#sword testing

[victoriansword]

How To Test A Sword Quickly

How To Test Whether A Sword Is Good Or Not... Kind of imagine a situation whereby you have to grab a sword and use it imminently. How do you tell fairly quickly whether you can probably trust that sword or not?

[victoriansword]

Why do a lot of swords (or all of them) have the star of David where the blade begins?

I have seen a few answers for this, which I will try to summarize here. For those unfamiliar with this symbol, here is one on a sword made by Pillin in the 1860s:

The star is not meant to be a Star of David. Robert Wilkinson-Latham (formerly of Wilkinson Sword) says that the star is really two interlocking triangles which are meant to symbolize strength. Another suggestion is that it is a “Star of Damascus”, which seems to be the popular answer regarding the symbol on US swords. This “Star of Damascus” is supposedly meant to indicate high quality steel as in “Damascus Steel”.

I’m not sure that either of these answers are correct. The symbol, especially when paired with the brass proof disc, is similar to some found on Middle Eastern and Indian sword blades. Here is an example from the Instagram of the Calderwood Curatorial Fellow of South Asian Art at Harvard Art Museums, Rachel Parikh:

Dr. Parikh describes it thus;

Detail from an Ottoman saber. Inside the hexagram it says, in Arabic, “As God wills”. The hexagram most likely refers to the Seal of Solomon. According to Islamic legend, Solomon, renowned for his wisdom, received the Seal directly from God in the form of a signet ring. The ring not only protected Solomon, but also gave him divine powers, such as the ability to communicate with animals. The divinely-designed symbol became a popular apotropaic motif throughout the Islamic world.

The use of the star and proof disc originated with Henry Wilkinson, and was soon copied by most other sword makers in Britain. Henry Wilkinson and his protege, John Latham were both keen on historical swords and no doubt would have been exposed to quality Eastern swords like the one above. They may have been trying to allude to the quality of Eastern blades by adopting and adapting their symbolism. 

The proof disc in the center of the star on British swords indicated that the sword had passed a proof test and would therefore be fit for the rigours of battle. At least that was the practice at Wilkinson and other quality makers. But not every maker was so scrupulous, and no doubt many swords were decorated with proof discs to give the appearance of quality where there was none.

[victoriansword]

Making Military Swords in Victorian Britain

@drasticklyslackin asked:

Technical stuff, how they made their equipment.

To answer this question I have selected excerpts from “Swords: How they are made and something about curious ones” by Frank Lamburn, Pearson’s Magazine, Vol. 2, July to December, 1896, which details how Wilkinson made swords.

The early stages of the process are essentially similar in a broad sense to those passed through by most other pieces of cutlery. The steel, of Sheffield make, is drawn into strips, equal in length to two blades, cut in half, heated in a furnace, and hammered out until it resembles roughly a sword blade.

An iron tang, designed eventually to receive the hilt, is welded on to the steel and the blade is tempered. In tempering, each blade is made hot singly, plunged into a bath of tepid water containing certain chemical ingredients, drawn out--at this stage it is glass hard, being so brittle that if dropped it would break in a dozen pieces--and slowly heated over the fire until sufficiently tempered.

This operation can only be performed at its best when the day is bright. During the winter month,s on account of the poor light, the average time available for hardening is only two days a week.

Beyond this point the blade may not again be worked in the forge; further heating would decarbonise it. In converting blades from one shape to another they are reheated, with the result that too great a quantity of carbon is extracted and the steel becomes soft and of inferior quality.

After the blade has been cut and trimmed to the regulation size, it passes to a man at one of the enormous Newcastle and Leeds stones constituting the grinding department. During this operation five or six ounces of metal are removed from the blade before it is finally brought down to correspond with the rough gauges of thickness and width. Although the stone is particularly hard, the steel causes it to fly off in thin, wet streams, and wears it away to a degree that results in a stone seven feet in diameter being reduced to two feet in diameter in about six months.

When the blade comes from this room it is a dull bright, and requires to be polished, but it is never sharpened before it leaves the factory unless in compliance with a special order. Before going on active service, the bayonets and swords of all the soldiers and officers ordered away are returned to Enfield to have a cutting edge put on them.

Before the hilt and guard are fixed to Government blades, they undergo a number of severe tests on the premises at the hands of a Government inspector. So far as the blade is concerned, the polished blade is laid in a trough--a length of solid, three inch thick steel, with the exact shape of the blade cut in the surface--and it has to fit this at every point along its edge.

Next, the blade is bent round a semi-circular sheet of steel, covered with a wire netting to protect the operator in the event of breakage, after which it is placed in a machine that causes it to strike with its edge a block of oak with a force of 160 pounds, and on its flat sides a sheet of iron with a force of 80 pounds. In another machine it has to bear a vertical pressure of 180 pounds without bending. When the handle is fixed, the weapon is struck by hand on a solid block of oak, and the operator can tell by the ring whether the blade is sound and if the grip is securely attached.

