Despite the fact that firearms are widely used in the modern world, cold weapons are still used - in daggers and bayonet knives. This is where the official combat use of edged weapons ends. and daggers have become part of historical and national costumes. Roleplayers and reenactors fight with gusto using wooden, plastic, automotive steel, and other materials in their fights.

In almost every school of hand-to-hand combat, you can find a direction for fighting with sticks and training swords. Because fencing develops body balance, orientation, movement speed and muscle flexibility. A person who knows how to fence with a steel sword can easily do the same with any stick.

What types of swords are

There are several types of swords. The simplest and easiest to manufacture are straight, one and a half and two-handed. They differ in weight, type of fight with them.

Straight or Slavic - the smallest and most convenient to handle with one hand. In the second hand, they usually take a shield or another similar sword. The handle of such a tool is designed for one brush. To select the size, take the workpiece in your hand - the tip of the blade should touch the ground.

The one-and-a-half is an intermediate sword between the straight and two-handed. The battle with this is carried out either with two hands, or with one and a small shield, so that you can always help the second hand. In hand-to-hand combat schools, this type of sword is very common, as it allows you to develop the upper shoulder girdle and strengthen the joints.

The heaviest and longest, if you lean it on the ground, the handle should reach to the chin. It can only be controlled with two hands. In training, it is good for muscle development.

All swords, one way or another, develop coordination of movement, especially if the battle is against several opponents.

Making a wooden sword: what material to choose?

A wooden sword can be made from different types of material. Some advise taking deadwood or parts of boards made of birch, hazel, oak, aspen. This is suitable if you need wooden swords for training, so you don't mind breaking them. If you're getting ready to role-play and want an impressive, durable sword to show off with, picking up a fresh sapling is worth it. The thickness depends on the type of sword. You can also take a thicker tree, but then you need to choose the core as the most durable part.

Be careful with the choice of material, wooden swords with knots, rot and wood bugs do not last long. The selected workpiece must first be soaked until completely saturated with moisture, and then dried very slowly so that the wood does not crack. If you follow the wood drying technology, you will get a very durable and light sword.

Sword at home: how to make?

A wooden sword, despite the pliability of the material, will require patience and skill in working with the workpiece. Remove the bark with a planer, removing bumps along the way and making the trunk straighter. Trim the trunk on both sides so that the blade is from 3 cm to 0.5 cm. It makes no sense to sharpen the tree, given the strength of the material. All sharp edges must be removed, the blade made oval. You should not make the handle round, otherwise during the battle the sword will scroll in your hand, it is better to choose a rectangle with rounded edges as a shape. Between the blade and the handle, carve a place for the guard. The guard can be made of wood, metal or nylon. We make two identical symmetrical parts and fasten with electrical tape.

The handle is also wrapped with electrical tape or wet leather. The balance of the sword should be at a distance of one or two palms from the guard to the blade, if this point was not observed during the manufacture of the sword, then when winding the handle under the winding, you can hide the lead inserts. The tree itself should be strengthened with impregnating compounds, like epoxy resin. Your weapon will serve you longer and will not be afraid of moisture. Wooden swords can also be made beautiful. Therefore, at the last stage, it remains only to decorate the sword to your liking.

Are you still wondering how to make a wooden sword? This is an easy product. But for stuffing a skill, you can start with a knife or a boat.

scandinavian type

Round shields are called Scandinavian, although they were used everywhere in Slavic squads, since round shields are easy to make. Their diameter was usually from 65 to 90 cm. The Scandinavians made them from ash, oak, maple. Made of linden were especially appreciated - for their low weight. The thickness of such shields was from 6 to 12 mm. The boards were bound with steel plates, and they themselves were painted in various colors and decorated. Sometimes a finished and decorated product became an expensive gift.

Making a wooden shield

Based on the preferences of the Scandinavians and modern materials, the simplest thing is to make a shield from plywood 6 mm thick. According to the markup, cut out a circle of the diameter you need. Cut a hole in the center for the fist. Using a wood knife or paint, you can imitate boards. For durability and a better look, cover the shield with stain.

Depending on the size of your hand, make a metal umbon to close the hole. The handle of the shield is attached to two bars, which are attached to the entire diameter of the product. The handle is made of oak, birch or ash. They are fastened with nails, and the protruding parts are removed with wire cutters and riveted.

