I’ve posted this around here somewhere before but here is a rather technical article about how the historical Damascus blades got their amazing qualities.
Basicly, microscopic levels of elements like Vanadium and Molybdenum would form a matrix at low heat levels to which the steel particles would align themselves. Too much heat and the matrix breaks up. So it required many, many low-heat workings to get the Damascene patterns and superior strength. Without the right ore from India, the process didn’t work. So when warfare interrupted the trade routes for a good long time, the secret was lost.
Yeah, all right, but them’s for pansies. Ever heard of a dragon being rapier’d ? I rest my case. If you can’t cleave something in twain with it, it’s not a weapon. New rule.
That might be true for steel-based swords, but I bet there’s a minimum effective weight. As alluded to above, a massless one might be nice for stabbing, but probably wouldn’t be ideal for defensive strokes.
I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there might be a better sword material than steel, but since there’s insufficient market demand. I mean that two different ways: there may be materials we know about that would be superior, and we’d probably find new alloys if the demand was high enough.
Given how little we know about alloys and how to predict the properties based on composition and treatment (except by experience), I bet we find lots of nifty new alloys in the future, especially improve our abilities to make analytical predictions and do computer models that allow good predictions.
I came into this thread to ask questions about vanadium based on a documentary (can’t remember the name) I’d seen that said the same thing. They had secret rituals and methods that they attributed the finished product to. But, they didn’t know that the ore had vanadium in it and they couldn’t get the same steel with other ore.
What you’re saying is common martensitic carbon tool steel is still superior to those powder super steels. Many knife users agree with you. Carbon tool steel comes on its own with large knives and swords because it’s tough and on the soft side so it has the necessary yield and flexibility to be wielded and chopped. Those hard powder steels tend to be chippy and are limited to to small, slicing knives.
Carbon steel, assuming its grains are fine and uniform, with little or no impurities, can be sharpened as well as the best powder steel. It can also be hardened to file-like hardness but should be tempered down for toughness. There’s no argument that it cannot match most powder steels in that respect.
What powder steels have that carbon steel doesn’t have (aside from being stainless) is tremendous wear resistance. This is due to the high amount of chromium, vanadium and even tungsten carbide mixed in. Carbon steel simply cannot hold its edge as long as the super steels. But as I said, carbon steel is best for large choppers, not for small slicers.
As a slight hijack since it was mentioned way back in the day, Japanese swords generally sucked insofar as swords go. They were decent cavalry sabers for cutting down peasants, but terrible on the battlefield, to the point that they were strictly backup weapons. That said, they were about as good as could be expected given the quality of Japanese iron. You were still a lot better off using your metals for spear tips and arrowheads, but at least your sword wouldn’t shatter the first time you hit something with it… as long as you were lucky… and used just the right technique.
The Japanese cult of the sword is probably due to this very fact. Good swordsmiths would be extremely valuable, hence the legendary swordmakers of partial myth. Likewise, there were rituals and rules about when and how to wear and use your sword which few societies equaled. But then, it was largely a weapon of trained killers, mostly dangerous to unarmored people… hence it was most deadly in non-martial situations. I.E., when you had a guest come in, you wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to slice your family before you could do anything about it.
Side note: there’s not a lot of information on older forms of Japanese sword, predating the Samurai. They were straighter, anyway.
Iron is pretty good so is brass. both sharpen well and are heavy enough to swing. both are common although bronze is a little better yet than brass. Alloys are too light and break. forget spring steel. stainless, waste of money and time.
Wood, like oak or yew,mahogoney makes and excellent sword also, especially when dried properly, takes an excellent edge and point. metal is dicey when it crosses blades with wood!
john – knight
No-one’s ever dented a General Products hull AFAIK, though you can’t look at Lying Bastard’s impact on the Ringworld as a fair test since the ship was protected by a stasis field at the time. But it’s a fact that if you hit a big scrith structure with a moon-sized rock you will get a hole, fortunately only after it’s deformed enough to leave a mountain that reaches well out of the atmosphere. The Ringworld has a few other meteoroid punctures though, some of which have left it with a slow leak. It’s still the case that nothing’s ever damaged a GP hull except antimatter.
Thing is, you want swords to be two different things. You want the edge to be very hard, so it won’t bend or dull when it’s cutting, and stays sharp. But if it never bends, then when it gets pushed hard, it shatters. An obsidian or diamond sword would be sharper than a steel one, but if you tried to use it, very soon you’d have a bunch of (still very sharp!) shards, rather than a sword. So you also want a sword that’s springy and bendable enough that it won’t shatter when you smash it into another sword. A little bit of bending is better than shattering.
So there’s no one perfect material for swords; make it tougher by being springy, it won’t hold an edge as well, and make it harder to hold an edge and it will be less tough and tend to shatter.
The great thing about iron/steel is that, depending on exact alloy and even just the tempering, it can be very hard or relatively springy. So good blademaking techniques (traditional and modern) are about getting a very hard edge while keeping the body resilient. Some possibilities are welding a strip of very hard iron (for the cutting edge) onto a spring steel body, tempering the edge for hardness while leaving the body softer, or building the blade out of alternating thin sheets of hard and springy steel (which gives you the bonus of cool wavy patterns when the edge is ground and sharpened).
All that, and a steel sword is still light enough to use, and relatively cheap, makes it the choice for swords for most times and places.
I was just reading the Wikipedia article on Japanese swordsmithing a few days ago. The diagram in the “Assembly” section is interesting, showing different ways of combining different grades of steel to get a flexible blade with a sharp edge.
European swords were a lot more flexible and tougher though, and they stopped using similar pattern welding techniques after the migration period - probably due to the better quality of steel available.
