Desjardins specifies that flyssa blades are mostly iron, with only slight carburizing. It seems that there is enough carbon content along the edge to allow hardening, but the interior and back remain low-carbon and soft. Could anyone do a test to confirm or refute this?
The only way to test this theory is to have one of our pieces rockwell tested and that would mean possibly ruining the blade with little dots from the testing. IMO most of these swords were probably forged from some type of round bar stock. I don't think that the source would be plain carburized iron more like a medium carbon steel with just enough carbon to have the edge hardened. If you look at Jeff's example you can see the temper line that starts just forward of the choil.
Lew
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