At the next stage, the shield is glued with leather or burlap. After that, the umbon is mounted. The shield is bound either with metal or with leather. The metal is from 1 to 1.5 mm thick, and the skin should be thicker during forging, from 5 mm.

For ease of wearing, you need to make a leather strap. Such an addition will allow you to wear a shield on your shoulder or throw it on your back over your head.

The final stage - decoration - is up to you. The shield often depicted a coat of arms, a sign of a detachment, or simply a drawing aimed at intimidating the enemy.

wooden sword training

In schools of hand-to-hand combat, sword fighting training is often arranged in the classroom. It perfectly develops coordination, reaction, sense of distance. And the pain of the blows allows you to believe in the reality of the battle. Wooden swords and shields are excellent weapons for such training. There are separate schools for sword fighting where they use heavy protection, and the fight is more like a show. But there is a minus in such training: a fighter, getting used to strong armor, begins to be exposed to a blow, and in the case of street fighting with sticks, this leads to injury.

But try to remove the protection, every blow leaves bruises. After a few lessons, students begin to dodge blows. When fighting a stronger opponent, they learn not to take the blow hard, but to redirect it. In a battle with several opponents, they develop coordination, speed of movement, thinking and intuition. Such skills will come in handy in real life, and not just in the ring.

A wooden sword is cheaper and easier to manufacture, so it is used for training. With it, you can work out most movements, but when switching to other materials, you have to learn a lot again, since the weight changes a lot. Some trainers use very heavy and clumsy wooden swords so that the students develop the muscles, and then work out the movements already on the metal.

Additional protection

Looking at photos of wooden swords and making your own, do not forget about protection. In the heat of a training fight, it's easy to lose your temper and start hitting at full strength. To avoid fractures, it is worth using additional protection for the arms, legs and head. The first defense is one's own sword, then the guard of the sword. Fingers, wrists, forearms are at risk. In mass battles, everything else falls into the risk zone. Therefore, it is recommended to protect the hands with gloves, wrists and forearms - with sleeves. Cover the body with a thick leather jacket or quilt. It is worth putting a tight knitted cap on your head, in case of a pass, it will soften and distribute the blow. Don't forget a mouth guard to protect your teeth. Legs from the foot to the knee should be covered with high boots or boots with knee pads.

reenactors

In our world, the movement of role players and reenactors is popular. Some use the plot from fantasy books for their games, others reconstruct battles from our history. If the first can get off with a not too active role and not participate in mass battles, then the second is better to have fencing skills, good physical fitness and dexterity, and also be able to fight in the ranks.

It is always easier to buy a sword in a special workshop, it is not difficult to find one among role players, but if you decide to make a wooden sword with your own hands, then be patient.

Once upon a time, a good sword or dagger was not only an object denoting the status of the owner. The life of its owner often depended on the quality of the blade. Today, edged weapons perform a rather decorative function, but many people want to know how to make a blade.

A handmade sword can be an excellent interior decoration and the pride of its owner.

An easy way to make a sword at home

To make a blade at home, you will need the following tools and materials:

• sheet steel about 5 mm thick;
• Bulgarian;
• drill;
• electric emery.

The contour of the template is traced with a marker on the forging and cut out on the roughing wheel.

The work begins with a sketch of the future sword on paper. After that, the contours of the blade are transferred to the metal, taking into account the processing allowances.

1. According to the applied contour, holes are drilled in the corners with a drill, if the shape of the sword is quite complex. This will make it easier to cut the contour with a grinder. Make holes for attaching the handle.
2. Cut the workpiece along the contour on the metal. In the absence of a grinder, this operation can be performed with a chisel and a hammer.
3. Further processing is carried out on emery or a file: excess metal should be removed, giving the product the shape of a sword, thickened towards the center and thin on the cutting edges. The relief on the blade in the form of valleys or other details is performed with the same tools.
4. The blade is tempered and released. The process is described below, in a more complex way of making weapons with your own hands.

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How to forge a blade with your own hands?

To obtain the desired thickness, align the plane of the blade by moving it back and forth in a circle.

Forging involves the formation of a metal product by striking a hot material, which, due to exposure to high temperature, becomes plastic and soft. To make a sword by forging, you will need:

• low-carbon steel (bar or strip);
• hammer;
• anvil and forge.

