Fig. 13.—Short Roman sword.
When iron began to play a prominent part in the construction of articles requiring hardness, strength, and durability, a great stride was made in the production of war-like weapons, and it was then very soon discovered that ordinary forged iron was too soft and easily bent, and it was not until the art of tempering began to be roughly understood that iron, or more correctly speaking steel, swords were brought to a degree of perfection sufficient to entitle them to a higher place than their bronze predecessors.
It is believed that the Egyptians had some method of tempering their bronze chisels, which is now numbered amongst the lost arts; otherwise, how could they have carved the head of the Sphinx and innumerable other works out of the intensely hard stone of which so many of their monuments are cut?
The modern sword blade is constructed of steel, tempered so as to suit the particular kind of work for which it is intended.
“Mechanical invention has not,” says the “Encyclopædia Britannica,” “been able to supersede or equal handwork in the production of good sword blades. The swordsmiths’ craft is still, no less than it was in the Middle Ages, essentially a handicraft, and it requires a high order of skill. His rough material is a bar of cast and hammered steel, tapering from the centre to the ends; when this is cut in two each half is made into a sword. The ‘tang,’ which fits into the handle, is not part of the blade, but a piece of wrought iron welded on to its base. From this first stage to the finishing of the point it is all hammer and anvil work. Special tools are used to form grooves in the blade, according to the regulation or other pattern desired, but the shape and weight of the blade are fixed wholly by the skilled hand and eye of the smith. Measuring tools are at hand, but are little used. Great care is necessary to avoid over-heating the metal, which would produce a brittle crystalline grain, and to keep the surface free from oxide, which would be injurious if hammered in. In tempering the blade the workman judges of the proper heat by the colour. Water is preferred to oil by the best makers, notwithstanding that tempering in oil is much easier. With oil there is not the same risk of the blade coming out distorted and having to be forged straight again (a risk, however, which the expert swordsmith can generally avoid); but the steel is only surface-hardened, and the blade therefore remains liable to bend. Machinery comes into play only for grinding and polishing, and to some extent in the manufacture of hilts and appurtenances. The finished blade is proved by being caused to strike a violent blow on a solid block, with the two sides flat, with the edge, and lastly with the back; after this the blade is bent flatwise in both directions by hand, and finally the point is driven through a steel plate about an eighth of an inch thick. In spite of all the care that can be used, both in choice of materials and in workmanship, about forty per cent. of the blades thus tried fail to stand the proof and are rejected. The process we have briefly described is that of making a really good sword; of course plenty of cheaper and commoner weapons are in the market, but they are hardly fit to trust a man’s life to. It is an interesting fact that the peculiar skill of the swordsmith is in England so far hereditary that it can be traced back in the same families for several generations.
“The best Eastern blades are justly celebrated, but they are not better than the best European ones; in fact, European swords are often met with in Asiatic hands, remounted in Eastern fashion. The ‘damascening’ or ‘watering’ of choice Persian and Indian is not a secret of workmanship, but is due to the peculiar manner of making the Indian steel itself, in which a crystallizing process is set up; when metal of this texture is forged out, the result is a more or less regular wavy pattern running through it. No difference is made by this in the practical qualities of the blade.”
The above-quoted description, though short and superficial, is sufficient to indicate some of the chief difficulties of the swordsmith’s art, and it sets one thinking, too, as to the various uses to which cutting instruments are put, and gradations of hardness, from the high temper of razors and certain chisels to the low temper of hunters’ and sailors’ knives, which should always be of rather soft steel, for they are sharpened more easily, and the saw-like edge is better suited for cutting flesh, ropes, etc., than a very fine edge would be.
A comparatively soft steel does well enough for the heavy cutlass used for cutting lead or dividing a sheep, and the edge, though sharp and keen, need not, and, indeed, cannot, approach the razor-edge necessary for cutting a silk pocket-handkerchief or a feather.
Every edge, when closely examined by a microscope, presents a more or less saw-like and jagged appearance. It is merely a question of degree, and, in a sword to be used for ordinary cutting and thrusting, you want to secure hardness sufficient to produce a good edge and an instant return to its former shape after any reasonable bending, and you want to avoid anything like brittleness or liability to snap. If the disposition of the molecules is such as to give too great hardness, the blade, though capable of taking a fine edge, will probably snap, or the edge will crack and shiver on meeting any hard obstacle. For example, if you put razor steel into a cutlass, and then try to cut lead, the blade will either snap off or the edge will break away in large pieces. If, on the other hand, you make the blade of too soft steel, the edge will be readily dented or turned on one side.
Though there are wonderful reports of the excellence of Eastern blades manufactured at Damascus, it is probable that European work was quite as good, and that the tempering of steel was quite as well understood at Toledo, in Spain, where, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, splendid rapiers were produced. It seems highly probable that the rapier was an extension or refinement of the earlier heavy cut-and-thrust sword, because, though the superior value of the point was beginning then to assert itself, there was an evident attempt to preserve in the rapier the strength and cutting properties of the long straight sword of a previous time.