Ironworks Gaming Forum - View Single Post

Thoran · 07-17-2003, 08:38 PM

I know Damascus is just another way of processing iron into steel... and as I said, todays steels are well beyond the capabilities of Damascus anyway. Maybe I didn't look into the museum store data enough but it seemed they were using some off the shelf steels in their blades... and until the advent of the Bessemer process such purity was unattainable (and I seem to recall that's why so much folding was needed... to force out the impurities), the lifespan of the long sword was well before the advent of Bessemer. I'm sure the good quality functional blades made today using off the shelf steels are superior in every way to the most radical period blades (except perhaps in geometry unless the new blade is patterened exactly after a period blade).

It appears there may be some disagreement regarding weight, I've seen a couple references to the L.S. historic weight being in the 3# range... but perhaps it's not so cut and dried. Certainly the later long sword designs would have been lighter given their taper, perhaps that's part of the discrepancy.

As far as swinging even a 2 1/2 pound blade... I can only imagine what a couple hours of that would be like, because I could never do it. Of course the guys back then were swinging blades from childhood, and I imagine someone will get used to any reasonably weighted and balanced blade (although it may take a while).

FWIW... Here's another site, Del Tin... these guys have some nice looking stuff, and their stuff appears to hover in the 2.5-3 lb range.

http://www.deltin.it/swords2.htm

Here's another link with some very nice looking swords... reasonably priced too for the most part.
http://www.ancientedge.com/subcategory_8.html

makes me want to get out my checkbook. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 07-17-2003, 08:51 PM: Message edited by: Thoran ]

07-17-2003, 08:38 PM	#26
Thoran Galvatron Join Date: January 10, 2002 Location: Upstate NY Age: 56 Posts: 2,109	I know Damascus is just another way of processing iron into steel... and as I said, todays steels are well beyond the capabilities of Damascus anyway. Maybe I didn't look into the museum store data enough but it seemed they were using some off the shelf steels in their blades... and until the advent of the Bessemer process such purity was unattainable (and I seem to recall that's why so much folding was needed... to force out the impurities), the lifespan of the long sword was well before the advent of Bessemer. I'm sure the good quality functional blades made today using off the shelf steels are superior in every way to the most radical period blades (except perhaps in geometry unless the new blade is patterened exactly after a period blade). It appears there may be some disagreement regarding weight, I've seen a couple references to the L.S. historic weight being in the 3# range... but perhaps it's not so cut and dried. Certainly the later long sword designs would have been lighter given their taper, perhaps that's part of the discrepancy. As far as swinging even a 2 1/2 pound blade... I can only imagine what a couple hours of that would be like, because I could never do it. Of course the guys back then were swinging blades from childhood, and I imagine someone will get used to any reasonably weighted and balanced blade (although it may take a while). FWIW... Here's another site, Del Tin... these guys have some nice looking stuff, and their stuff appears to hover in the 2.5-3 lb range. http://www.deltin.it/swords2.htm Here's another link with some very nice looking swords... reasonably priced too for the most part. http://www.ancientedge.com/subcategory_8.html makes me want to get out my checkbook. [img]smile.gif[/img] [ 07-17-2003, 08:51 PM: Message edited by: Thoran ]