is, the treatment of steel with compounds containing nitrogen.

In the saga of Wieland the blacksmith, a rather original method of nitration is described, which allowed the master to create a real “super sword”. To improve the quality of the product, the blacksmith sawed the sword into sawdust, added it to the dough and fed it to hungry geese. After that, he collected bird droppings and forged sawdust. They made a sword "... so hard and strong that it was difficult to find a second one on earth." Of course, this is a literary work, but a similar method could well take place. Modern "nitrogen" steels have the highest hardness. Many historical sources report that swords were tempered in blood, which endowed them with special qualities. It is likely that such a practice actually took place, and here we are dealing with another method of nitration.

Immediately after hardening, the blade is released again. After the end of the heat treatment process, grinding begins, and it is carried out in several stages. During this process, the sword must be constantly cooled with water. The grinding and polishing of the sword, as well as the installation of a cross, hilt and pommel on it in the Middle Ages was usually done not by a blacksmith, but by a special master - a Schwertfeger.

Naturally, before starting work on the sword, the blacksmith thought through its future design and construction to the smallest detail. Will it be combat or is it intended more for "representative" purposes? How will its future owner mainly fight: on foot or on horseback? Against what armor is it supposed to be used? And, of course, during the manufacture of the sword, the characteristics of the warrior himself were taken into account: his height, arm length, favorite fencing technique.

Damascus steel and damask steel

Anyone who at least once in his life was interested in historical edged weapons knows the phrase "Damascus steel". Even today it fascinates with its touch of mystery, exoticism and masculinity. In fact, Damascus steel is another attempt to resolve the eternal contradiction between the brittleness of steel and the softness of iron. And I must say that this attempt turned out to be one of the most successful.

It is not known who first came up with the idea to combine a large number of layers of soft and hard steel, but this person can be safely called a blacksmithing genius. Although, today historians believe that such technology was independently developed in different regions of the world. Already at the beginning of our era, Damascus steel weapons were made in Europe and China. It was previously believed that this type of steel was invented in the Middle East. However, today it is known for certain that it was invented by European masters. In fact, no evidence has yet been found that Damascus was ever a major weapons manufacturing center.

Wild Damascus was obtained if the original blank was cut in half, the halves were laid on top of each other and forged again. Such an operation was usually carried out several times, constantly doubling the number of metal layers, thereby improving its properties. A simple mathematical calculation shows that a workpiece reforged seven times receives 896 layers of high carbon and low carbon steel.

In the Middle Ages, the so-called twisted Damascus was popular in Europe. During its production, bars from different steels were twisted in a spiral and welded by forging. This process was repeated several times. Usually, the central part of the blade was made of such steel, on which blades of ordinary hard steel were then forged.

Damascus steel blades medieval Europe were valued so highly that they were often given as gifts to kings.

Damask steel or wutz is steel made in a special way, thanks to which it has a peculiar internal structure, a characteristic pattern on the surface and the highest characteristics in terms of strength and elasticity. It was made in Iran, Central Asia and India. This steel had a high carbon content, close to that of cast iron (about 2%), but at the same time retained the ability to be forged and significantly surpassed cast iron in strength.

There are many legends about this material. For a long time it was believed that the secret of making damask steel was lost, although today many craftsmen claim that they own the secrets of producing real wutz. One of the ways to obtain it is based on the partial melting of particles of iron or low-carbon steel in cast iron. The total amount of additives should be 50-70% by weight of cast iron. The result is a melt having a mushy consistency. After cooling and crystallization, damask steel is obtained - a material with a high-carbon matrix, in which low-carbon particles are interspersed.

There is information about other methods of obtaining damask steels in our days, probably, there were several of them in antiquity. Modern methods associated with special methods of forging and heat treatment of metals.

One of the advantages of any sword made of patterned steel, be it Damascus or damask steel, experts call the micro-undulation of its blade. It automatically arises due to the heterogeneity of the layers or fibers of the metal that make up the blade. In fact, the cutting edge of such a weapon is a "microsaw", which significantly increases its combat properties.

