Posts: 506 Location: South Bend, IN
Tue 19 Jul, 2005 8:52 pm
| Erik D. Schmid wrote: |
During the the latter years of the Medieval Era, some mail was both hardened and tempered. More often than not the tempering phase is really not needed. I have done tests with hardened and untempered links made of wrought steel and they are t-o-u-g-h. They do not break easily. At least not by striking them. But, bending them can workharden the bend area and it will break eventually.
You have to remember that all of the manufacturing stages are done with the links in a normalized or annealed state in order to keep the tools in proper working order. All heat treatment, if any, is performed after the garment is completed. This only applies to mail made with wrought steel links as opposed to wrought iron, since WI does not have enough carbon in it to facilitate hardening. |
Thanks for the correction Erik. In general, what kind of difference in hardenss would we expect to see from the wrought iron and the wrought steel (with or without heat treatment)? I know thats a pretty huge question... Just kind of wondering really how close they might have been getting to a hardened sword edge. That even varies so much that I would imagine it would be hard to say.
Shane
Posts: 80 Location: St. Cloud, MN
Wed 20 Jul, 2005 7:46 am
Shane,
Wrought iron links seem to have had a microhardness around 150 - 200 whereas wrought steel could reach a microhardness in excess of 500. These figures relate to the Vickers scale. I am unsure how this compares to the edge hardness of a sword blade.
Posts: 1,244 Location: New Glarus, WI
Wed 20 Jul, 2005 8:53 am
| Erik D. Schmid wrote: |
| Wrought iron links seem to have had a microhardness around 150 - 200 whereas wrought steel could reach a microhardness in excess of 500. These figures relate to the Vickers scale. I am unsure how this compares to the edge hardness of a sword blade. |
I asked Jeeves this question... here's what I found:
http://www.taylorspecialsteels.co.uk/pages/main/conchart.htm
Vickers 500 = 49.7 Rockwell
lowest the chart goes is Vickers 230 = 20 Rockwell
Now, if someone has data on period sword hardness, this might actually mean something, but I thought it might give something to go by... ;)
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