[Josh S.]

Good day, all. I was hoping you would be able to help me with a few questions I've been wondering about lately.

1) What are the advantages and disadvantages of the different types of blade cross-sections for swords(i.e., lenticular, diamond, hexagonal, hollow-ground)?
1a) More specifically, which cross-section would be most suited to 1) a two-hander, 2) a flammard, 3) a two-handed flammard?

2) What are the advantages and disadvantages of using Damascus wootz steel versus using standard high-carbon spring steel in a sword?
2a) (same as 1a above)

3) Does a hollow-ground cross-section act as a sort of "double fuller" for a diamond blade? That is, is the only difference between diamond and HG cross sections that the HG is basically a fullered diamond?

I hope I worded these practically enough. Thanks for all your help, this site has already been immensely informative as is. These are just questions that haven't yet been completely answered in my search for answers through various sources, so I figured you all may have some pointers.

[Greg Thomas Obach]

Hi Josh

good questions
I'll leave the cross section questions to the people who deal with em.... (personally, i'm a flat bevel person ... not a fan of fullers or hollows)

as for wootz
it doesn't really act any different that a normal high carb steel....
- has good edge retension and flex...

but in my opinion.... it is by far the best looking of all the steels when properly etched.... (shear steel is also nice too)
- take a look at some nice Persian poulad and that says it all !!
- as with all high carb steels.... when properly heat treated, they preform very well for the normal tasks they are given....

Greg

[Geoff Wood]

There is a useful discussion of cross sectional geometries in a thread 'Question about hollow grinding' in the Historical arms forum on this site. Peter J posts are very interesting. Might be worth a read.

[Felix Thieme]

1. Lenticular is generally tougher, as far as I know. Diamond is stiff, but also fairly tough, without being terribly hard to manufacture. Hexagonal isn't terribly stiff, but it minimizes the material that has to be displaced in a cut; it can be almost as stiff as a diamond cross-section if it has a fuller. Hex is probably the best for a double-edged cutter. Hollow ground is great for keeping weight down without loosing stiffness. It generally improves light cutting ability, but detracts from heavy cutting (good for making shallow cuts in an opponent, bad for severing limbs). All of this is very heavily effected by the actual edge geometry as well.
1a. For a two-hander, intended to cut, I would suggest either a hexagonal section with a fuller/multiple fullers, to keep down weight and maximize cutting ability, or else a hollow-ground diamond cross-section with a fuller, to maximize stiffness without making it exceptionally heavy.

2. I don't know much about wootz. Other than the fact that I like saying the name. Wootz. Heh heh.

3. Hollow grinding doesn't necessarily have to be with a diamond cross section, as demonstrated by this terrible diagram I drew in Paint:

[Nathan Robinson]

Please read This Article for additional information regarding blade properties, including some more illustrations for cross-section and whatnot.

As mentioned above, there's was also a very good discussion regarding hollow-grinding on the forum not too long ago that is worth reading.

[Russ Ellis]

Went back and looked at the article. Saw an interesting one... has anyone ever seen one of thos blades mentioned with "opposing fullers?"

[Felix Thieme]

The only ones I can think of were smallswords/rapier-ish things...you know, small, light, pointy.

[Nathan Robinson]

[Geoff Wood]

[Russ Ellis]

That's interesting, ironically when I was thinking about it that Armart cavalry pallasch that I did that scabbard for came to mind even though its fullers were not that way.

[Josh S.]

Well, I'd already read that article before posting this, and soon after read that thread as suggested by Greg; but thanks for the suggestions all the same, Nathan. I tend to try to explore all sources of information already available before asking a question. I find it redundant to pose questions that have previously been answered, not to mention a waste of bandwidth.

The article, however, did little more than explain what the various cross-sections are. It briefly describes one or two features of lenticular and diamond cross-sections, but other than that it does not say much. Peter Johnsson's comments in the thread were more helpful, but still failed to answer some of the questions I asked here. Greg's pointers solved most of them.

Speaking of fullers, however, he said that a hexagonal CS with a fuller would probably be his first option for a two-hander, saying the fuller would add to the sword's stiffness. Now, I've also heard that a fuller, while decreasing the blade's weight, simultaneously increases its strength. I've never seen a justification for this claim, however; it seems as if less metal would equal less strength. If the opposite is true(i.e., that a fuller does indeed increase structural strength), could someone explain how? I realize this is more of a question of physics than actual swordplay, but I doubt that most of you would be unaware of the answer all the same.