How to make a sword?

Every boy in childhood dreamed of having a real sword. And children's dreams must be fulfilled, even if you are already well over 30. Moreover, historical reconstruction and role-playing games based on fantasy have long ceased to be the lot of teenagers and students, and quite serious and respected people are engaged in them, since this is interesting and rather unusual occupation. Also, do not forget that the sword on the wall is a decoration of any interior.

A sword at home can be made from the following materials:

• from wood;
• from metal.

wooden sword

In order to make a wooden sword, you need to decide on the tool. For this you may need:

• thick plywood / small board;
• grinder machine;
• hacksaw;
• plane;
• scissors;
• chisel;
• tassel;
• sandpaper;
• epoxy resin;
• dye.

Working process

After everything you need is prepared, you can start making the sword.

• one-handed;
• one and a half;
• two-handed.

One handed sword

A one-handed sword is no longer than 60 centimeters and is usually used in conjunction with a shield.

Bastard sword

One and a half - a transitional variant between one-handed and two-handed swords. You can hold it with one or two hands.

two-handed sword

The two-handed sword is the longest and heaviest. If you rest it on the ground, the handle reaches the wearer's chin.

Any of the three blades must be properly balanced. The center of gravity of the weapon is always shifted to the handle. In the case of one-handed and one-and-a-half swords, this is the distance of one palm from the guard. A two-handed sword has a little more - two palms from the guard. The guard is a component of the hilt, a kind of latch that prevents the hand from slipping onto the working surface of the gun and protects the hand from the enemy’s sword sliding along its own blade. The guard usually looks like a cross that separates the handle from the blade.

metal sword

Having dealt with a wooden ball, we proceed to the manufacture of a metal sword. It's actually not much more difficult.

We will need:

• metal plate;
• wooden block for the handle;
• "Bulgarian";
• drill and a set of drills;
• sandpaper;
• hacksaw;
• chisel;
• vise;
• brush.

And keep in mind, a metal sword is already quite a serious weapon and requires appropriate treatment.

sword making

Now you know how to make a sword with your own hands. It remains only to prepare the necessary material and get to work.

Once upon a time, a good sword or dagger was not only an object denoting the status of the owner. The life of its owner often depended on the quality of the blade. Today, edged weapons perform a rather decorative function, but many people want to know how to make a blade.

A handmade sword can be an excellent interior decoration and the pride of its owner.

An easy way to make a sword at home

To make a blade at home, you will need the following tools and materials:

• sheet steel about 5 mm thick;
• Bulgarian;
• drill;
• electric emery.

The contour of the template is traced with a marker on the forging and cut out on the roughing wheel.

The work begins with a sketch of the future sword on paper. After that, the contours of the blade are transferred to the metal, taking into account the processing allowances.

1. According to the applied contour, holes are drilled in the corners with a drill, if the shape of the sword is quite complex. This will make it easier to cut the contour with a grinder. Make holes for attaching the handle.
2. Cut the workpiece along the contour on the metal. In the absence of a grinder, this operation can be performed with a chisel and a hammer.
3. Further processing is carried out on emery or a file: excess metal should be removed, giving the product the shape of a sword, thickened towards the center and thin on the cutting edges. The relief on the blade in the form of valleys or other details is performed with the same tools.
4. The blade is tempered and released. The process is described below, in a more complex way of making weapons with your own hands.

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How to forge a blade with your own hands?

To obtain the desired thickness, align the plane of the blade by moving it back and forth in a circle.

Forging involves the formation of a metal product by striking a hot material, which, due to exposure to high temperature, becomes plastic and soft. To make a sword by forging, you will need:

• low-carbon steel (bar or strip);
• hammer;
• anvil and forge.

If you start forging from a bar, then the first step is to forge it into a square or rectangle along the entire length. Then, from this blank, a strip is dispersed, the thickness of which corresponds to the thickness of the intended product, plus the excess that will be removed during further processing.

Care must be taken not to cool the metal too much, since the inevitable bending of it during forging is best straightened before the next heating of the workpiece.

