Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

urbanspaceman · Today, 12:51 PM

We are blessed with a university that has an engineering department that was started and funded by Lord Armstrong (of Vickers Armstrong fame) and, believe it or not, they have there a professor of engineering and metallurgy who both fences and is an amateur bladesmith/blacksmith and with whom all the others (we have three universities within spitting distance) suggested I consult.
I took a regular hollow-blade smallsword and a colichemarde along to demonstrate the product. My question to all of them had been: "given the standard of technology available in the late 1600s, could this sword-blade have been fashioned with a one-pass machine". The story back then was of secret engines that dramatically reduced the cost of producing the hollows in the blade. Prohibitive tariffs made the 'legal' importation of those blades from Germany excessively expensive.
The unanimous response from the professors was that the regular, all sides reducing radius, blade was very unlikely (even today! as a 'drawing' process would set up stresses in the steel that would encourage warping down the production line) but the colichemarde groove could have been rolled, and a machine to achieve this was well within the capabilities of engineers back then. The slitting mill, for producing nail rods, invented by the Huguenots back in the early to mid 1600s, is a perfect example of how far technology had progressed (see a representation of one of our local ones here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_UPuImxut0 and it perfectly displays the comparative simplicity of the rolling machine for blades.
Also consider the tiny, ultra-hard, dry grind wheels seen in Mohll's mill in Shotley Bridge that would dramatically speed up the final finishing of the hollows (which could equally have facilitated regular hollow-blade production - and may have done!) and it appears to me that the groove was considered desirable. The groove is undeniably lighter and stiffer.
Machines were verboten in Solingen… and unnecessary - always were, while Germans in England had been attempting to establish them here to produce hollow blades for some considerable time, all through the Hounslow period for example.

Today, 12:51 PM	#19
urbanspaceman Member Join Date: Sep 2017 Location: Tyneside. North-East England Posts: 600	Groovey We are blessed with a university that has an engineering department that was started and funded by Lord Armstrong (of Vickers Armstrong fame) and, believe it or not, they have there a professor of engineering and metallurgy who both fences and is an amateur bladesmith/blacksmith and with whom all the others (we have three universities within spitting distance) suggested I consult. I took a regular hollow-blade smallsword and a colichemarde along to demonstrate the product. My question to all of them had been: "given the standard of technology available in the late 1600s, could this sword-blade have been fashioned with a one-pass machine". The story back then was of secret engines that dramatically reduced the cost of producing the hollows in the blade. Prohibitive tariffs made the 'legal' importation of those blades from Germany excessively expensive. The unanimous response from the professors was that the regular, all sides reducing radius, blade was very unlikely (even today! as a 'drawing' process would set up stresses in the steel that would encourage warping down the production line) but the colichemarde groove could have been rolled, and a machine to achieve this was well within the capabilities of engineers back then. The slitting mill, for producing nail rods, invented by the Huguenots back in the early to mid 1600s, is a perfect example of how far technology had progressed (see a representation of one of our local ones here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_UPuImxut0 and it perfectly displays the comparative simplicity of the rolling machine for blades. Also consider the tiny, ultra-hard, dry grind wheels seen in Mohll's mill in Shotley Bridge that would dramatically speed up the final finishing of the hollows (which could equally have facilitated regular hollow-blade production - and may have done!) and it appears to me that the groove was considered desirable. The groove is undeniably lighter and stiffer. Machines were verboten in Solingen… and unnecessary - always were, while Germans in England had been attempting to establish them here to produce hollow blades for some considerable time, all through the Hounslow period for example.