If you start forging from a bar, then the first step is to forge it into a square or rectangle along the entire length. Then, from this blank, a strip is dispersed, the thickness of which corresponds to the thickness of the intended product, plus the excess that will be removed during further processing.

Care must be taken not to cool the metal too much, since the inevitable bending of it during forging is best straightened before the next heating of the workpiece.

The allowance along the butt is ground together with blockages and is leveled against the side surface of the circle.

A distance is retreated from the end of the strip, which will be slightly less than the required length of the handle, given that when this part is thinned, it will lengthen. The workpiece is heated to the red light of the metal and the shank is broken. To do this, at the right distance on the edge of the anvil or on the backing tool, a “step” is formed with the sharp end of the hammer - the shoulders of the blade body. The thinner part is called the shank. Pull the shank onto the cone.

The body of the blade is given the desired contour. Descents from the middle to the edges can be formed on emery or forged by striking at a strictly defined angle from the edges to the center of the strip. The forger's elbow pressed against the body will help to maintain a constant position of the hammer during forging. So the blows will be applied strictly vertically, and the inclination of the striker to the plane of the anvil is controlled by fixing the brush in a certain position. The valleys on the blade are traditionally forged using a template.

Scale particles, remaining on the metal, make its surface uneven, covered with dents of different depths. To remove scale during the forging process, the hammer and anvil are periodically moistened with water.

The bottom of the blade is satinized along the entire length, then the transverse line of the heel is processed.

After the final finishing of the blade, it is annealed to eliminate internal stresses: it is heated to red and left to cool in the forge. Then proceed to hardening:

1. The blade is heated to a barely noticeable red glow as evenly and slowly as possible. The air flow from the blast must not fall on the product. At the hardening temperature, it is kept for some time, which is calculated by a factor of 0.2 from the heating time.
2. To quickly cool a heated blade, a large volume of cold water is needed. It is immersed in a container vertically or at an angle completely.
3. The area of ​​the blade is polished to a shine and the blade is again placed in the forge for tempering after hardening. Heating is carried out until the cleaned area acquires a golden color. The sword is cooled in air.

Perhaps the medieval sword has long been a part of history and cannot compete with modern weapons, but this does not mean that it should be forgotten forever. By practicing fencing, a person learns to control his body, his hands become stronger, and his movements acquire accuracy. Having learned how to make a sword yourself, it will be possible to appreciate all its advantages in practice.

Determination of optimal dimensions and parts

Trying to make a weapon, even a wooden one, without knowing anything about it, is the height of frivolity. The simplest straight Slavic sword consists of two parts - a hilt and a blade. The components of the hilt are the pommel, hilt and guard, and the blade has a blade and a point.

When making a wooden copy of the sword, you can not take into account all the nuances that were known to the true masters of damask crafts of past years, but you need to know something to make the tool as convenient as possible.

Before making a wooden sword, you should figure out which hand is the leading one and it is not necessarily the one with which the person writes or cuts.

You can do a little test:

1. Take a stick in your right hand, the length of which matches the length of your forearm.
2. Transfer it to your left hand.
3. In which one is more convenient to keep, that one is the leader.

After determining the leading hand, you should take the stick approximately the way the sword will be held and freely lower it along the body. Then intercept the stick so that its tip touches the ground: the distance from the end of the stick to the hand is the optimal length of the blade plus the thickness of the guard.

Based on these values, all other dimensions are calculated. For example, if the measurements turned out to be 102.5 cm, and you are going to make the guard 2.5 cm thick, then the blade length is 1 m, the handle length is taken as 1/10 of the blade length (i.e. 10 cm). A slight inaccuracy in size does not matter.

Important Points

The length of the blade and handle are important, but not the only parameters. Before proceeding with the manufacture of the sword, it remains to be seen what the future weapons will have the following parameters:

Preparation and self-production

For manufacturing, any durable wood is used (the best option is hazel, birch, oak) without knots and rot. It is recommended to soak a workpiece of suitable size for several days, and then dry it slowly so that the tree does not crack. With this method of processing wood, the product will be durable and light.

It is advisable to choose wood of medium density, easy to process. Sawing the sword must be done strictly along the fibers, otherwise it will break instantly.

