Blades and horseshoes??!!

[Paul Digard]

Originally Posted by FenrisWolf

The only way to strengthen the metal is in the forging process, so unless the horses are running around with red-hot shoes, I don't see how that could work.

I'm on shaky ground here (the last time I studied metallurgy was 15 years ago and undergraduate classes were even further back!) but at least some metals will work harden when cold. Silver and copper do for sure and I'm 99% sure it applies to ferrous metals too. Think of how you can snap a metal wire by bending and straightening it repeatedly. It's to do with imperfections in the crystalline packing migrating when the metal is deformed - the metal gets more resistant to deformation but also more brittle.

Having said that, I fully agree that the horseshoes to swords thing sounds apocryphal!

Paul