[…]

In testing cavalry swords, the blade is struck under the same conditions as the bayonet, is placed in a machine and pressed on the top while in a vertical position, until it is shortened four inches, and must bear a 28lb vertical pressure without bending. As the result of a scientific investigation instituted by the Government, it was recently discovered that in pressing on a blade so that it bent first on one side, then on the other--a common practice among infantry officers--the fibre of the metal was injuriously strained; when, therefore, the vertical pressure test is applied and the blade sprung, a small cross is stamped on the convex side to denote that the sword may be sprung only on that side.

The sword-grip is automatically carved from a block of hard Italian walnut. A block of wood is placed in the machine and left for three minutes, when it is taken out in its completed form. This grip is covered with the skin of a Japanese fish--the only suitable material--and bound with silver wire after which the guard, stamped or cut, according to the quality, from a flat sheet of metal is attached.

[…]

Although the average weight of the British officer's sword is only a pound and three-quarters (this is heavier than the French and United States sword, but lighter than those of other nations), it is quite possible for him to avert a blow delivered from a heavy tulwar, provided he catches it on that portion of the blade nearest the hilt, and is sufficiently skillful in the art of fencing. It is essential, of course, in a case of this kind that the steel should be of the finest possible temper, and for this reason British blades are sent out to the Indian Army, where they are fitted by regimental armourers with hilts of regulation pattern.

[…]

The fate of old swords is very ordinary. Those belonging to officers are, as a rule, preserved in the family, being handed down to father and son; and in order to assist in carrying out this custom, the Wilkinson Company keep a record which enables them to return the sword of any officer killed on active service to his relatives at home. The swords of privates, when returned to the Government Stores, are retested, and, if serviceable, are again issued, or if unserviceable, are cut in half, the proof marks effaced, and sold as scrap. They are then sent to Belgium, where they are welded together again and returned to this country and offered for sale.

Below: Making swords at the Wilkinson Sword factory.  Still making them as they were made in the 19th century!

Additionally, here is an account of how swords were made at Charles Reeves’ Toledo Works factory in Birmingham, from England's Workshops by Dr. G.L.M. Strauss, Charles William Quin, John Cargill Brough, Thomas Archer, William Bernhard Tegetmeier, and William Jeffery Prowse, London, 1864.

The steel from which the swords are made is supplied (by Mr. John Sanderson of Sheffield) in long pieces somewhat tapering at each end, and having a square portion in the middle, which being cut through, leaves material for two blades, the bisection of the square leaving a shoulder at one end to receive the iron “tang” by which the blade is afterwards fixed into the handle. The manufacture of these blades is almost entirely effected by the forgers, who hammer them into the required shape upon the anvil, a mould running down the centre of which secures the hollow which in swords extends for about two thirds of the length from hilt to point. In a little street of smithies the musical clink is being sounded by a score of stalwart arms, either forging the rough steel into form or hammering the formed blade into perfect shape and symmetry, an operation which requires it to be kept at a certain heat lest the embryo blade should be injured in the process. Once perfected as to proportion, the hardening commences, and the blade is thrust backward and forward into the furnace until it has acquired a proper and uniform heat, at which point it is removed and instantly plunged into cold water. This process, which has obviously suggested the Turkish bath, renders it hard indeed, but at the same time so extremely brittle that we whisperingly suggest the propriety of contracting to supply our enemies with weapons and neglecting to carry them beyond that particular stage of preparation when they may be snapped with the fingers. Carefully supported, however, the blade is again subjected to the fiery ordeal until it attains a slaty-blue colour and a beautiful and elastic temper, which has been partially secured by the previous hammering. By the process of forging it has become about six inches longer than the pristine steel shape, and by the tempering it has attained a springy strength which enables it to be bent in a curve sufficient to bring the hand five inches nearer the point.

There is yet another operation before the blades are taken to the finishing-shop, one of the most important, too, since it is no other than grinding, a process which secures an exact and uniform thickness, and increases their elasticity.

We are standing at the open end of a long, vast, and gloomy shed-like building, supported by iron pillars. On each side through the entire length a series of enormous grindstones spin round amidst sand and water and the mud from both. Seated astride the bodies of wooden horses, whose heads seem to have been transformed into these wheels, the grinders seize upon the blades, and each fearless rider rising in his stirrups--or what looks much the same standing tiptoe till he no longer touches his saddle--throws himself forward and presses the sword, matchet, or bayonet on the wheel, at the same time guiding it deftly with his left hand till its whole surface has been smoothly ground.

Along the whole line of whirling stones fly the lurid red sparks; and as the grinders, with squared elbows, seem to curb the struggling and impetuous wheels, we think of the wild dreams of Callot or Dore, and fancy a double rank of riders bestriding horses strangely foaled by some hideous nightmare.

After polishing, which is completed by wooden wheels bearing a coating of leather covered with emery, the swords and matchets go to receive handles, and the bayonets locking-rings. The handles of swords are made of walnut-wood covered with the skin of the dogfish, while the hilt and guard are formed from a plain flat sheet of steel, in shape not unlike one side of a pair of bellows.