Getting started on making a wooden sword with your own hands, you need to stock up on a suitable piece of wood with a section of 5x10 cm.

You will need the following tools and items:

• a hand saw or other tool designed to work with wood;
• pencil;
• sharp knife;
• ruler and measuring tape;
• sandpaper.

The work of making a simple wooden sword with your own hands is divided into several stages:

If there are more complex tools and experience with wood, you can try to make a sword using a different technology. It will consist of a separately turned blade with a handle and a guard, and will look more like a real one. For the manufacture of the blade and handle, a bar of the required length is used, having a section of 2.5 x 4.5.

The steps for making a sword out of wood are as follows:

To prevent slipping, the handle is sometimes wrapped with electrical tape, tape, cloth, or notches are made on it.

A few words about balancing

Sometimes a perfectly shaped weapon turns out to be uncomfortable, and when you try to work with it, your hand gets tired instantly. Perhaps too much weight is to blame, but the most common cause is imbalance, that is, a shift in the center of gravity.

It is believed that ideally it should be on the blade, below the guard by 7-15 cm. The exact location depends on the anatomical features of the owner of the sword, in particular, on the size of his palms. If the center of gravity is shifted towards the tip, then the blow of the blade gains more strength, but it becomes difficult to control the weapon. When shifted towards the handle, the strength and accuracy of the blow decreases.

If necessary, make adjustments by doing the following:

1. Mark the approximate place where the center of gravity should be.
2. Find the true center of gravity (balance point) by placing the sword on an outstretched finger at a right angle.

Depending on the relative position of these two points, perform an adjustment, for which:

• Reduce the weight of the blade by removing a layer of wood. The center of gravity will move towards the handle. But it is important to consider that a blade that is too thin can break quickly.
• Reduce the weight of the handle in the same way to move the center of gravity closer to the point. But do not forget that too thin a handle will be uncomfortable.
• Increase the weight of the handle using weights (lead pads) and shift the center of gravity closer to the guard. The latter method of correction, due to its simplicity and the possibility of making changes, is used most often.

The plates will need to be placed on the handle and fixed with electrical tape or tape.

After adjusting the weight, it is necessary to test the sword again, checking its comfort for the hand, strength and accuracy of the blow. Repeat all steps if necessary.

Perhaps, when a simple version of the sword is mastered, there will be a desire to make weapons of a more complex shape with your own hands.

In this article, I tried to show how to make a new wooden lining of the handle handle, and overlay it with leather and wrap it with thread for reliability. For convenience, in the future, this wooden lining will simply be called a handle. About what the hilt of a sword consists of is written in the article Anatomy of a sword, sword, saber.

This project has two parts. Part I deals with the addition of new wood pieces, and Part II deals with wrapping the hilt in leather.

Part I of this project deals with the Oakeshott type XIV sword hilt. The sword came with a cross which was a bit uneven, so I decided to fix it and at the same time adjust the handle to fit my hand. The picture below shows the hilt on the sword, and you can see that the cross was not set correctly, not too far away from the fuller. Also, I was not tired of the fact that the cross is quite ordinary, and a little small for my taste.

Cheren doesn't look too bad, but that's not enough for me, and I want to destroy her to fix the sword. In order to change this handle the way I want, I will need to remove the leather and wood core and start over.

Sword hilt disassembly

I took off the skin and then split the wood and threw it away. The piece of wood was glued from several parts, but held firmly. It was possible to carefully remove it by removing the pommel, but for this I would have to grind off the tip of the shank and open the pommel, but I did not want additional damage.

Then I tapped the pommel a little with a hammer and it slid down as shown in the picture below. As you can see, there was some metal at the top of the tang and it flared out towards the blade. It was impossible to remove the pommel so as not to damage it without splitting the piece of wood before that.

The following picture only shows the pommel and the tip of the shank. The hole in the pommel goes all the way to the end and they had some glue applied on the bottom.

Sword hilt assembly

to the begining

After I redid the cross, I widened the hole in the pommel, and shortened the shank to provide strength, and made an additional indentation in the top of the pommel.

First of all, I got the crosspiece aligned with the fuller of the sword. (See picture below) .. looks much better.

I also remade the wood-lined black and covered it with leather, but more will be explained later. Below is a picture of the original condition of the pommel.

