dancho

I am not a specialist in these questions concerning metallurgy, but it seems to me it refers more to centralized power, world trade, wars, politics and such -- not really quality of metal and art of smithing. What I heard from others is that inspite of the fact that wrought iron is produced from cast iron (extra stage compared to bloom process) it is more efficient for bigger scale production. One of the reasons is high level of personal knowledge needed to run bloomery process properly .With cast iron you can involve masses of less trained work force. However I am completely sure about the fact that a thousand years ago bloomeries produced material of at least not worse quality than wrought iron and blister steel. Returning to my axes -- they need very high quality of iron, higher than 18 ct AD regular welded eye axe need. Any weak spot and they will split at one stage or another.. I often have to pre –weld modern mild steel to prevent this.

Hi Thomas! Yes, for the times and metallyrgy production methods you've mentioned I completely agree. However, there were lots of experiments (I personally took part in some of them) which clearly show that in an ancient low furnace for direct reducing iron sponge from ore ( like russian ones of 10 AD) you can easyly with not much extra effort and fuel obtain steel sponge instead of iron one. The next stages are absolutely identical for both. This mean you don't need iron to produce steel, you can go direct, like in modern process. But I am talking about other things. Iron is much easier to forge than high carbon steel which gives the edge. This is eqally true for 10 AD as well as for 19 AD or 21 AD. Not only the effort to cause deformation but also: * your forging range is much more narrow * always a danger to desrtoy the object completely * because it's harder you need more heats to get to the same result which means more lost in scale (up to 60 %) In case of ancient ruusian axe which is the subject of other topic in the forum I would NEVER go to make it of anything else but iron or at least mild steel. You simply will not get the shapes you want with steel more that 0.5 %C. and still this not enough for the edge I like (with 1.2 %C). I think that's the case when compromises do not pay and we better separate thing from each other. Black from white. Steel from iron. Bogdan

I'd say simplyt try to heat only that part you are going to forge and in my experince this is best achieved in a side blast clay forge run on char coal . If you can't provide the condition then you need normalizing heat treatment to make the grain smaller. As for the steeling the edges -- well, I would call iron in this case anything which doesn't take hardening and easier to forge into some shape like socket. Obvouisly, the tasks for the socket and edge are completely opposite. Good edge is at least 0.8 % C. For the edge you need as liittle as 5 mm wide strip of 0.8-1 % C steel. It is quite logic to add it to the main body made of something else. Or carbonize the completely ready object like I do with my axes, spears, knives and other tools. It works. Try mild steel first and play with it, make all you want to do what hard steel never will allow you. Just go with the flow of metal and see where it brings you and than once you understood the game put some carbon spots anywhere you like.

While teaching in my school I observe quite often the situation when students bring to heat quite a long portion of a workpiece say 5 “ while actually hammering only half of it at best. This causes grain growth and after several heats it falls apart without even applying any hammer hit. This especially true in case of alloy steels ( Cr, Va, Si) which some coil springs can comprise. Conclusion: if you brought a thing to heat do something to it – it’s like making love, sorry for the comparison. Also another prove that spot heat is best (viva char coal forge!) In my opinion coil spring is not the best material option for a spear. Ideally, it should be iron with steel welded or carbonized edges. Steel is always difficult to forge (meant shaping with hammer) and ancient blacksmiths always tended to avoid as much as possible. It is not they were short of steel (they were short of both steel and iron). They simply fell into most efficient input-output balance, like every sustainable natural system does with time.

All broad axes with "beard" look quite similar and after 7 ct AD they were spread all over the Europe. However in this specific type of axe there is very specific butt as you may see - with long back side and round eye. This butt found mostly around Kiev region and it appears as early as 7-8 ct. AD on narrow blade axes -- long before any kind of scandinavian inflluence was present in the region. Actullay, there are lots of signs that this technology came not from West but from the East (Caucasus, Iran) and later was combined with western broad blade. Another prove that Russia is on the edge between east and west with all outcoming sequences.

from my observation it comes naturally when you draw the blade downwards to form the "beard". You can flatten it out or may leave it as it. Many ancient russian axes had this. It looks quite beautifull. Why bother to get rid of it? But it is possible it could have some function. I will try to send some pictures later to explain.

Try working with a flat face hammer and you understand what I mean. When I started to work on convex face and then returned to flat one I felt sort of the same -- like working with a flat hammer. But the radius of convexity shouldn't be too small. It has to be exactly like on the regular forging hammer otherwise it turns into tool for making spheres. Round face will work for the beginning but corners are very imprtant -- on my anvil they are differently dressed and they all work. Rectangular shape is best Actuallly there is nothing new here. I have a book by Kalashnikov "The talks of an old blacksmith" printed in Moscow in 1946. He clearly says that the best anvil is considered the one horned anvil which is driven into stump and with convex shape. That kind of anvils I made.

It seems for me (maybe I am wrong) that it is good not only for the smallest projects. Yesterday I was forging a 3.5 kilo hammer and I was switching between this new one and my older standart "swedish type" which is about 60 kilogram. The deformation was happpening on the new one at least as effective as on the old one. But the new one felt so much more precise. I think the point is in the way it is set in the stump. In slotted stump the energy of blow is concentrated into the stump and then directly to the Earth which with all its huge mass turns into your anvil. While in the case of anvil standing on the surface of whatever the energy is dissipated into space. I used to work on a 250 kilo anvil and I'll be honest -- I do not see any reason in it for "forging" in the real sense. Maybe straitening some long objects, maybe assembling gates, maybe just to look impressive for the female visitors... But you definetely do not need a big surface for forging. 15 X12 cm is more than enough but it has to be in proper condition and of proper profile (convex is magic!)

Yes I did. It was the "gypsy" anvil I got from my first teacher Oleg Stasyuk. This was a prototype.

Just before Christmas I made several anvils for myself and other friends who practise the art of hammer. The anvil was developed upon researching ancient European patterns and applying my own 20 + years experience of hand forging. This is extremely precise instrument especially for blade smiting and forge welding/ . The main features are: • Convex working surface (magic!) • Low weight (27 kg) which means less resources spend and less pollution produced per unit, low cost and easy transportation • High perfomance compared to much heavier anvils due to proper full size working surface (15 X 12 cm) and specific set inside the slotted stump • Silent because of sitting inside the slot in the stump • Special egg-like cross section of the horn which creates additional opportunities They were cast by the burnt out models I made by hands . The material used is alloy steel. The anvil is then annealed to refine the grain. Then I hot hammered the working surface to form the proper texture and hand-filed to provide the real smooth convex surface. Finally I zone hardened it and tempered with the top surface only made hard and the bottom of the anvil left soft to prevent vibration and sound. The anvil is set in an ancient way inside a slot made in a wooden stump which is then buried in a box filled with earth and wedged between walls. The anvil stump is made out of oak wood, slotted by hand-chisel and bound with hand forged iron bands and hand-forged nails to prevent cracking. Physical parameters of the anvil: Working surface –12 X 15 cm Height – 24 cm Weight – 27 kg Horn length – 18 cm Surface hardness – 58-60 HRC Bogdan Popov (Kiev, Ukraine)

It goes something like this. Bogdan Popov

This is an axe I've made two years ago for the international blacksmith exibition at Ivano Frankovsk.

My latest axes. These are replicas of axes which were in use in 10 century AD around Kiev (the center of Russia at that time). I forged them of wrought iron and then deep carbonize the blade for 10 hours. This gives me up to 1.2 % of carbon on the edge. Bogdan Popov (Kiev, Ukraine)