[Karl Knisley]

Hello
About when (time line wise) did sword makers start to etch thier blades?

Thanks

[G Ezell]

I too would like to know how long etching on steel for decorative purposes has been around, so I thought I'd give this thread a bump...

[Jared Smith]

This is only a guess.
Most pattern welded materials don't exhibit their structure (legendary visible trait historically) unless polished to a degree and etched. I would guess some forerunner of etching technique was in use around 800 A.D. if only to amplify the cosmetics of pattern welding. I have no idea when etching alone would have been used to decorate blades. I don't consider it unreasonable to speculate that it could have evolved from finishing of wootz, Damascus, or pattern welded blades.

[Glen A Cleeton]

Here is a brief from the Met on 15th and later century work with etching
http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2007/04/armo...ching.html

Somewhere here is a thread or article about a presentation of a sword from one noble to another but I'm not remembering the context quickly. The blade was highly decorated. if the synapses connect and I remember it, or find an image, I'lll beter remember the details. That was an early 15th century example, iirc.

Are we looking for a particular context here?

Cheers

GC

Here is a thread on Ornamentation Nathan had initiated, I'm not certain yet if it is the thread I'm remembering. Certainly worth a review anyway.
http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=2574

Etching as a search term brings up 114 topics in this section

sword AND presentation brought up more than 90 forum wideand is how I found the linked thread. There are at least a dozen from the first search I need to find time to read again, as I am somewhat fascinated by the trend for engraving and fire gilding vs etching during the 18th and early 19th century being applied to arms, only to see etching retake the stage as the primay method of blade decoration on western military swords by the mid 19th century.

[Jeroen Zuiderwijk]

[Peter Johnsson]

Jeroen, I would caution against make assumptions of a general nature based on how sagas describe details. In the case of your seax blade your idea to leave the surface without etching is a good one. In those cases where the structure was less a decorative effect and more a result of manufacture, I do not think it was enhanced.
In some cases fully pattern welded blades might not have been etched, but then I would think a rather advanced polish would have been used to bring out the effect. I do not think the structure was left mostly invisible.
The saga might mention the fact that the serpent was so discreet, simply because that was a noteworthy thing in a world where most patterns were readily visible. Alternatively, the saga could have been written down in an age where pattern welded sword blades were a rarity, and so a thing of legend and fascination (and just as they are today, regarded with much wild fancy and romantic notions).
Concerning pattern welded blades and how their pattern was revealed: Most originals are in no state of preservation to give us a clear idea of their original surface. I do agree with the notion that sometimes only careful polishing could have been used to reveal the pattern. I do suspect that mild acid (vingar, friut juice or some kind of chemical compound/fluid) was sometimes used to enhance the effect. In some cases the etching is more than just a mild enhancing: it is a matter of deep etching to produce a topographic effect.

There are exceptions to the rarity of surviving examples. Sometimes blades that has been preserved in oxygen free (or near so) conditions can have areas of original surface surviving. One sword from Fullerö just north of Uppsala has sections of the blade where the original pattern and character of the surface is very evident. This sword shows us many things: they could achieve very good surface finish. They did use etching (In this case rather heavily) to enhance the pattern. The effect is topographic (by this I mean that the etch is so deep that some layers stand proud and others are eaten away to some depth). Note the the pattern is etched in the fuller only. The edges show color contrast between the layers, but not deep lines etched in. This viking sword is thought provoking in many ays. It is rewarding to keep looking at it and note all the details that stand out in shape, surface, finish, sharpness and so on.

The second example is a celtic blade (LaTène II, 2nd C BC?) with patterned centre, where selective etching has been used to reveal the layers to dramatic effect. The edges are damaged, but the effect you can see in the centre of the blade is much what the sword would have looked originally: an etched field running down the centre of the blade coinciding with the piled core inside the welded on steel edges.

[Shane Allee]

Adding to what Peter mentioned about the celtic swords. In the La Tene II is when we really start seeing a lot more of the piled construction with sword blades, we also start seeing a lot of other blade decorations. Often times blades which don't have a piled construction seem to have been etched to create different patters. Sometimes these seem to mimic the look of piled construction, but others seem to be more of a wood grain pattern, vines, ect. Some of the more recent La Tene III research seems to be pointing to further manipulation to the piled construction to an early pattern welding. The more simple construction blades seem to move more from etched designs to textures like the punch work and file marks.

