Shotley Bridge swordmakers

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Originally Posted by urbanspaceman

I suspect you may be right about the fusion of operators, but I don't believe the lack of a Colichemarde was ever a factor in their decline: I think they could have fabricated a grinding machine without difficulty; there has to be a reason they didn't.
There is another possibility could account for the choice of SB, and that is Thomas Carnforth the Newcastle cutler, who was certainly involved here and there, and to a greater or lesser degree. He was one of the people who testified on Mohll's behalf at his trial.
He wasn't one of the original four businessmen, but Johannes Dell was; along with a chap called John Sandford from Newcastle - who dropped out relatively quickly when the company began to deviate into fiscal areas; I haven't been able to find anything about him.
It may well be that the forge activity at Allensford (Vinting perhaps?) was known to Thomas Carnforth or John Sandford or both; and if Carnforth - who must have been buying Solingen blades - had trade connections with Johannes Dell (who became John Bell: one of the four businessmen starting the company) then that may have been all that was necessary to entice the two Hounslow men (Henkells and Hoppe) up here to team up with John Bell in 1685. Then Bell would return to Solingen to bring the main immigrants over when demand looked promising in 1687.
It may have been as simple as that. Let's face it: back in those days, German immigrants would almost certainly know about each other in a place as small as Newcastle (population in 1600s c.10,000) especially as the local cutler was dealing with them all.
On a separate note:
If they were turning out thousands of blades for the Crown/Government, then London cutlers would have finished them. If they were selling to the Jacobites, then Scotland's cutlers must have been involved. Who was in a position to finish thousands of blades? Trouble is, at best, SB may have stamped the tang, so who today knows where the blades came from?
Ever forwards, it's beginning to take shape I feel. Thanks again Ibrahiim.

PLEASE SEE http://helensteadman.com/blog/4592669121/Literature-Review-4-Thread-of-Iron-by-Douglas-Vernon-(A-Definitive-History-of-Shotley)/10983141

Which digs deep into the problem at Chapter 9.
One thing I note is that it is quoted as one of the reasons why the sword ,makers came to the area was fast flowing water... That is interesting for except on the occasion of heavy flooding the Derwent is not fast flowing except at about two places according to photographs ...One is at Shotley Bridge and the other is at The Rush adjacent the Paper Mill a mile up river at Shotley Grove, The Mill now vanished but where the entire river in both cases passes through rocks and only about 5 feet wide. So it is quite specific. I think also that water for tempering steel was also important. The document also mentions grit from the river bed.

[kronckew]

let's not get our terms mixed up.

annealing is heating the metal to the critical point then cooling it slowly to make it softer and more workable. sometimes the hot steel is covered in an insulate and allowed to cool overnight of for a couple of days...

hardening is done by heating to the critical temp, at which point the steel is no longer magnetic, then cooling it rapidly in oil or water. too quickly can cause excess stress and cracks. modern steels rarely are hardened by full immersion in cool water. hardening produces a steel that can be brittle, so this hardness is then tempered to reduce internal stresses producing a more shock resistant material.

tempering is done by reheating the hardened steel to well below the critical, holding it there for a controlled time to relieve the stresses then allowing it to cool in air. tempering reduced the hardness as well as the fragility. hard edges last longer but can flake off bits or even shatter like glass, a tad too soft is better than a tad too hard. you can bend a bent knife back to shape, but not one that has snapped.

specialty alloys can have variations in the heat treatment cycles including using liquified gases for sub-cooling to produce known properties and crystal formations. morden steels have fairly strict time and temperature regimes for annealing, hardening, and tempering that are digitally controlled with little room for deviation.

heck, asian smiths have been known to produce repeatable differential heat treatments, differential hardening, and tempering in one step by pouring boiling water from a teapot onto the edge of a weapon that has been heated to the correct color as judged by the master smith. this produces a softer less fragile spine graduating to a harder edge supported by the tougher spine. only takes a few decades of training and practice.

it's all a balancing game, you must be hard enough to hold an edge thru a reasonable amount of use before it must be resharpened, but not so hard it snaps or loses chunks of the edge. the blade must be also tough enogh to flex and return to shape without either getting permanent set, or snapping. again, like in japanese swords, a bend can be field corrected by a swordsman, a fracture cannot.

p.s. - don't take 'forged in fire' as an instruction manual in how to
produce or test, or use a good knife or sword.

