[Michael Pikula]

Hello everyone, I was wondering if anyone knows how a few of the patterns that were used in the late Roman blades that were part of the Illerup Adal find where developed using low technology techniques.

I have been looking at the "knot" pattern that was used in the diamond opening that are framed by a "basket weave" and I can't come up with what would be an efficient way or creating this without wasting time, material, and the blade grinders time just because one weld didn't take. Even with the aid of modern tools this seems like a massive undertaking but if you were to be a smith from the times of old and had orders to fill for men going to war I don't see that taking that kind of a risk was worth the effort...

Secondly, everything that the Vikings did, which had a lot to do with twisting, had a purpose in the process of making the sword. In the case of twisting it was to test welds and break off scale, what would be the purpose of creating the complex mosaic patterns in the blades that the Romans did? I was thinking that some of it could have been simply to show off their skills, but there are so many finds with these examples that wouldn't it logically make sense that it was a common practice in forging the blade?

Mainly I am looking to strike up a conversation that has to do with these wonderful blades. I only have volume 11 and 12 right now and am on the hunt for more texts from this find and any others that feature the complex pattern welded, but money is tight so I have to be happy with what I have.

Comments and ideas are very welcome!

Cheers,

btw I had this post in the Maker forum for about half an hour because I posted it in the wrong spot, my bad!

[Kirk Lee Spencer]

Hi Michael...

First off let me say that you are doing some really amazing pattern-welding! It is good to have you here and I look forward to seeing more of your forge work in the future.

It is interesting that you bring up the subject of the very fine (and diverse) pattern-welding in the bog finds-- I was just thinking of this the other day. I have my Illerup Adal Vol. 11 & 12 on order. So when I get them I will certainly have more to add. I do have some 19th century drawings from Nydam Mosefund by Conrad Engelhardt and a couple of photographs. I have attached them to this post. Let me know if this is what you are talking about.

I'm not sure that I have ever seen anyone try to replicate these late Roman patterns. I would really like to hear if anyone has tried a little experimental archeology in the forge.

The layers appear to be very fine, like wires rather than billets. It reminds me of the earlier celtic swords that show a piled structure seen as welded wires, usually running down the length of the blade forming the core (see attachment). I have not heard of any torsion (twisting) of these wires in the Celtic finds (Although I did see a drawing of a Celtic La Tene sword with torsion in the tang). The earliest torsion pattern-welding I have seen were in Roman pugio daggers which I assume are probably 1st century A.D. at the earliest (see attachment).

Of course in the bog finds there are also fine examples of torsion patterns, however there are also many blades that have wires in a piled structure running down the length of the blade as in the Celtic forms, however there is more variation from solid to thin wire bundles across the blade core (see attachment).

It may be that the knotted patterns you are referring to were experiments based upon the success with torsion (or leading up to it) where the wires were coiled (something the Celts really liked in their decoration) or braided (generating a knotted pattern that would become popular throughout the Middle Ages). The coiled or braided wires were then hammer welded together at welding temperature as a core (or into the surface of an iron core)

I suspect, as you say, there were many welds that didn't take. This might very well explain why this coiled form did not persist. And I had the thought that the cold shuts and weak welds, might even explain why the cross hatching of iron was inlayed into the surface of the blade (see attachments). It may have acted to cover some of the cold shuts and weak welds and add integrity to the structure of the blade. (It would be interesting to see a detailed xray of the blade with the cross-hatched iron inlay and see it there is any evidence of weakness below the inlay.) There have been several pattern welded blades that show patches and even rivets to hold the blade together.

Great question and I hope we can get some more discussion going. I would really like to know more about these beautiful blades...

take care

ks

[Michael Pikula]

Hi Kirk, you bring up some very interesting points and I haven't given much thought to the piled structure because somehow it hasn't caught my eye as too appealing, but it is interesting and I will be looking at it in more detail. I have some scrap billet section lying around and I'll see what I can do about manipulating them or using them to try to create something of that aesthetic when I get some time.

We should defiantly talk more when you have a chance to look over 11 &12 when you get them, the pattern that I am talking about are very exact and extremely intentional. I am almost tempted to say that maybe they used their little scrap sections and forged them into really small sections, possibly like wire, then inlayed a set opening that was either carved out, or possibly even a basic form was stamped into the sections desired. Then cleaned up/added final detail with a chisel and hammering in the detailed work. I am also wondering if they may have used some of the filing from the forming of the blade inside of these openings. I have used the L6 that I ground out with a 36 grit belt to fill the voids of a billet I made/is in progress of making that used a whole bunch of scrap pieces of pattern weld I had around the shop, just as an experiment. The first weld and drawing are showing some very promising results...

Two problems with this line of thinking are if this was the case you would more then likely have to work very small sections of the blade at a time so as not to displace the forms before you got to weld them. Secondly if you do two sides and are only working small sections are you over working the steel in those sections? I would imagine you would want to forge the blade to shape as well so there you are adding more time hot, and if it isn't worked at the right temperature I can see failure. Secondly depending on if the fullers were partially forged or ground would mean that the depth of the inlay might have to be pretty deep and from what I have seen so far there is no indication of grinding through the patterns.

I figure that the "palm tree" mosaic that they did and the basket weave would not be a problem since it would be... easier... to get a good depth to the pattern. But I haven't had time to play with this to try to figure it out, or at least get some further insight.

Looking to stimulate the brain then take it to the forge instead of jumping in and hoping for the best.

[Kirk Lee Spencer]

Hi Michael...

Well... I received Vols. 11 & 12 of the Illerup Adal series. It is certainly an important monograph. Well worth the money. It is going to take me some time to process it all. The images in these volumes on the diamond gridwork and palm tree and knotted mosaic forms have made any simple explanation difficult to imagine. You are certainly right, they are very intensional and well done.

