Rockwell for Historic swords -- myArmoury.com

Matthew D M · Posted: Fri 24 Mar, 2006 10:42 am Post subject: Rockwell for Historic swords

Does anyone know what the hardness was for historic pieces from the Renaissance period. For those who like to over analize ( Wink

) let's say a German Katzblager or comparable sword of top end quality for that period.

Jay Barron · Posted: Fri 24 Mar, 2006 2:58 pm Post subject:

I have read somewhere (probably on this or another sword collectors' site) that the RC hardness for many medieval/renaissance European swords was somewhere in the mid 40's.

Wolfgang Armbruster · Posted: Fri 24 Mar, 2006 3:02 pm Post subject:

Hmmm, I read that the average edge hardness for European swords of the late middle ages / early renaissance was around 50 - 55 Rockwell.

Bill Grandy · myArmoury Team

I would be very suspicious of any claims to knowing the average hardness of medieval and renaissance swords. That would require a whole lot of data... I don't even think we have enough data to say the average size, let alone hardness... and even if we did, there's so much variance that an "average" doesn't really mean much.

Jared Smith · Posted: Sat 25 Mar, 2006 4:39 am Post subject:

It has been discussed in some previous forums. Most people seem to "recall having read somewhere" a figure in the 40's.

http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t...t=rockwell

It is probably worth noting that wootz Damascus and pattern welded swords were still made (in the minority) until fairly late. In 1923 a sword researcher named Zschokke tested 10 wootz and pattern welded swords from the collection of Henry Moser, now exhibited in the Berne Historical Museum in Switzerland. Those swords had Rockwell hardness between 23 to 37 when tested. A current researcher (more interested in recreating smelting of Damascus metal as opposed to swords) is Verhoven. You should be able to track down a range of factual research through references in his articles. In one of his articles that I have saved a copy of, he was not interested in plain steel, and so did not present his sources when he stated that modern (meaning historical sword steel that was not pattern welded or wootz) steel swords typically had Rockwell hardness near 40.

Bill Grandy · myArmoury Team

Angus Trim in the other thread posted this:

Craig Johnson · Industry Professional

Hey Guys

I am unaware of any specific test of a Katzbalger blade at this time. I do have an article on hardness being finished up for nathan so I will address of bunch of stuff in that if you can be patient. There is an abysmally low number of well documented tests at this point in time. So we need to be judicious in how we apply the information and must also be clear about what the specific items tested can tell us. As in so much of life its the analysis that matters ;-)

Best
Craig

Matthew D M · Posted: Sat 25 Mar, 2006 11:45 am Post subject:

It doesn't necessarily have to be a Katzblager, just a sword that could be used like that. I'm not interested in rapiers or estocs, etc.

Thanks for the answers everyone. I appreciate it.

Bill Grandy · myArmoury Team

Matthew D M · Posted: Sat 25 Mar, 2006 12:27 pm Post subject: Re: Hardness

Craig Johnson · Industry Professional

Angus Trim · Posted: Sat 25 Mar, 2006 1:45 pm Post subject: Re: Hardness

Jaroslav Petrina · Posted: Sat 25 Mar, 2006 3:20 pm Post subject:

The question is what is an average hardness of a quality weapon.
Hardness in 30-40 is probably rather low considering what a sword have to withststand.
I would be also surprised if a wootz weapons have such a low hardness, as the nature of materiall itself allows extraordinery hardness with good toughness.

I have here a metalography of an old sword with a welded on edges and it has carbide particles in the edge and edge hardness of about 70 RC.
(This is late 10. cent sword, so out of our sample)

I would also be surprised if even the monosteel blade had the same hardness all through the blade.
When the blade is quenched I would think that thicker middle wont harden as much as edges which have higher temperature.

Jaroslav

Johan S. Moen · Posted: Sat 25 Mar, 2006 4:41 pm Post subject:

Jared Smith · Posted: Sun 26 Mar, 2006 7:32 am Post subject:

A more focused topic would be harndess of historical, homogenous, mild-carbon steel blades.

For a homogenous steel, hardness is a fairly direct indicator of tensile strength. However, the two do not have the same degree of proportionality. Doubling one does not correspond to doubling the other. Optimization or tradeoffs as hardness was varied over a histrorically credible range is something I would love to see explained. Explaining this probably depends on preferrence for flexibility and degree of combat hand shock that is considered acceptable.

The homogenous steel topic limitation would tend to leave out a signficant portion of early and middle medieval period swords. A small percentage of relatively modern pattern welded blades would also have to be excluded. Some other articles I have read stated that the popularity of pattern welding grew steadily between 9 to 13th century A.D. with potentially more than 30% of all swords being pattern welded approaching the 13th century. It started to decline shortly after this peak (due to more economical blast furnace forging of homogenous steel), but did not abruptly stop being practiced. As an overall blade structure, the reputation of these blades tended to be exaggerated to mythical proportions for flexing capability and toughness of cutting edge. It is possible to have RC 60-70 localized regions of material within the cutting edge, while the core of the blade has an RC 30 to 40. For styles of combat that emphasized slashing and cutting, this ultra sharp and durable cutting edge characteristic would offer advantages that can not be easily conveyed using a simple "average blade hardness" measure.