[Geoff Wood]

[Daniel Watson]

A quality wootz blade has a more aggressive cutting abilty as well as superior toughness at the same hardness level.

While I have been able to cut floating silk with non-wootz swords, nothing has compared with the wootz for this feat. I still haven't tested the limits of wootz in tameshigiri however.

Daniel

[Jörg W.]

Hi Josh!

About wootz:

It is important to distinguish between pattern welded steel and wootz. Both are called Damascus steel. Damascus were well known for good black smiths and blades during many centuries.

Pattern welded steel were quite common even in western europe until 11th/12th century. it consists of 2 types of steel/iron, a low-carbone iron with is soft and elastic and a high-carbon steel which is hard and brittle. These were welded together, folded and welded again to combine both attributes. With the advance of technology (refining, heattreatment..) it falls out of use, cause special steel worked well too now and was easy and less time consuming in production. Some people say that pattern welded steel would exceed even modern high-carbon steel, if used for blades. But its a fact that you need to pay at least 3 times for a pattern welded blade compared to a hand forged blade of spring steel. It can easily even cost a couple of thousand US$. I would only spend that much if id be crazy for the nice pattern.


Wootz is a steel that includes small amounts of foreign elements like vanadium (even 0,003 % can be enough).
While cooling down and getting solid these elements precipitate in pearl chains and promote the formation of ironcarbide (Fe3C) which is very hard. Repeating a special warmup and cooldown program 6 or more times you get the unique lines in the steel.
Wootz has its origin in India were iron occurrences just had the right content to make wootz. When these were closed
the technology of producing wootz got lost about 200 years ago. its only few years ago that wootz got reproduced
first time and so science is just about to get to know more about the properties of wootz, but it seems to be interesting.
if there are already smiths that produce blades from wootz they are at least as expensive as pattern welded blade im sure.

If you are interested in more info go to
http://www.arsmartialis.com/technik/damast/damast2.html
its german, sorry.

You may find english sources by using 'wootz', 'manufacture', 'Alfred H. Pendray' and 'John D. Verhoeven' as key words
(metioned persons got wootz reproduced first time)

Back to your question: Spring steel 5160 is common, cheap and does well for blades.

Regards, Jörg

[Josh S.]

Thanks a bunch, Jörg. Very informative.

Now, some people on other forums have said that pattern-welded steel would not be a great choice for a two-handed sword, as it tended to fracture when placed under heavy stress. On another forum, I was told that pattern-welded steel was similar in practice to "diamonds in rubber," with the "diamonds" providing great cutting ability while the "rubber" offered great flex at the same time. There was also a claim that such a blade performed much better in the floating-silk test. I don't want to say who is wrong and who is right, but the simple fact is that with all these different, sometimes completely opposing claims, who can I believe? Is there a direct source for all this to which I can refer, even if it be in terms of pure simple physics?

Also, someone else suggested a lenticular cross-section would probably be best for a heavy cutting blade, with a hexagonal as a secondary choice. What would you all think of a lenticular blade with wide double fullers(which would cut down on weight but provide even less loss of stifness than just one fuller alone)?

Finally, are BOTH styles of flammard blades historically accurate? I have seen modern reproductions showing two different types; short, steep, sharp curves(almost semi-circular), and longer, drawn-out, gradual curves(similar to ocean waves). For reference you can compare the two MRL two-handed flammards. I personally feel more attracted to the longer-curve style, but are they both historical?

[Jeremiah Swanger]

[Daniel Watson]

[Josh S.]

I wasn't referring to your reply here, but rather a reply in a completely different website forum.

It's pretty impressive that you've actually handled real wootz. Where did you get such a blade from? If its rediscovery was as recent and its current production as rare as Jorg claims, that must have cost a pretty penny... Do you have any pictures? All the pictures I've found of wootz blades so far are pretty low-quality, so I still don't know what it actually looks like...

EDIT I guess that was you after all... oops

[Steve Fabert]

I seem to recall a scene in one of the 1950s Hollywood Crusader films that demonstrated the cutting of floating silk . The Crusader proudly demonstrated his sword's ability to cleave through some sturdy wooden item, so the Arab rival responded by splitting a piece of silk just by allowing its weight to bring it down across the edge of his reversed Damascus blade. Wish I could recall which film that was.

[Daniel Watson]