Moro Twistcores

Lee · 13th January 2010, 02:04 AM

What has constantly surprised me is just how widespread over time and many cultures the use of twist-core pattern welding actually is. At one time I believed that there must be some sort of common thread of cascading influence, but now I believe that it 'naturally' arises out of the material and how it must be worked at a small forge. That is, it arose from the use of a 'piled' structure of multiple rods to build a blade - either for differential properties (soft core, hard edge) or just to get a large enough billet - when, at some point, a rod with contrasting components or prominent grain would get twisted and patterns were seen at final polish and ultimately manipulated to arrive at the same end. So, the very same techniques and patterns may be seen at the core of a Celtic (less twisting) or Migration period (zenith of style) or Viking Age sword in Europe as would later show up in Chinese swords and Ottoman arms and Moro arms.

Very nice examples, by the way; thank you for sharing them. So, for what it is worth, I believe the Moro smiths 'discovered' this all on their own as a natural consequence of building blades from smaller components. Some pictures of the European manifestations of the technique and more details are included in The Serpent in the Sword.

13th January 2010, 02:04 AM	#5
Lee EAAF Staff Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Upstate New York, USA Posts: 937	A 'Natural' Outgrowth of Piled Structures What has constantly surprised me is just how widespread over time and many cultures the use of twist-core pattern welding actually is. At one time I believed that there must be some sort of common thread of cascading influence, but now I believe that it 'naturally' arises out of the material and how it must be worked at a small forge. That is, it arose from the use of a 'piled' structure of multiple rods to build a blade - either for differential properties (soft core, hard edge) or just to get a large enough billet - when, at some point, a rod with contrasting components or prominent grain would get twisted and patterns were seen at final polish and ultimately manipulated to arrive at the same end. So, the very same techniques and patterns may be seen at the core of a Celtic (less twisting) or Migration period (zenith of style) or Viking Age sword in Europe as would later show up in Chinese swords and Ottoman arms and Moro arms. Very nice examples, by the way; thank you for sharing them. So, for what it is worth, I believe the Moro smiths 'discovered' this all on their own as a natural consequence of building blades from smaller components. Some pictures of the European manifestations of the technique and more details are included in The Serpent in the Sword.