Even simple polishes involving water will lightly etch blades if the Ph of the water is acidic. Many sword polishers will add baking soda to their water to deter this effect. Otherwise you can sometimes sit there and watch light rust form on a blade in front of your eyes. I've had it be bad enough where the back side of the blade will start pitting while polishing the opposite. So even lightly acidic water can bring patterns out lightly without even trying.

Shane

[Jared Smith]

The actual science of etching is pretty old. Ancient Egyptians deeply etched granite and copper with pretty expert precision. The chemistry was a little more complex than vinegar and fruit juice. I have not researched it, but think we can say metal etching was done, even if not on weapons, long ago. I am not sure if there are any, but figure niello inlaid weapons could have existed in the same era as the popular era of pattern welded blades.
Some of the multi bar pattern welded geometries identified in artifacts by X-ray and metallurgical sampling go beyond what would have been required for refinement of a mixture of ores. As excavated, many of them do not readily exhibit these patterns, but also, the same tends to be true of many swords from the late-end era of pattern welding with inlaid lettering. I find myself asking why all of the effort would have gone in to an elaborate pattern if it was not optimally polished and enhanced to make the tediously crafted pattern clearly visible?

[Taylor Ellis]

What about etching not to bring out patterns, but to create new ones (as opposed to engraving them)?

[Jeroen Zuiderwijk]

[Jared Smith]

[G Ezell]

It seems we've had the ability to etch for a very long time! I think part of the problem of finding it on old weapons is that steel corrodes quite fast, and etching by it's very nature is shallow, so it tends to be the first detail to corrode away.... So I would think it would be difficult to spot on anything but a weapon kept in pristine condition. Careful observation can show the differences in etching and engraving, but it would be vastly more difficult to tell if the blade was in bad condition...

Shane, very interesting information on the Celtic swords. Is it possible these some of these designs (other than etching to show the piling) were selectively etched into the steel? I've seen decorative hammer and punch marks that were defiantly not etched, but do you have any examples of artifacts that are more likely than not etched decoratively?

I had always assumed the piled structure was obvious due to corrosion, not something done while the blade was in use, but now I'm not so sure. I've always suspected that the composite nature of the blades were seen as an indication of their quality to the warriors of the time, much the way the hada and hamon on Japanese blades were (and Japanese blades are usually -very- lightly etched, if at all). It shows the smith knew what he was doing, and that the edge was the highest quality steel while the body of the blade was more resilient, softer steel/iron. I've seen some really nice examples of Roman pattern-welding recently, it seems to have been the primary way of making a blade in Europe for a very long time, maybe until they found a way to make an equal (and less labor-intensive=cheaper!) sword of mono-steel around Charlemagne's time. It seems the real question is, how obvious was it, was it seen only in the right light, or could it be spotted halfway across a battlefield? (this question is more concerned with patternwelding than decorative etching, and likely should have it's own thread, so as not to derail this one, and I suspect it will be impossible to fully answer because of the condition of the artifacts)

Back to purely decorative etching, I suspect it eventually won out over engraving in the 19th century because:
A. A hardened steel blade is not very easy to engrave, and
B. The etching process lends itself to mass production, in that the design process and the labor intensive part (laying out the pattern) only needs to be done once, afterwards a stencil or such can easily transfer the pattern of resist to multiple blades...

[Jared Smith]

[G Ezell]

[Shane Allee]

I was afraid that in my rush to post that I might not have been the most clear.

In the La Tene II period we find blades that appear etched to bring out the piled construction, and this seems like it would have continued into the La tene III period when they started doing more decorative iron/steel patterns in the blade. Also in the La Tene II there are blades which are NOT made with a piled construction, but they have etched them making it appear that they were made with a piled construction. The third type of etched blade we see are one which are Not piled, and they have etched strickly decorative patterns in the blade that DON"T mimic a piled construction. This last type often look more like they were given a wood grain or vine type of pattern. It has been awhile since I have had that research out, but seems like there were a few other design types used as well.

The best place to see these are in The Finds at the Site of La Tene by Navarro. I don't have any pictures of this saved on my current computer, and my reseach is packed away in boxes at the moment. I'll look to see if it is something that I can find and get to easily or not. Really about the best that I have right now is pictures of a blade that I etched to give it more of the wood grain pattern that some blades had.

http://www.ironagearmoury.com/personal_la_tene.htm

Just a note, this one recently sold... so it isn't my personal sword anymore. *G*

Shane

[M. Johnston]

[Jeroen Zuiderwijk]