#ipostswords

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Conservative Restoration of a Qajar Era Iranian Sabre

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Why the Ottoman Pala is the Ultimate Slashing Sword

Today we're going to be looking at a variant of the venerable ottoman kilij. this is a turkish pala, from around 1780. The pala was a specific subclass of kilij, and is an infantry weapon designed for performing draw cuts. 

This video is an updated version of my 2017 video, with a few corrections and expansions as well as better video and image quality. 

This example features a blade made out of turkish ribbon twist steel, a style of multi bar pattern welding renowned for its technical difficulty and attractive starburst patterning. It features a scarf welded iron tang.

The crossguard is made of a copper alloy, and features langets extending down towards the hilt, and into the blade. These help secure it in its scabbard. The grip is made of horn. 

The history of the turkish sabre, or kilij, extends back into the 15th century, when the distinctive yalmani style of kilij formed. The term Yelman refers to the flared tip and false edge seen on these swords. Earlier examples would have a sharpened false edge, but this one does not. 

One very unique feature to this infantry pala is the T shaped spine. This spine shape provides stiffness and allows for an extremely fine edge geometry. It does, however, prevent you from cutting "normally" with a large majority of the blade, as the spine causes resistance in a chop. This forces you to perform draw cuts with this blade, or to cut with the distal portion, known as the foible.

The blade also features a unique curvature, being straight in the forte, before having a slight recurve and a strong secondary curve, before transitioning into the foible. 

The foible of this blade is very thin, being 1.5mm at it's thickest, and relatively broad. This makes it rather flexible, and also makes it less efficient at thrusting.

This example weighs 673 grams, and is 79cm overall with a 66cm long blade. It balances around 17cm from the guard, and feels very light and maneuverable.

This is owing to the light weight, and the curved blade which makes edge alignment feel more natural. 

This is a very formidable and functional sword. The acute edge is well suited to slicing through textiles, and the light weight and maneuverability make it fast to swing and recover with. Despite being such a functional weapon, the blade is still truly beautiful, featuring a bold and tight pattern.

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Fake Antique, Destructive Restoration

Hello, today we're going to be looking at a content creator who claims to perform "restorations" on supposed "antiques". In reality, what he does is grind, polish and rehilt reproductions, which he dishonestly claims are antique (at least, in the "egyptian antique dagger restoration" Not only is this not an antique, it is actually an indian made reproduction of a "Brass Hilted Rondel Dagger", made by Windlass, Marshal Historical and other companies, it is also a european design.

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Sebastian of ipostswords shares his favorite swords from his collection.

Number 5 is a French Model 1882 Infantry Officers sword, in presentation grade, dated to precisely 17th July, 1896. It has an etched blade and an engraved guard made of "German Silver". 

Number 4 is a Zeybek Efe's Yataghan, a short infantry sword for the Chief of an Ottoman Turkish Militia. It has a Turkish Ribbon Twist blade, inscribed with the Names of the Seven Sleepers. 

Number 3 is a Turkish Pala, a type of infantry kilij. Mine has a Turkish Twist blade, featuring an elaborate multi-bar pattern. 

Number 2 is a rare and unusual European Colichemarde smallsword, which is extremely broad in the blade, and features the rare combination of a triangular blade profile, and sharp edges. 

Number 1 is my Persian Shamshir, signed Assad Allah, and made of Kara Khorasan Pulad, or crucible steel from Khorasan. It dates to the early 17th century.

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A Clip-Point Light Cavalry Officers Sabre, 1810-1820 (Preview)

A preview of a sword I've not featured before. A European cavalry sabre based on the 1796 British light cavalry sabre. This example features a gilt and blued blade, and a very prominent clipped point. The blade is certainly long enough for cavalry use, but is rather narrow compared to contemporary troopers swords - a common feature of officers swords.

This is a great HD video that looks particularly good on a large screen like a television.

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Wootz "Damascus Steel": History, Metallurgy, Production

This is going to be a rather long, and in depth video on wootz steel, it’s history, metallurgy, and production. For the most part, it is based upon excellent academic work by Ann Feuerbach and metallurgical experimentation by John Verhoeven. 

Historically (prior to the 18th century), "Damascus Steel" also referred to wootz, or crucible steel, which was produced all over South East and Central Asia and the middle east. In order to differentiate between the two forms of “Damascus”, I will be using the nomenclature of pattern welded steel, and wootz steel. 

Also known as pulad, fulad or bulat, wootz is an ancient crucible steel, which was produced from as early as the first century, CE. It is typified by being high in carbon content, usually between 1 and 2 percent and a low slag content. 

Metallurgical identification of wootz steel is problematic, as no single criteria can be used to differentiate between crucible steel, and decarburised wrought iron. In order to confidently say whether a sword is crucible steel or not, the blade must be polished and then etched in nital, and examined via low magnification microscopy. The presense of spheroidised cementite is considered evidence of a crucible produced steel. 