The allowance along the butt is ground together with blockages and is leveled against the side surface of the circle.

A distance is retreated from the end of the strip, which will be slightly less than the required length of the handle, given that when this part is thinned, it will lengthen. The workpiece is heated to the red light of the metal and the shank is broken. To do this, at the right distance on the edge of the anvil or on the backing tool, a “step” is formed with the sharp end of the hammer - the shoulders of the blade body. The thinner part is called the shank. Pull the shank onto the cone.

The body of the blade is given the desired contour. Descents from the middle to the edges can be formed on emery or forged by striking at a strictly defined angle from the edges to the center of the strip. The forger's elbow pressed against the body will help to maintain a constant position of the hammer during forging. So the blows will be applied strictly vertically, and the inclination of the striker to the plane of the anvil is controlled by fixing the brush in a certain position. The valleys on the blade are traditionally forged using a template.

Scale particles, remaining on the metal, make its surface uneven, covered with dents of different depths. To remove scale during the forging process, the hammer and anvil are periodically moistened with water.

The bottom of the blade is satinized along the entire length, then the transverse line of the heel is processed.

After the final finishing of the blade, it is annealed to eliminate internal stresses: it is heated to red and left to cool in the forge. Then proceed to hardening:

1. The blade is heated to a barely noticeable red glow as evenly and slowly as possible. The air flow from the blast must not fall on the product. At the hardening temperature, it is kept for some time, which is calculated by a factor of 0.2 from the heating time.
2. To quickly cool a heated blade, a large volume of cold water is needed. It is immersed in a container vertically or at an angle completely.
3. The area of ​​the blade is polished to a shine and the blade is again placed in the forge for tempering after hardening. Heating is carried out until the cleaned area acquires a golden color. The sword is cooled in air.

Having set ourselves the task of making a real sword of the 13th century using authentic technology, we were forced to repeat the entire path of the ancient metallurgists - starting from building a raw furnace, recovering iron from iron ore and remelting the resulting metal into steel suitable for making a sword.

The sword of the XIII century is not the first experiment of "PM" in the field of historical reconstruction of edged weapons. During the manufacture of Fedorov's checkers according to the technology of the beginning of the 20th century (see "PM" No. 1'2007), considerable experience was accumulated, but it turned out that it was practically impossible to apply it to the current task. In the case of the checker, we used modern analogues of the types of steel that existed in the early 1900s (rail, spring, bearing) as starting materials. But it’s just impossible to do the same with a sword of the XIII century: at that time there were no standards for steel at all. Therefore, the main problem we faced is the need to repeat the ancient metallurgical process of recovering iron from ore. This is what we did under the guidance of the famous blacksmith-gunsmith Vasily Ivanov, head of the historical Japanese weapons workshop Ishimatsu.

From ore to crack

Until the 14th century, the main process for obtaining iron was its recovery from ore in a cheese-blast furnace (domnitsa). Such a furnace had a shape close to a truncated cone about 1.2 m high and 60–80 cm in diameter at the base and 30 cm in the upper (furnace) part, it was made of stone or refractory bricks and coated with clay. A lance was provided in the furnace - a pipe for supplying air from bellows with a diameter of several centimeters, a hole for draining slag in the lower part, and sometimes a collapsible part for extracting an ingot of iron after the end of the process. After drying, the stove was heated with firewood to burn the clay, as well as to form ash, which later served as an underlying “non-stick” coating and served as one of the components of the flux (ash contains soda and potash).

This part of the technology did not cause us any particular difficulties, and after the construction of the blast furnace and the passage of several days, which were required for the drying of the clay and firing, we proceeded to the first part of the process - the reduction of iron.

We took a rich (and enriched) ore, magnetite (FeOFe2O3) from the area of ​​the Kursk magnetic anomaly, as the starting material.

