Medieval Arrowhead

[Sesshoumaru]

This is the first {socketed} medieval arrowhead I made! (First in a long line of heads yet to come!):D

[civilwarblacksmith]

Looks great.

[ironrosefarms]

Is this made with a single piece of metal or did you form the socket and head seperately then weld them together?

[Frosty]

Odds BODKINS! (I've always wanted a good reason to say that. ) That looks good.

Frosty

[matt87]

Looks great! Now form some plate armour and test it ;)

[Jmercier]

Odds BODKINS! (I've always wanted a good reason to say that. ) That looks good.

Frosty

*blink blink* Odds Bodkin is a story teller (and a wicked good one at that) I've heard him a few times... but i've never heard his name used as an exclamation =P

[Sesshoumaru]

Is this made with a single piece of metal or did you form the socket and head seperately then weld them together?

I made it as one peice without any welding.:)

[RBrown]

looks good iv wanted to make some arrow heads iv just havent had a good excuse to make any

[ThomasPowers]

Very nice; I have an original renaissance quarrel point I acquired in Germany that looks a lot like that one. It was made of real wrought iron and was a single piece but with a welded socket seam (much easier to do with real wrought iron). The person selling it was surprised that I selected the most corroded one he had---it showed exactly how it had been forged as the corroded WI shows the "flow pattern")

Yours is medieval design but modern materials I'd bet.

Justin, the term "Odds Bodkin" is a medieval exclamation that that story teller has taken as his name. Read more original medieval tales and you will see it in use all the time.

(The translation is "God's Fingers", BTW)

Edited June 23, 2008 by ThomasPowers

[Frosty]

*blink blink* Odds Bodkin is a story teller (and a wicked good one at that) I've heard him a few times... but i've never heard his name used as an exclamation =P

Blink blink? You wouldn't know Liz would you?

It's an exclamation from an OLD movie, "The Canterbury(?) Ghost" was the first time I heard it (I think). Methinks a story teller found inspiration in the talkies of olden tyme.

Okay, should've read the thread before replying.

If Odds Bodkins translates as "God's Fingers" it'd be a perfect name for a massage parlor. Therapeutic of course. Where IS your mind!?

Frosty Edited June 23, 2008 by Frosty

[matt87]

Very nice; I have an original renaissance quarrel point I acquired in Germany that looks a lot like that one. It was made of real wrought iron and was a single piece but with a welded socket seam (much easier to do with real wrought iron). The person selling it was surprised that I selected the most corroded one he had---it showed exactly how it had been forged as the corroded WI shows the "flow pattern")

Are you sure there isn't a small steel point or lamination on it Thomas? I thought it was common practise back in the day to do so. In fact, there were laws passed in England about 500 years ago because certain unscrupulous persons were selling iron arrowheads as steeled ones.

[ThomasPowers]

I would like to see the cite on that law as I went to the 37th Congress of Medieval Studies and heard David Starley of the Royal Armouries present on medieval arrowheads and he mentioned having found no evidence of steeling them in any of the hundreds he professionally examined. We did discuss the possibility of prefferential corrosion hiding such evidence but he was still quite sure of the ones he had examined and presented on.

As armour was made of low carbon wrought iron until late in the Renaissance, (The Knight and the Blast Furnace, Alan Williams) steeling would not be necessary and would increase the cost amazingly!

But I'm all agog to get that cite if you can remember it. I'll check in my copy of The Knight and the Blast Furnace to see if it's mentioned there and I missed it.

[matt87]

I don't have the book to hand, but according to my notes the law was passed in 1406, the reference being p.119 of: Schubert, H. 1957: History of the British Iron and Steel Industry. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. I will be on campus tomorrow, and will visit the library if I can remember.

[dragonflySmithy]

Why would it need to be tiped with steel? An 800-900gr arrow being fired from a 120+LB long bow 200-300m's would go right through most if not all armor of its day. I'm sure that it would still mess up some ones day even if it was tiped with bronze.

[Dallas de Marr]

This is the first {socketed} medieval arrowhead I made! (First in a long line of heads yet to come!)

Sounds like someone needs to jot up a Blueprint. :D

[ThomasPowers]

I was perusing "The Knight and the Blast Furnace" this morning. *The* best book of modern research on the metallurgy of medieval and renaissance armour. While he has done quite a bit of research on arrow penetration of armour, which I suggest that dragonFlySmith read for some surprises in how effective arrows were against plate, I didn't find a read out on carbon content of extent medieval/renaissance arrows.

