petermorwood:cynicalandglorious:we-are-blacksmith:we-are-dread-commando:quarkmaster:The Weapon Smith
petermorwood:cynicalandglorious:we-are-blacksmith:we-are-dread-commando:quarkmaster:The Weapon SmithsNew drawing revisiting the smithy. The Weapon Smiths 14" x 11" Pencil and Chalk on Toned Paper http://www.everydayoriginal.com/product/the-weapon-smiths/Donato Giancola@we-are-blacksmith nice art but definitely not how you forge a sword, right?For bronze and below, yes. Iron and up, no.Technically, it’s not even forging. This is casting. And @we-are-blacksmith you technically -can- cast a steel sword (albeit not like pictured), it’d just need a fuckload of finishing at the end, both in finishing the shape, H&T work, and in the grind.It would just take so much time, effort, and fuel that it would be infinitely better to just stick with forging (and would be a fiddly process besides).That title sequence from “Conan the Barbarian” (1982) has a lot to answer for. It looks great, no question, and Basil Poledouris’s music makes it better……but since the movie shows the end result as this……the whole business relates to actual swordmaking as pouring milk on cornflakes relates to making Wiener schnitzel. The trouble is it keeps coming up in fiction because “swords are made like that, it was in Conan”. That happened to me when @dduane and I were writing the miniseries “Dark Kingdom” and the director really, really wanted a sword-pouring scene because “swords are made like that, it was in Conan”. I convinced him that pouring metal rods for pattern-welding would look just as good - which kept him happy - and would be more accurate - which kept ME happy. It also meant that the forging-scene could have more dialogue, because twisting the red-hot rods for Siegfried’s swordblade……was just as impressive but a lot quieter than hitting red-hot metal on an anvil. (AFAIK this is still the only time pattern-welding has appeared on-screen other than in documentaries.)Bronze swords are cast in a double-sided sandwich mould……and cast vertically so the weight of the metal helps force it into all the crevices.Here’s what a cast sword (from Bronze Age Foundry) looks like from mould to finished product: I’ve had mine for years and never got round to polishing it properly, never mind putting on a hilt. So I’m tempted to bury it for another year in potting soil soaked with salt and vinegar to see if I can make it look like the one on the left in this selection from the National Museum in Dublin. -- source link
#blade school