The technology is quite simple: half the charcoal is loaded into the furnace, kindled, after which a mixture of ore and flux is poured on top (for which we used a completely historically authentic mixture of dolomite flour, sand and soda). Another layer of coal is poured on top, and then, as it burns out, layers of ore with flux and coal are added. This cycle is repeated several (up to five) times. At the same time, constant air blowing with the help of bellows is required for several hours so that the temperature in the furnace reaches 1400–1500 C (here we were forced to deviate a little from the technology, since we used electric blowing due to a lack of workers).

Several processes take place in a cheese-blowing furnace. First, the rock at high temperature is separated from the ore and flows down in the form of slag. Secondly, iron oxides are reduced by carbon monoxide and carbon to iron, the grains of which are fused together, forming an ingot - a bloom. When the coal almost completely burns out, the slag is drained through the hole in the furnace, and then, after cooling, a part of the wall is dismantled and a crack is removed - a porous iron ingot.

From iron to steel

The efficiency of the cheese blasting process is low: a significant part of the iron goes to slag, and from 120 kg of ore we got only about 25 kg of bloom. Moreover, this is still only raw source material, very heterogeneous in quality. During its stay in the furnace, the crack is saturated with carbon very unevenly and as a result contains fragments of soft iron with almost no carbon (0–0.3%), carbon steel (0.3–1.6% carbon) and cast iron (with a carbon content higher than 1.6%). These are completely different materials, with different properties, so the first step is to carry out the initial sorting. “Kritsa is broken into small pieces, which are sorted into three piles with different carbon content according to their mechanical properties – brittleness and plasticity,” explains Vasily Ivanov. “If the piece is soft and malleable, then the carbon content is low; if it is hard, it is high; if the pieces are brittle and break easily, exposing a characteristic fracture, this is cast iron.”

Our task is to end up with three types of steel with a more or less standardized carbon content. The first type is low-carbon (up to 0.3%) steel (the so-called business iron - various household products such as nails, hoops, etc. were made from it), the second - with an average (0.3–0.6%) content carbon, the third is high-carbon (0.6–1.6%) steel.

We put the sorted pieces into ceramic crucibles, pouring them with the same flux that we used earlier, put them in a furnace filled with charcoal, and turn on the blower. Depending on the location of the crucible in the furnace and the intensity of air blowing, one can either saturate steel with carbon (in the reduction zone - the upper part of the furnace above the burning coal), or burn out its excess (in the oxidizing zone - the lower part of the furnace where air is supplied) and thus obtain the materials we need. It is also worth noting that we initially used relatively "clean" ore, our steel does not contain a significant amount of harmful impurities - mainly sulfur and phosphorus. Of course, we did not use any alloying additives such as chromium, molybdenum, manganese or vanadium (except for those small amounts that were originally present in the ore), so that historical authenticity is observed.

After melting, Vasily removes steel ingots from the crucibles and evaluates the result, forging them into strips. “If necessary, in a further process, the excess carbon can be burnt out of the strip right in the furnace,” he explains. “Or carbonize, because during forging, part of the carbon – up to 0.3% – inevitably burns out.”

Softness and hardness

As a result of the above operations, we received three approximately three-kilogram blanks from different types of steel in the form of strips. However, from these stripes to the sword is still quite a long way. According to Vasily, "these are not the details of the blade yet, but only the material from which they will be made."

One of the ways to create a hard cutting edge in weapons in the 13th century was carburizing - surface hardening, that is, carburizing the surface of products made from relatively mild steel. The product was placed in a closed vessel filled with an organic substance - a carburetor, which was most often coal, crushed horns, or a mixture of them. Then the vessel was placed in an oven, where at a temperature of over 900 C without access to air, the carburetor was charred and the surface of the product was gradually saturated with carbon. This method was widely used for carburizing axes and blades (more or less mass products). But cementation is the hardening of the surface layer of a certain depth; when this layer was ground down, the cutting edge ceased to hold sharpening, and the weapon had to be subjected to a new cementation procedure. And with an increase in the depth of carburization, the risk of making the surface too brittle increased. So we rejected this method, because it still does not allow us to achieve the qualities we need. After all, the “perfect blade” of the 13th century (as well as any other time) should be elastic, dampen vibrations upon impact, viscous, and not brittle, but at the same time, the cutting edge of the blade should be hard and keep sharpening well. It is almost impossible to create such a sword from a homogeneous material, so we decided to resort to the composite technology of that time, using a batch scheme and "pattern welding" (pattern welding). Our sword will be "built" from seven packages of three types, each of which performs its task.