[urbanspaceman]

Thank-you yet again Ibrahiim, well done indeed. I noted mention of her blog in your earlier post (15) but I didn't read beyond that chapter on Bygate.
She is hosting an event on the 17th in Gateshead: it's for her latest book but I think I will go and talk to her anyway. She appears to be mining the same seams as us in many places. Her intent is fiction based on the SB swordmakers so I'm sure she will welcome an opportunity to swap notes.
I wondered what had happened to Jim - he was conspicuous by his absence - but he return emailed me to say he will be back soon.
I'm going to – hopefully – talk to Jenny Morrison tomorrow (head of archaeology for Newcastle county) if she emerges from the pile-up of work during her vacation.
I've had no response from the Royal Armouries, or the two Vintons I emailed at the weekend; still, patience prospers.

[urbanspaceman]

This is the opening chapter of my intended local-history book, starting by describing a little bit of the mystery and science behind a perfect sword-blade. I introduce this here because I know there will be many folk reading this thread who know a great deal more about the subject than I do, and will hopefully correct any/the mistakes I may have made.
Wootz!
It started in India around the 6th century BCE and it was fundamentally the 'crucible steel' developed by Huntsman at Sheffield in 1742; although, even to this day, and despite our scientific techniques, there remains much that is not understood or replicable about Wootz steel, which is both superplastic and very hard: precisely what you require for sword-blades. However, when you consider that India's iron-age began almost a thousand years earlier than ours, then their superiority all begins to look a little unsurprising.
To make Wootz, they sealed cubes of malleable (or pasty) iron-ore into melon shaped clay containers, along with specific chopped-up dried wood and leaves – not charcoal though which is no substitute, as it does not contain the carbon nanotubes which are vital – then put them in an oven and blasted them with high temperatures for four hours; removed the result and cooked it in a charcoal fire for several hours until the excess carbon was extracted. Hey Presto: Wootz!
It wasn't until the 1600s that high carbon alloys even became apparent over here in Western Europe; although once the Crusaders got under-way, they became painfully aware of the incredible characteristics of swords used in Persia made from Indian Wootz, and referred to as Damascus blades.
This Damascening of blades made of Wootz steel was not an entirely mechanical process – based on folding and/or twisting the steel during forging (known as 'billet' welding), and occasionally acid etching – it was also crucially dependant on the unique molecular properties of the Wootz.
Very simply put (if that's possible) it is now understood to be a eutectoid steel: analyses tell of the presence of carbon nanotubes enclosing nanowires of cementite, with the trace elements/impurities of vanadium, molybdenum, chromium, etc. contributing to their creation during cycles of heating/cooling/forging. This resulted in a hard, high carbon steel that remained malleable.
Of course, there does require the forging process, with its complex rules regarding the quenching of the hot steel in order to temper it, and therein exists a whole alternative science-fiction with 3,000 years of secrecy and fairy-tales surrounding it; and among those myths, some may well have contained an element (pun intended) of truth, for example:
According to Dr. Helmut Nickel, curator of the Arms and Armour Division of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, legend had it that the best blades were quenched in ''dragon blood.'' However, a little closer to reality – but only just: in a recent letter to the museum, a Pakistani gentleman told of a sword held in his family for many generations, quenched by its Afghan makers in donkey urine. This concurs with some medieval blade-smiths over here, who recommended the urine of redheaded boys or, more realistically, from a ''three-year-old goat fed only ferns for three days.'' Were someone to analyze these bodily fluids, they may well discover the presence of elements pertinent to metallurgy; then again, modern scientists may not have the time or inclination to start breeding goats... or red headed boys.

[urbanspaceman]

ps BTW
I found the contact number and called John G. Bygate today. I wanted to know if he had continued research once his book was published - he didn't - and also if he objected to his work being made publically accessible via this forum, and he was, as I had anticipated, very pleased to know his brief endeavour has now been disseminated amongst interested parties. I also gave him the link to this forum thread so he could monitor proceedings; and maybe offer input should the need arise.

[urbanspaceman]

I just wish I could have done the same with Mr. Bezdek; I have so many questions I might have put to him.

[Mel H]

Hello all, I've been a follower of the site for quite a long time and have recently taken the step of 'signing up', this is my first post.
I've long had an interest in the blades made at Shotley Bridge and am enjoying this particular thread, just a quick note to Urbanspaceman. Do you know of the paper written by Rhys Jenkins and read at the North of England institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers in 1935?
I've not yet had time to digest the full thread so may have missed any mention of it.
M.H.