The next shot shows the pommel after I chiseled the hidden area for the shank.

The following illustration shows the pommel after I installed it (you can see the ugly pommel). I probably nailed it too hard, but it really came out solid. I'm sure everything is done very tightly.

Below in the picture the pommel and shank are cleaned, so it looks and holds securely at the moment!

Below in the picture is a polished shank and pommel. The tip of the shank is barely visible.

The picture below shows the finished sword with the new hilt. I'm very pleased with how it all turned out. Everything sits very tight and now has a lot more shank metal in the pommel.

Wooden details of the sword hilt

to the begining

I have removed the old wooden parts of the handle and have a few small pieces of poplar wood on hand to make a new handle. I cut off the first piece slightly larger than the final piece size. This is some permission for processing and grinding. I laid the shank on the piece of wood and marked it out by drawing some lines on the wood. I then took a few small pieces of poplar that will end up being the sides of the handle. They will be 6mm (1/4") thick while the top and bottom pieces are 13mm (1/2") thick.

The picture above shows how I glued (using any good wood glue) two 6mm pieces of wood to the bottom. Clamped them and let them dry for an hour.

The picture above shows the two side pieces glued to the top, identical to the bottom, they are cut out and ready to be glued.

I have generally been able to form a solid wood handle and fit it over the tang, but there may be problems fitting it to the tang. It is much easier to attach the handle if it is in two parts. So I use an old carpenter's trick: gluing two pieces (top and bottom) through also a piece of paper between them. This is done for strong pressure and allows me to adjust the shape and dimensions of the handle and then separate the handle before installing it on the shank.. The picture above shows how the sheet of paper is glued to the bottom. It's best to use something slightly thicker than standard paper. Here I am using a piece of cardboard.

I previously mentioned that the two pieces were 6mm (1/4") thick. But the tang on this sword was closer to 4.7mm (3/16"), so I chiseled off part of the underside so that the gap was only slightly more than 4.7mm so that there is some space for the epoxy glue with which we will glue the handle to the pommel. Slowly here.. don't shoot too much wood.. it's better to shoot too little than a little more!

Apply some glue on the other side of the paper and on the top of the pen. The picture above shows all the pieces clamped, so they should hold for about an hour. Use only wood glue here.

If you have everything glued together, then you are now ready to carve nice rounded handles from a square blank from the workpiece. Again, take it slow here. The grinder is really handy for turning, but it can also be done by hand. I tried to grind so that the top and bottom of the handle matches the thickness of the shank and cross.	After careful turning, I got a handle. I sanded it down so it was pretty smooth. You will have to do the final sanding after you glue on the shank, but for the most part you can finish it at this stage.

In the picture above, I just showed what happens at the end. Again, I repeat: I tried to make the handle match the thickness of the pommel at the top, and the cross at the bottom. In addition, I am sure that I made a handle comfortable for my hand.

If your pommel is not yet riveted to the shank make sure the handle fits very snugly and applies even pressure to the shank, cross and pommel.

I am happy with the shape and finish of the handle and I am now ready to split the handle into two halves. Simply insert a screwdriver and gently pry the two pieces apart along the line on the paper. When you split it in two, you will need to sand a bit to remove the paper that is left on the wood. The picture above shows that my torment is coming to an end and that it will all work!

I stand the workpiece glued with epoxy glue for 5 minutes, so that the wooden handle sticks evenly to the shank. Make sure the shank is clean and free of any oils. Mix and apply epoxy to the shank and both parts of the handle. Make sure you don't gouge too much on the sides or ends. Make sure when you clamp them that they don't fall out and are properly aligned. You may want to test them a few times to ensure they stay aligned while the glue dries. Epoxy is taken approximately 20 minutes.

Also make sure the handle is snug against the guard so it won't wobble. I usually add some epoxy around the guard for good measure.

My handle was disassembled and I widened the tip of the tang a little. The epoxy stays a little flexible for a few hours, so after gluing, I attached the pommel to the shank. Thus, the pommel must also sit firmly and hold the handle. It will completely dry out in a few days.

The picture above shows the finished sword. You probably need to sand down any adhesive that may have leaked out, or just for a final cleanup. Just be careful not to scratch the metal parts while doing this.

And now you can take the sword in your hand. But that is not all.