The first package is made of soft low-carbon (up to 0.3% carbon) iron. We make a six-layer “sandwich” from the elongated strips of this soft iron, forge it (while the layers are welded into a single package), cut it and fold it in half, forge it again, repeating this process eight times and eventually getting a package of relatively soft Damascus steel, numbering approximately 1500 layers. This package will be the "backbone" of our sword - its core. Such a viscous core works in compression, perceives shock loads and dampens vibrations, preventing the sword from breaking during strong blows. It also ties all surrounding packages that perform other tasks into a single entity.

The second package is the future blade. For its manufacture, we used two types of steel obtained by us earlier - medium carbon and high carbon. Alternating the strips of these two types so that the medium-carbon material is “outside”, we add a sandwich of seven layers and, pouring with flux, weld them into a single package. Then cut, fold in half and forge again. We repeat the operation 14 more times. It is easy to calculate that in the end, with this folding, we get ... more than 200,000 layers! Given that the final package thickness is 6 mm, the layer thickness can be calculated to be about 30 nm. “In fact, medieval nanotechnology! Vasily laughs. “In fact, of course, these are very conditional ‘layers’ – with such mixing, the structure of the steel turns out to be close to homogeneous.” The blade should end up being hard and holding a sharp edge well.

springs

The third package is the future covers, there are four of them. They are made from mild low carbon and medium carbon steel. This package begins with a seven-layer sandwich (low-carbon steel on the outside), which is welded into a single package using a forge and a hammer. Like the other two packages, cut, fold in half and forge again. We repeat the operation nine more times, resulting in a strip of Damascus steel, consisting of 7000 layers.

But that is not all! In order for the blade of the sword to end up better withstanding transverse bending loads, as well as longitudinal twisting, the plates are torsated, that is, each is twisted by 20 turns, getting a steel twisted “rope”. After hardening, such linings will become more elastic and will additionally dampen vibrations, preventing blows from “returning to the hand”. Since there are four facings, their directions of twisting must be “compensated” in pairs - otherwise, with the slightest mistake during hardening, the sword will “go like a screw”. Elastic lining-torsion bars work in tension in the blade of the sword and actually perform the same role as reinforcement in reinforced concrete, that is, they strengthen the body of the blade.

Blade blank

But finally, all seven packages are ready and the final preparatory stage begins - the manufacture of the blade blank. All packages are fastened with wire, Vasily heats them up in a forge, sprinkles them with flux and begins the process of forge welding. As with the preparation of the packages themselves, he uses a pneumatic hammer, and this is another slight deviation from medieval technology: “Of course, it would be possible not to deviate from the original technology, but for this I would need a pair of hammerers ... - And he sarcastically suggests: - Do you want try?" The photographer pretends to be very busy with the shooting process, and I start asking Vasily about some of the smallest details of the ongoing processes.

Meanwhile, the workpiece takes the form of a bar measuring 1.2x2.5x50 cm and weighing approximately 1.5 kg. If we remember that for its manufacture we needed to process 120 kg of ore and about two weeks of time, the process does not look very efficient (however, from this amount of ore we received not one, but two blanks). However, this is the reality - this is exactly how the process of making blanks for high-quality edged weapons took place in the Middle Ages. Now the most important thing remains - to forge from this blank, outwardly resembling a slightly rusty mount, our "ideal sword".

Second attempt: Medieval sword

Forging a real sword of the 13th century from a blank, the work on which we described in the article “Iron Age” (“PM” No. 2’2009), turned out to be not so simple. Like medieval blacksmiths, we didn’t get weapons on the first try.