Wootz can occur in two different forms according to Ann Feuerbach, soft wootz with less than 0.8% carbon, and hard wootz with greater than 0.8%. The vast majority of pattern presenting wootz and historical wootz is hard wootz, whereas the majority of crucible steel that produces no pattern is soft wootz. 

The names Pulad and Fulad derive their meaning from the words for Purified, and fittingly Wootz also typically contains lower levels of slag than other steels, such as bloomery iron or decarburised wrought iron, however if the wootz was made using one of these as a source of iron, this can introduce slag into the final product. 

For the most part, the clay crucible would be filled with a charge. This crucible charge would contain iron, often a mix of “soft and hard iron”, referred to by Al Kindi as male and female iron, as well as some form of plant matter such as rice husks, pomegranate peels, wood chips, leaves or vines. These served two purposes: Firstly, to provide carbon to the steel, without which it would not melt and would not produce useable steel, and secondly to produce gasses as they pyrolise, protecting the steel from the atmosphere of the furnace. Some processed such as the Deccani process utilised in Hyderabad used glass as a protective flux. 

The crucible was heated for anywhere between 6 hours (as in the south Indian process) to two days, as in the Deccani process, or as much as 6 days in the Isfahan process. The resulting wootz button or egg was then polished in order to check the quality of the wootz. 

In the Isfahan process, the wootz ingots were taken from their crucibles after firing, and placed in a heated room or compartment for two days, to temper them and relieve stresses prior to forging. 

Isfahan wootz is particularly well known, as is Khorasani steel. The most famous of persian swordmakers hailed from Isfahan, Assad Allah, during the reign of Shah Abbas. There is an interesting legend as to how he rose to such prominence. According to this legend, Shah Abbas held a competition with the intention of finding a new shamshiraz, or swordmaker for his court. In order to root out the best of the best, he offered a prize for a swordsmith who could cut an iron helmet given to him by an ottoman sultan, without damaging their sword. All failed, but one. Assad Allah, whose name literally translates to Lion of God, approached the helmet, swung, and cleaved it in two, without rolling an edge. 

The secret to producing wootz steel was lost for a long time, as the ore sourced dried up around 1750, and wootz production ground to a halt. Crucible steel was still being made, but it lacked the distinct patterns in the steel, which had served as a guarantee of quality. It was only recently through the combined efforts of John Verhoeven and the late Al Pendray that it was revealed that trace amounts of carbide forming elements are responsible for the formation of wootz patterns. In particular, the pair discovered that vanadium was a vital alloying element in pattern formation.

Recently, Verhoeven has revisited the topic with a 2018 paper titled Damascus Steel Revisited, in which experimentation solidified his claim that internal banded microstructures resulted from microsegregation of Vanadium between dendritic and interdendritic regions of the ingot during solidification. Vanadium therefore acts as a nucleation point for cementite spheroid formation, leading to linearly aligned bands of cementite after forging.

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Antique sword restoration: Etching an Ottoman "Damascus steel" Pala

In this video, we take my neglected and repolished antique Ottoman Pala, and etch it to restore it to its former glory. The Pala is a form of Turkish Sabre, or Kilij, designed for use by infantry. It feature a "T" shaped pipeback spine. This example is made of "turkish ribbon twist" pattern welded "damascus" steel. 

I decided to use oxalic acid for this procedure, as it is a gentle acid with a long working time. I think it came out pretty well. 

This style of sabre has a very, thin, fine edge, making it an exceptionally good slicing or slashing sword. The heavy curve further emphasises this. The thick (10mm) spine prevents you from chopping deeply with a typical cutting motion, requiring you to "draw cut", pulling the blade along your opponents flesh and rending it apart. 

This style first appeared around 1750-1770, and this example is from around 1780-1790. It is Turkish / Ottoman, and feels amazing to handle. Whilst the point of balance is something like 18cm away from the guard, it just floats when you hold it. 

Length: 84cm; Blade Length: 70cm; Weight: 670 grams; Point of Balance: 18cm

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Why an Obsolete Sword Design from 1845 was Reintroduced in 1915

This is a model 1845/55 French infantry officers sabre. It was produced in chatellerault in 1915. Officially, the 1845/55 pattern was replaced by the 1882 pattern. However due to the war, the French decided to start producing the 45's again as they already had tooling for that. As a result, some 30,000 of these were made during WWI. The hilt is gilt Arco, an alloy of copper, charcoal and zinc, potentially also tin. It has a distinctive reddish appearance under the gilding. The 1882 used a "German silver" alloy for the guard - also a copper alloy. The blade is plain steel (without a nickel coating) - unlike the 1882 which is nickel coated. It features one broad fuller and one narrow fuller on each side. The 1882 has offset fullers.