Of course it could be hidden somewhere, it has an amazingly short index for a 900+ page scholarly tome! The list of references for each chapter has me drooling and wishing I could trade (blood)plasma for books....

[Wayne]

With the talk of arrow head make up here are a couple of accounts I have come across -they are a little early I am afraid - Saon/viking period.
Anglo-scandinavian ironwork from coppergate,
leaf shaped tanged arrowhead 3915, The arrowhead had been manufactured according to the knife type 1 method,ie. a steel core with ferritic sheaths. the carbon content of the core was low and it had not been heat treated; ferrite and perlite structures predominate. The arrowhead had been heavily cold-worked, giving elongated ferrite grains and increased hardness.Subsequent resharpening had caused migration of the cutting edga,ie. one of the ferritic sheaths formed the cutting edge rather than the steel core.

The metallographic examination of locks, keys and tools - the introduction and conclusions from the report on metallographical examinations of tools, knives and arrow-heads.
Leaf shaped tanged arrowhead 555 published in Helgo 1,p 124 Pl 40:6
Transvers section near the point.Elongated dark grey inclusions of slag with segregated light phases, arranged mainly in chains following the longditudinal axis of the polished surface. Reletively high impurity, c. 3-4. The textures respect the division of the polished surface into two parts. In one fine ferritic structure predominates (ASTM 8-10) heavily mixed with extremely long slag incusions, indicating cold forging followed by reheating over Ac2 and using a recrystillization. In the other is a ferritic- pearlitic structure with pearlite on grain boundries, estimated carbon content c.0.15 0.2%. This texture is much finer than the above mentioned one. ie. 11-12 ASTM. The microhardness: c 180-280 for ferrite, 290-400 for pearlite.
Presumed technology: the body of the arrow head was welded together from two different types of metal - wrought iron and mild steel. thjere was some cold working on at least one of the strips.
The second report is one of four heads examined.

[ThomasPowers]

Re the second part: Or as Alan Williams points out in "The Knight and the Blast Furnace": heterogenious blooms being worked down into items that have a layered look to them.

Blooms usually have a wide range of carbon contents and processing them often results in a piled structure.

I don't know if I would use the term mild steel myself as that is usually indicative of a bessemer or later process material when what it is is a wrought iron with a low carbon content. I tend to use the term wrought iron derrived steels as well for items with a higher carbon content, "Natural Steels" has also been used for high carbon bloom material.

I'll have to see if David Starley's paper has been published.

Thomas

[matt87]

Thomas, prepare to be agog.

Source: Schubert, H.R. 1957: History of the British Iron and Steel Industry from c.450BC to AD1775. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul

P.117: "The application of steel to missiles first occured in the reign of Henry III (1216-1272). In 1227 a Royal order was issued to the Sheriff of Hereford. The quarrels were to be 'winged' with feathers and their heads pointed with steel."

P.119: "As the [Hundred Years] war procedded, the demand for missiles which by no means diminished, gave unscrupulous arrowsmiths the opportunity to produce defective heads. To protect and maintain the quality a Statute was passed in 1406, decreeing that every head of an arrow or quarrel was to be hardened at the point with steel and engraved with the mark of the manufacturer." Statutes, vol. II, P.153. London, 1816

There are also many discussions on steel armour from this period, providable at request.

I haven't seen much on carbon content yet but I'll keep looking.

[ThomasPowers]

Sure I'd like the cites as for that time period armour was chainmail and not plate and as such not made from steel: 1300 CE maille, 1350 CE transitional (plate and maille), 1400 CE full plate.

Why modern research is needed as a lot of earlier research was a bit sketchy. (Look at ffoulkes' the Armourer and his Craft"; his scleroscope studies didn't take in account the effect of curvature of the piece on reported hardness ) Dr Williams has had amazing access to collections for real metallurgical studies of the armour and his results has changed some long held beliefs.

BTW the quotes you mentioned are in translation; do you have a copy of it in the original language---somewhere between Old English and Chaucerian English I would assume.

Have you read: THE ROYAL ARMOURY AT GREENWICH 1515-1649: A HISTORY OF ITS TECHNOLOGY (ISBN: 094809222X) Williams, A. & Reuck, A.

I have taken the liberty to consult the Archeological Metallurgy mailing list on this topic and hope to have the most up to date information very soon.