I recognize a similarity between the palm tree forms and somewhat similar patterns I have seen in Roman glass beads from the same time period. So if someone knows how the glass beads were made, that might go along way in possibly understanding how these billets came together. Instead of molten glass they were working with iron at welding temperatures.

I don't think that they were working the blade in sections for the same reasons you mentioned. So many times reheating the whole blade to welding temperature would eventually begin to burn the iron.

It may be the reason it looks like mosaic damascus is because it is. I have a friend who has been experimenting with some mosaic damascus. He places fragments and wires in a can in a particular pattern. He has two curved dies that he has made for his press which pushes on the can like a vise with curved jaws to weld all the wires together at weld temperature. He then cuts it like cookie dough to weld into other projects.

I was wondering if it would be possible to do a similar thing in long straight sections (you would not need special dies). Rather than a can it would be two vertical plates spaced about half inch apart with some kind of bottom. Iron in thins sheets and wires could be placed between these two plates in bundels to create the palm tree pattern. The intervening spaces could be filled with filings from the shop floor. The whole would be welded together as a solid bar. This thick bar could then be cut into thin sections and layed side by side and welded together along the edges to form the blade core. It is interesting to me that the palm tree designs usually have piled layers (thin straight layers) between the mosaics. If they were made in the way just described, then these piled layers between may be the plates that were used confine the mosaic elements as they are packed into place.

One way to test this idea is to look at the palm tree pattern which all vary slightly form one to the next and see if there is a similar progression similar palm tree designs in some of the bars. This would be expected if they were cut from the same large mosaic bar, the sequence in the original would be replicated in each section cut from it.

One thing is clear from the illustrations in the monograph... the diamond gridwork, if it is some kind of inlay, as I have heard, has been done before the blade was forged to shape because it shows elongation near the tip of the blade.

Hope all this make sense.

take care

ks

[Michael Pikula]

Happy to hear you got 11&12! There sure is a wealth of information in there. I should have learned German so that I could understand the text though.

I was thinking about the Palm mosaic and I agree that making some kind of a bar which could have been cut into tiles and the tiles used to make up the patterning on the blade. I was thinking how the tiles could have been held in place using a low tech method... Sometimes you can see a very faint line at the top of the palm which would correspond to the tile theory. Do we know if the patterning on the front and back are symmetrical? This could offer insight as to the technique that was used...

I am still at a loss for the knot though... It has a "flow" to the lines but I have no idea how to translate it to steel.

I don't know why I am interested so much in the traditional technique say for to understand how the minds of our predecessors worked. It must have made sense and been a cut and paste operation for them. I kind of have a full plate right now with work, but I will be getting some modeling clay in the near future to play with different ideas that come up.

Man, that knot pattern....

[Gary Teuscher]

Since you guys seem pretty knowledgeable in pattern welding, let me ask a question

I've heard 2 schools of thought on pattern welding. One is it was done to produce a higher quality blade, even though it was less efficient time wise.

The other was that it was necessitated by having small amounts of bog iron to work with - the quality was not any better, but it required a lot more work, but for some iron poor cultures this was their only option.

I would assume there are some truths to both.

[Jeroen Zuiderwijk]

[Gary Teuscher]

What I menat by the bog iron I guess was that there would be non-homogenous types of material to use, as opposed to one piece from standard ore. Apparently it was more the blast furnace technology that made pattern welding less important, getting the temperature high enough to melt as opposed to high enough to weld as with a bloomery furnace.

I'm curious, is a pattern welded blade any better than a blast furnace produced one? It certainly would be slower to produce. I wonder how many pattern blades were done after the blast furnace was common technology, and why?

[Kirk Lee Spencer]

[Gary Teuscher]

How about the BLoomery vs the Blast furnace issue?

[Jeroen Zuiderwijk]

[Jeroen Zuiderwijk]

[Gary Teuscher]

To throw another issue into the equation, my understanding is "Damascus Steel" was made in a process different but in some ways similar to pattern welding. Anyone versed in Damascus Steel?

I guess it is funny how little we truly know about ancient swordcrafting techniques, and perhaps what is also funny how little they knew, why certain things worked well and others did not.

You have carbon introduced to the iron, phosphorous, even alloys with Vanadium, Tungsten, Nickel invloved. From what I know glass was added to Wootz steel to better remove the slag and impurities. One wonders if many of these ancient smoths really knew what they were intruducing into the basic iron.

My guess it waa trial and error situation, with certain techniques producing better swords and these techniques being then used by swordsmiths, the process rather slow from an evolutionary standpoint. It could aslo explain why the "tried and true" method of pattern welding, even though slower for manufacture was continued after better technology was available. Or perhaps pattern welding produced better swords, I don't know.

We do know that the smiths had the right idea about wanting a soft blade for fexibility, but also a harder blade for cutting. I would think they knew what they were doing when trying to incorporate both of these in one, be it a softer core and harder outside, or a harder edge on a softer blade, or even a laminate of different hardness materials.

With the Forge vs Bloomery thing - with a little reading, I have found the line between the two to be rather grey. With advances in Bloomeries, my understanding is the temepratures got hot enough to melt iron as time went on, making the blast furnace more efficient, but not always a step up in technology.

I do believe though that in the Middle ages, particularily the earlier period, the "pimping out of the sword" would have been secondary to a quality weapon, they were more concerned with functionality I would think. This may have been a carry over from when this was the best way to make a functional weapon, and perhaps it still was the best way to make a functional weapon for some time.

[Jeroen Zuiderwijk]