casting of sword blades in the 19th century

[ausjulius]

Originally Posted by Lee

The "chilled iron plow" was developed in the mid 19th century for casting plows where a heat sink was incorporated into the mold to rapidly cool and harden the soil contacting surfaces. Perhaps something similar was tried with swords, but David's explaination seems more likely.

yes i belive the blades were cast to shape in a rought blank and then forged to a finished serface with something with a rolling forge like the wilkinson type of rolling forge machines.. but the cast to shape blade would allow the whole sword to be finished with only one rolling die with minimal flashing. as opposed ot the regular rolled blades needing a rolled steel strip reshaped to a taper and then rolled in several dies.