The invention of the sword had a huge impact on our civilization. The sword is not just a stabbing weapon, it is a symbol of the Middle Ages, a sign of status and a symbol of honor. Swords were given proper names, they were known by their characteristics, it was believed that the sword could have its own character. The life of the blade was long and difficult, as was its manufacture.

It must be understood that at all times the sword was not just a weapon, it was a sign of a professional warrior-knight, the elite of the army. Mastering the sword required long studies and the strength of the owner's hand. The sword itself was practically a work of art. Its production took a lot of time and resources. And the craftsmen who made such blades were valued at all times worth their weight in gold, or even more. It is worth noting that in those days it was impossible to control the temperature and withstand the hardening time, everything was done by eye and touch, however, ancient swords still surprise us with the quality of their metal, thanks to the incredible skill of the blacksmith.

sword evolution

Legends speak of the widespread use of swords by warriors of antiquity and the Middle Ages. But in fact, everything was different. The main material for the manufacture of weapons then was copper and its alloys, such as bronze. Despite its low hardness, bronze was widely used to make weapons.

The next step in metallurgy was the use of iron, its forging and the production of low-carbon steels based on it. The main weapons of the infantryman were the sword, spear and ax.

Short swords made of soft iron were widely used already in antiquity.

Roman maniples and Greek hoplites went into battle armed with short one-handed swords. The quality of the metal of these swords left much to be desired, but it was mass-produced and not required to cut through iron armor.

But metallurgy improved, new methods of iron processing and steel smelting gradually appeared. In the IV-III century BC. Forge welding technology appeared, then still copper, but later it was also used for welding strips of low-carbon steel.

Already in the 12th-9th centuries, craftsmen learned how to weld strips of metal into one strip, after which, by subjecting it to thermochemical treatment, its edges were made into sword blades.

There were no high-quality iron deposits on the territory of Rus', so Russian craftsmen used high-quality metal purchased in Sweden. Well, or they repeatedly forged metal obtained from swamp ore, even Slavic blacksmiths made magnificent steel products from it.

viking swords

The famous Vikings, as you know, come from Scandinavia. And, in modern terms, these were well-armed and trained small units of the Marine Corps, which terrified all over Europe. From the campaigns they brought with them the stolen treasures.

The area of ​​modern Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Denmark, as the main places of their settlement, had a rather harsh climate. Which, accordingly, left its mark on the formation of the Vikings' power and hierarchical structure.

At the head of a tribe or clan was a military leader with the "right of the strong".

In his submission there were separate clans, which in turn united into clans. The head of the tribe had a military squad and ships - drakkars.

The economy developed only through the extraction and sale of iron ore and products from it, as well as meager hunting and fishing, since agriculture in those parts was quite inconvenient and dangerous, from the point of view of crop failure, business. The main way of economic development was trade, piracy and raids on the coastal cities of other nations for the purpose of robbery.

Due to the tribal way of life, the mining of metal, the production of weapons, and even individual technological operations for decorating it were in the hands of several separate clans or clans. This is how the genus Ulfberht, one of the famous blacksmith families of the Franks and Danes, is known.

The armament of the squads of the Scandinavian kings did not stand out in any way against the background of the armament of the Frankish or ancient German units. Usually for a senior warrior it was a sword, shield and armor, for ordinary warriors axes and shields made of wood with stuffed umbons and a shield rim studded with metal.

The Scandinavian sword originates from the Frankish straight sword, also called the Carolingian.

This is a long, straight, double-edged blade with a cross. The handle is round or oval in cross section, worn on the shank of the blade. An apple pommel was worn over the handle.

Swords created by Scandinavian blacksmiths are designed for slashing. Length, usually 70 ... 90 cm. Thickness - 4..4.2 mm. Width - 5 ... 6 cm. The end, as a rule, is blunt or even rounded. The thing is that it is inconvenient to deliver stabbing blows with a sword. According to Oschcott's classification, these swords are a subspecies of the European "Carolingian swords".

Swords were worn as it was convenient for a warrior, usually on the hip. But contrary to the films, wearing swords on your back is not very convenient and, moreover, extremely dangerous; you won’t be able to quickly remove it if necessary. For that reason, it's purely cinematic.

The blade was made by layer-by-layer forging, alternating soft and hard iron, thereby achieving high ductility and elasticity of the blade.