In the February issue of "PM" we began a story about our project of the historical reconstruction of a medieval sword under the guidance of the famous blacksmith-gunsmith Vasily Ivanov, head of the workshop of traditional Japanese weapons Ishimatsu. In the first article, we described how we obtained the desired grades of steel from iron ore, and promised to publish a continuation in the next issue. However, technical difficulties awaited us, which delayed the sequel by almost two months. However, these difficulties are also quite historically authentic - medieval blacksmiths-gunsmiths also met with them.

From bar to blade

So, we have a steel bar assembled from seven packages - each of them has its own structure and purpose in the design of the blade. First of all, you need to turn this bar into a blank itself - forge it into a steel strip of a given size, taking into account the margin for forging and pulling the blade (to save time, we slightly deviated from historical authenticity by using a pneumatic hammer for this operation). At the final stage of this stage, Vasily, by hand, gives the strip its original geometry, forming the shank, tip and heel of the blade. From this moment on, the strip in shape already remotely resembles a future sword. After the metal had cooled, Vasily once again carefully examined and measured the resulting workpiece, leaving a small margin of metal to correct future errors.

The next stage is the forging of valleys. Doles are longitudinal grooves that run along part of the length of the blade. Sometimes they are erroneously called "bloodbloods", although in fact the function of the valleys in the design of the blade is completely different - they reduce the mass of the blade and play the role of stiffeners. Dols are forged using a special tool called a shperak. Shperak is a T-shaped tongs with round jaws, the workpiece is clamped between them and forged, as a result, longitudinal grooves appear on both sides of the blade.

And finally, the workpiece acquires a more or less final form after drawing (forming) the blade. “This is a rather painstaking process,” Vasily explains. “While an air hammer can be used in the previous stages, high precision is required to pull the blade, which can only be achieved by hand forging.” At this stage, the geometry of the future blade is finally set, you can slightly change the location of the center of gravity by varying the thickness of the blade at the tip or at the base. The thickness of the cutting edge at this stage is 2–2.5 mm. It is impossible to be thinner: you can overheat steel, and there will be no reserve for any “maneuvers”.

But the preliminary work is almost finished. Vasily once again checks the compliance of the blade dimensions with our terms of reference, straightens the workpiece and proceeds to the next stage - heat treatment.

heat treatment

Hardening does not begin immediately. First you need to get rid of the internal stresses in the material that could appear during forging. To do this, the blade is annealed - heated to 950-970 ° C, and then left to cool slowly right in the furnace - this process takes 5-8 hours. Then the workpiece is finally straightened, and minimally, in order to avoid overconsolidation of the material in various parts of the blade.

Quenching is the most famous part of the heat treatment process. During hardening, the workpiece is rapidly cooled, carbon steel becomes strong, hard and elastic (its ductility and toughness decrease).

Vasily puts on charcoal and kindles the forge, explaining: “Charcoal burns more evenly. In addition, it is lighter than coke, and therefore the likelihood of damage to a hot plastic blade when heated is less. He heats the blade, trying to achieve uniform heating to about 890–900 ° C, then removes the workpiece from the forge and lowers it into a bath of saline for 7–8 seconds. Then the blade must be released - to remove the internal stresses accumulated in the metal during hardening, to make it less brittle and increase the impact strength: heat to a low (180-200 ° C) temperature and cool to room temperature in water (or air - methods vary). This operation is usually performed several times (in our case, three) with breaks of 15–20 minutes. After that, the blade is left alone for several days, so that the remaining internal stresses appear and "settle down". “It is desirable to hang the blade, and not just put it on the anvil,” Vasily notes. “Otherwise, irregularities in heat transfer can disrupt the geometry, that is, the blade will simply lead.” But even in a suspended state after a few days, the blade, as a rule, needs a little gentle cold straightening.

After heat treatment - the next quality control. Vasily carefully examines the blade for "lack of penetration", cracks, checks it for bending and torsion, hits the blade flat on the board and examines it again. Then he clamps the blade with two fingers and beats it with a metal stick, carefully listens to the ringing and shakes his head skeptically: “When the sound is ringing, bell-like, a long vibration goes through the sword - this indicates that the sword is forged, there are no internal microcracks and a sufficiently high degree of hardening. If the sound is hoarse, dull and short-lived, then there are some defects. There's something wrong here: I don't like the sound." But there seems to be no objective signs, so let's move on to the next stage.

