Posts: 1,532 Location: Tennessee
Wed 28 Oct, 2009 3:22 pm
I don't have any mechanical tests. As I mentioned earlier I actually had searched for an affordable modern substitute alloy in reasonable round rod form to try some comparative manual forging on. (Thinking of doing a qualitative assessment of how much advantage there could be in terms of ease of forge drawing, cutting with punches, doing less annealing, etc.)
The properties I mention were originally applied in an engineering sense in early 17th industrial making of high quality wire for instruments like harpsicords. The historical use is pretty easy to find references to in the history of wire making. Supposedly the historical iron strings emitted deeper toned sounds than today's steel core composites, but could fail with hazardous consequences unless the material composition was just right. Examples of material of similar composition and analysis suggesting a high degree of cold forming do apply to historical mail. This reference to "Re-assessing the Sophistication of Merovingian Metalworking" has been brought up repeatedly in prior posts. Check out the magnified cross section of a ring from medieval mail in figure 9, and read the assessment of composition and forming process beside it in the article.
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0508/Ehrenreich-0508.html
Although the few scholars interested enough in other sample of mail (Peter Beatson, Vegard Vike, Arne Jouttijarvi) to section it and assess composition did not theorize purpose behind the composition, they did find very similar composition in samples considered to date from 4th century B.D. through 10th century A.D.. Arne Jouttijarvi actually assessed native ores by region and went to far as to suggest that it was improbable that his sample came from anywhere else but a pretty specific region. (Maybe coincidence, but the region was also an primary supplier for the early iron musical strings.)