Later, Scandinavian blacksmiths also mastered the layered forging method, making swords using a method similar to Damascus steel, but unlike the East, this tradition did not take root among the Scandinavians.

First of all, this is due to the presence of iron ore deposits, from which high-quality steel was obtained, which is valued to this day, the second factor was time. It could take up to six months to make an expensive sword, the Vikings did not have such time, raids had to be made much more often.

For this reason, the swords of the Carolingian type of the Vikings are more of a weapon for an older warrior or leader. In the Scandinavian squad, axes and hammers were considered more convenient, due to their fighting style.

Metallurgy in Japanese

Iron came to Japan later, but despite this, it is Japanese swords that are known for their deadly characteristics. The "master of swords" in Japan in the class society was on the same level as the samurai. This right gave him his skill.

Blacksmiths-gunsmiths - kaji, were outside the rank of artisans and were part of 80 ... 120 blacksmith schools, at different times their number changed.

Iron ore was mined from river sand, and smelting steel from such ore was a laborious and lengthy process. After smelting, the resulting steel was repeatedly forged until a homogeneous dense mass was obtained. Strips of such material were united by forge welding into a package and forged again.

It is necessary to distinguish the Japanese technology for producing a composite from metal layers from the European technology for producing Damascus steel. If in Japan it was customary to weld layers of steel onto the base, then in the manufacture of Damascus a monolithic package was used, united by forge welding.

Making Japanese swords was a complex process. There were two main types of sword forging:

• itame - a repeatedly folded package of high-hard metal was welded onto a steel strip of mild steel, which formed a blade;
• masame - a strip of mild steel was also used as a base, but a rolled strip of hard metal was welded onto the blade area by forge welding, and a blade made of hagane, a very hard alloy, was already welded onto it.

The blade itself had a wedge-shaped shape, which simplified its processing and repeated welding.

The manufacture of the samurai sword differed in technology and quality from the products of European masters. Although it had some common features.

European sword

Metal production technologies were constantly evolving, but initially the same technologies were used almost everywhere. In order to understand the essence of the sword, you have to delve into the technology of its creation from the very beginning. From receiving ore.

From ore to iron

Iron was originally extracted from swamps, from the so-called swamp ore, but already at the beginning of the Middle Ages, mining from closed deposits was also used.

The resulting ore was smelted into metal by the raw blast method, which got its name from the use of atmospheric temperature air to fuel combustion.

The metal production efficiency was extremely low. The steel was obtained with an unstable structure, interspersed with slag. In order to bring it to an acceptable state, it was necessary to repeatedly forge the workpiece and subsequently carburize it.

Making swords in Rus' was a rather expensive and complicated process precisely because of swamp ore, almost all high-quality weapons were made from iron imported from Sweden.

It should be noted that steel is an alloy of iron and carbon. The more carbon in the iron, the harder the metal, but at the same time, with a significant amount of carbon, the material becomes too brittle. When oversaturated, it turns into cast iron, which at that time was considered a useless material due to the impossibility of forging it.

Smelting was carried out in a furnace, where iron ore mixed with charcoal was poured and burned for a certain time.

Air was supplied to the house by bellows. The process is rather slow and costly, especially considering that coal also required a long burnout from certain types of wood.

After the coal burned through, metal ingots called kritsy were taken out of the furnace. It was an alloy of slag, steel and cast iron. The crack was broken into smaller pieces, the steel was separated, and then it was forged, removing voids and slag particles. After that, the blanks were sold to master gunsmiths.

sword forging

After obtaining iron, many more operations were required. The technology for forging military weapons from such ore is a delicate matter and requires experience, accuracy and skill. The blade was created in several stages:

• obtaining packages from metal of different hardness, repeated forging with forge welding;
• forge welding packages to create a sword blade;
• shaping;
• thermochemical treatment of cutting surfaces;
• final hardening;
• blade polishing;
• sharpening and fitting the handle.

Forge welding of metal packages of different hardness was used in order for the sword blade to have sufficient elasticity (soft core), strength (side packages of medium hardness) and hardness (blade area).

Thermochemical treatment usually consisted of surface carburizing, a red-hot workpiece was lowered into a vessel with finely ground coal and heated in it. At this time, the surface layers of steel were saturated with carbon, which increased the hardness of the blade surface.