Mechanical restoration

This rather monotonous process takes almost two weeks. During this time, the gunsmith, using wet sandstone abrasive stones, removes excess metal, grinds the valleys, forms and sharpens the cutting edge. But now, finally, the work is nearing the end, and Vasily proceeds to the final check - he examines the blade again, cuts several wooden bars, a soft steel corner, bends the blade several times: “It seems that it has been hardened unevenly - when bent, the base forms an arc, and the tip almost straight, ”and at that very moment the blade clamped in a vise cracks with an unpleasant crunch. Its end is still clamped in a vise, and the rest is in the hands of Vasily, who shrugs his shoulders: “I told you that something is wrong here! That is why we made several blanks during smelting. It's okay - let's figure out why this happened, and try again."

broken sword

Actually, this is what delayed the release of this article for more than two months - it took to figure out the reasons for what happened, conduct several experiments, make adjustments to the process ... and repeat all the way from the multi-package bar again.
Why did our first sword break? “Let me remind you that we used non-standard steels, the exact composition of which is unknown, which means that their characteristics are difficult to predict,” Vasily says. – Apparently the hardening was too ‘tough’ – too high temperature and use saline solution led to the formation of microcracks in high-carbon steel. This was already felt at the stage of preliminary testing after hardening - in terms of sound and flexibility, but it was finally confirmed only after machining - microcracks on the surface became visible.

Ringing Blade

After a series of experiments, the heat treatment process was modified. First, we decided to slightly change the geometry of the blade by increasing the thickness of the tip so that the hardening becomes more uniform. Secondly, the heating temperature was reduced to 830–850°C, and the hardening itself was decided not to be carried out in a salt bath, but in a water-oil bath (oil layer 30 cm thick on top of the water). After such a two-stage (due to oil having a boiling point of about 200 ° C) hardening, lasting 7-8 seconds, the blade was cooled in air (in frost at -5 ° C) until it cooled completely (5 minutes). The method of further heat treatment was also changed: the blade was released to relieve internal stresses in five passes, heated to a temperature of 280–320°C, and then left to cool in the air.

And again - a break of several days, straightening, peeling, grinding and sharpening.

And finally, Vasily again beats the blade with a metal stick, listens to the long musical ringing, and a satisfied smile appears on his face: “It seems that this time everything worked out!” He clamps the blade in a vise and pulls on the shank - the blade bends into an almost perfect arc.

All that remains is to etch the pattern so that a beautiful pattern appears on the surface of the blade, fit the wooden scabbard, install a suede-covered handle, bronze crosshairs and pommel (the so-called apple) on the sword. The sword, almost exactly the same as Russian warriors of the 13th century could fight, is completely ready.

Russian and Japanese

Since Vasily Ivanov is considered a recognized expert in the field of traditional Japanese weapons, we could not ignore the comparison of the weapons art technologies of the two schools - Western and Eastern. “Despite the different names, the technologies for forging and preparing steel for the manufacture of Eastern and Western weapons are almost identical,” Vasily explains. - Japanese weapons are also, as a rule, multi-package blades, the design of which varies depending on the school, price, time of manufacture. Of course, the shape of the Russian and Japanese weapons of those times differs significantly, but this is due more to the traditions and fencing technique than to technological reasons. But the hardening process differs quite a lot - in the manufacture of Japanese weapons, the so-called zone hardening is used, when part of the blade is coated with clay to slow down cooling in the hardening bath. Machining in Japanese weapons is also much more serious: grinding and polishing must be very thorough and refined, since Japanese weapons, in addition to their intended purpose, also have an aesthetic function - as a rule, this is a real work of art. That is why Japanese katanas are necessarily polished, and a Russian sword is easy enough to grind and even marks from an abrasive stone are acceptable on it. By the way, thanks to careful polishing, Japanese blades are more resistant to corrosion.”

Material from the site: https://radosvet.net