Blades and horseshoes??!!

[wolviex]

Originally Posted by Jeff D

"The hammering of the iron, at first by hand and later by water powered hammers, played a necessary part in the production of quality iron. The slag which remained in the wrought iron from the earliest smelting processes and later from any of the several pig iron refining processes, was evenly distributed as uniformly oriented, elongated threads or "stringers" throughout the hot iron by the blows of the hammer. This fibrous structure was the source of good toughness and corrosion resistance of wrought iron. The best wrought iron would contain as many as 250,000 uniformly orientated hairlike stringers of slag per square inch of cross section. Only after the earliest studies of iron with the microscope towards the end of the nineteeth century were the reasons behind the beneficial effect of hammering well understood- but awareness had come long before understanding. In the early descriptions of iron and steel making, old horseshoes and horseshoe nails are frequently cited as a necessary ingredient of the best quality products. This practice is an extension of the well foundered but somewhat obsessive commitment to hammering. The constant pounding of these shoes and nails on cobblestone pavements served as hammering which, it was thought, continued to improve the iron of which they were made even as they were being worn beyond usefulness."

Pg 22-23 Fighting Iron A metal handbook for the Arms Collectors 1999 by Art Gogan.

Hope this clears things up a little.
Jeff

IT IS QUITE AMAZING. I think I should RETURN ALL HONOR TO THE AUTHOR. Both are deffinietely writing about the same process, and there is of course one 'but' - Polish author could just use the same book for collectors as Jeff has.
If ANYONE have ANYTHING like Jeff what would proof, let's call it further "natural forging" please post it here!

[Jeff D]

Hi Michal,

I have no absolute proof, but I have worked with horses and their shoes all my life. The phenomenon of their shoes lasting longer after continued use has been quite noticable to me. Since most blacksmiths were also the farriers I can't imagine this passing their observation. I don't think the shoes were remelted in a crucible, rather they were hammer welded together, this process would also add more carbon to the product. The process of adding more carbon as well as further organizing the stringers with continued hammering during the forging of a blade intuitively makes sense.
I would also like to hear what Greg, Rick and the other smiths have to say on this topic.

All the Best.
Jeff

[Gt Obach]

Hi
making some assumptions here... - that the material is wrought iron... of high quality.
in my opinion it would be very desirable for blade making... a high quality wrought iron in a damascus mix... for example... a file steel will have a very high carbon level.. to cut it down abit for a sword blade, i'd mix in some wrought iron into the folding process. After so many welding heats, the carbon kinda evens out and you have a lovely folded pattern in the blade.

are the horse shoes and nails carburized ?

reason i ask is that maybe a good reason to add them if they are..

if you've used some very low quality wrought iron... and tried to make a nail out of it... you'd have a very hard time to hammer it through wood without predrilling a hole... .. it would be like hammering a copper nail into wood... it would buckle if too much resistance is there...

maybe the same is of horse shoes.. they maybe of a high quality wrought iron..... unlike some of the wagon wheels/tires ...those are usually low quality
I imagine that the horses feet would also test out the wrought for any weaknesses or large slag inclusions ... like a proof test

also for a sword steel ... you want a very high quality wrought iron/steel..... look at the japanese swords... very high quality bloom steels..... with many folds to make the steel as homogeneous as possible.

by folding the bloom over and over... you turn a low quality muck bar/wrought iron into a higher quality wrought.(very fine and numerous strands)
-- wrought iron chains are usually high quality

so by starting out with a decent quality wrought iron... you'd spare yourself alot of work folding muck bar into a better wrought iron

Wrought iron is a beautiful material to add to damascus... because it loves to forge weld ... it sticks like glue with very little flux..... due to the self fluxing nature of the siliceous slags in the metal..... with good welds... you increase your chance of a very good sword !

after the welding process is done... you'd have a hard time telling what materials were used... as long as the carbon level is decent for a sword... -you could etch the sword to look for pattern welds... but if it was folded many times, it may be very homogenous
-- I think the Polish sabers were very good ... so the smiths must have known what they were doing...

Recycling is also important... good iron and steels, it only makes sense to reuse them..

- i still to this day hunt for wrought iron... over the holidays i brought back a 2foot by 1"by1/4" bar of wrought on the plane ride back... (checked luggage ofcourse)

take care
Greg

[Jens Nordlunde]

Hi Greg,

I have never seen that horse shoes were used for ingots, so I have always presumed that they were used then forging a blade – and one more thing, the horse shoes used then, could have been made of different iron than used for the shoes to day, and this could mean a different end result.

Jens

[Jens Nordlunde]

Hi Greg,

It seems that I have seen that horseshoes and nails were used directly in crucibles, but I did not think of it, the reason must be that it was not horseshoes, but mule shoes.

Persian Steel by James Allan and Brian Gilmour, pages 41-79. On page 61 a recipe is given where some of the things, which should be used, are mule shoes and nails. Other old recipes on how to make crucibles are also given.

[Gt Obach]

thanks Jens

that is a good reference.

seems like recycling of metal has deep roots !

Greg

[Jim McDougall]

Just located another interesting item concerning superstition and folklore as applied to weapons, in 19th c. Sweden and certainly considerable time prior;
"...in Swedish folklore rifles were associated with various popular and magical beliefs, mostly concerning the ability of the weapons to hit and kill its target. The rifle itself could be a magical item, For example the material a good rifle barrel should be made of, should contain nails from a cemetary, a piece of silver, bones from an executed man and coffin nails".

taken from Pers-Anders Ostling, "Rifles in Swedish Folklore:Magical Properties of Weapons", in Vol.#4 2003, p.26, "Varia: Journal of the Swedish Arms & Armour Society".

While obviously pertaining to firearms, I have simply included this item to illustrate superstitious concepts often applied to weapons, which extended of course in many cases even more so to edged weapons. The inclusion of various botanicals believed to possess key metaphysical properties into the processing of steel is well described by Robert Elgood in "Hindu Arms and Ritual", and it there are likely many other instances that may be found in other cultures, certainly in the Indonesian cultural sphere.

While excellent suggestions have been presented in the discussion that describe the dynamics of metallurgy and the adding of forged metal from such sources as nails and horseshoes from practical standpoint, I feel that the folklore perspective may have a degree of plausibility as well. Although we view such topics with much more scientific perspective today, I think we must remember the environment in which such things were viewed in the period we are considering.

While the blacksmiths were probably using the materials we are discussing with sound reason and for reasons known only unto themselves, those who described these processes in many cases certainly embellished these descriptions imbued with thier own limited knowledge of the procedures as well as thier own superstitious beliefs.

Best regards,
Jim