It should be noted that surface cementation did not capture depth, and therefore, after a cycle of sharpening, the sword required a repetition of this procedure, since sharpening removed the cemented layer.

This is how the famous Carolingian swords were made, the manufacture of Scandinavian swords was practically no different from this process.

The process of obtaining such products is currently mastered by blacksmithing enthusiasts, according to independently created sketches and drawings of weapons of the Middle Ages, but even now, using relatively modern technologies, it takes up to six months to create a high-quality sword.

Steel named after the bazaar in Damascus and damask steel, and their differences

Damascus steel, despite its name, has nothing to do with the city, it got its name in the Middle Ages because of the large arms market located there. And it appeared in antiquity.

A Damascus steel blade is a blade made from several packs of steel with varying carbon content.

The most famous is the so-called "haraluzhnaya" steel. In this case, the blacksmith welded several bars of metal with different carbon content into one package, after which he twisted it into a braid and forged it into a bar, several of these bars were also welded, twisted and forged.

With a successful selection of temperatures, a flexible and hard blade was obtained.

After forging, the blade was hardened and sharpened. The characteristic ordered pattern on its surface was etched.

The second option for making Damascus was to repeatedly forge a package of steel plates, with its constant folding and bending. As a result, a “puff pastry” was obtained from more than a hundred microlayers of material of various hardness and viscosity.

But this option took a lot of time. For such forging, it was necessary to use the labor of hammerers, since the blacksmith alone would clearly not have coped with such work.

This was how a magnificent weapon was obtained, legends dubbed it by the name of the eastern city of Damascus, but in fact, haraluzh blades appeared in Europe at the beginning of the Middle Ages, as evidenced by numerous archaeological finds. So bastards, that is, one-handed European swords made of Damascus steel, appeared earlier than kilichi and shamshirs from the East.

Damascus steel was different from the composite blades of Japanese and European craftsmen. But, despite the excellent characteristics, the manufacture of such swords was too time-consuming. They did not receive special distribution, but they entered the legends.

It should be noted that the qualities of Damascus blades are greatly exaggerated. The blade could not cut through plate armor on its own or cut through a pillow, these are all inventions of novelists of the 18th and 19th centuries. Damascus blades differed only in increased strength, sharpness of sharpening and increased cutting property, due to the multilayer structure of the blade.

At the end of the 19th century, Damascus steel and damask steel were obtained by the Russian metallurgist Anosov. But if damask blades were mass-produced at the Zlatoust plant, then the production of Damascus steel was recognized as economically unprofitable, due to its complexity.

Bulat, unlike Damascus, is a cast metal, and not obtained by forge welding.

He just came to Europe from the East, under the name Wutz he was made in India, in Afghanistan and Iran, he is also known under the name of good. Outwardly, it is relatively easy to distinguish Damascus steel from damask steel. Damask steel has a chaotic, disordered pattern, while on Damascus, obtained by forging, the pattern is more stable and orderly.

Damask steel was obtained from high-carbon steel, practically cast iron, adding particles of low-carbon metal to it during melting, not completely melted particles of low-carbon structure and giving the damask steel its characteristic patterns.

In general, the ancient masters possessed not only this secret, there were many options for smelting, but this one was the main and easiest to master.

Like Damascus, damask did not have supernatural powers. High-strength blade steel, good toughness and hardness - this is a blade made of damask steel.
But against the background of contemporary composite swords, often made with violations of technology, damask steel was distinguished by excellent characteristics.

With the end of the Middle Ages, in which there were wars and the invasion of the Tatars, the secret of obtaining Damascus and damask steel was lost. It was restored in 1881 by the Russian metallurgist Anosov.

Conclusion

I think after reading the article it is clear why medieval swords were worth changing for a village, or even two. Otherwise, how can one evaluate the labor intensity and the amount of time and resources invested in one unit of weapons. The owner of the sword had a fortune in his hands.

But at the same time, if you look from the point of view of modern metallurgy, then the blades of those times do not represent anything special, and do not have any supernatural abilities.

At the same time, it was precisely in the manufacture of weapons that metallurgy developed, because plows and plowshares did not require either high-strength steels, or thermal processing methods, or even carburizing. All this was necessary only to obtain weapons. So it turns out - "war is the engine of progress."

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