myths-legends-and rituals about knifemaking

hadn't ever heard most of these...but what about the iron in our/animals blood?

I've learned that metal looses its magnetic properties after a certain temp...so maybe the iron plays no part at all. Not saying I believe the idea of blood making a better blade, just interesting that that there is a myth about quenching in a salt/iron solution.
 
Lots of legends of quench solutions to make a better blade....it would be like us now with different steel needing different quench mediums..
Bruce
 
I'm personally amused by the ancient mythical smiths that "quenched their blades in the living bodies of slaves"
The number of people who have quoted that particular "ancient formula" to me who just refuse to accept the logic that you do not want to try to penetrate ANYTHING solid with a red-hot blade that you want to have still straight at the end of the heat treat process astounds me.

-Page
 
For me, (not that i`m experienced at all, having only made two or three knives so far) the myth about edge-packing the steel blade to make it sharper, might stem from the older days, when the steel might`ve not been of a regular quality, and as such sounds alot like work-hardening. It`s as best an explanation as i`ve come by atleast.

This is an interesting thread!
 
aarya said:
For me, (not that i`m experienced at all, having only made two or three knives so far) the myth about edge-packing the steel blade to make it sharper, might stem from the older days, when the steel might`ve not been of a regular quality, and as such sounds alot like work-hardening. It`s as best an explanation as i`ve come by atleast.

This is an interesting thread!
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Just for a think,,,

Just substitute the words Edge Packing for Grain Refinement and compare it with the performance gains of a forged blade vs a stock removal.

A chapter of my life was mind-translating old-world terms and practices and memory-labeling them with proven currant technologies. For me, it is easy to see were an old-school smith could explain 'packing' with refinement.

(Just for a think, not hoping for a debate here)
 
sunshadow said:
I'm personally amused by the ancient mythical smiths that "quenched their blades in the living bodies of slaves"
-Page
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I wonder if using Fat slaves gave a different quench than skinny ?? Fat people maybe a slow quench as fat has some insulating propreties.
Skinny might be a fast quench. Perhaps they used the lungs for an air quench??
 
If you think about quenching in blood it kind of makes sense. The chemical make up of blood has the same sodium content as sea water. Though it is a lot thicker and has other minerals in it. I have read in a couple of books (don't recall which ones) that quenching blades in human bodies is a myth. However testing of blades on convicted criminals was a documented practice in Japan.

How about the one where the smith ground a blade into dust, baked the dust into bread then fed it to chickens. The went around picking up the droppings and re-smelted the iron (chicken manure) to make a blade.

Chuck
 
I havent heard that one either....I would have to know more about smelting to figure out why on this one....that would be a long way around just smelting the dust back into steel with a charcoal fire though I would think.

What about the one about a sword cutting a anvil in half?Possiable?

Bruce
 
The chicken one doesn't make sense :confused:
wouldn't it just add impurities?

and im trying to imagine a sword cutting an anvil in half....
 
Keith_H said:
The chicken one doesn't make sense :confused:
wouldn't it just add impurities?
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According to M. Sachse's book, AC mentioned earlier, the thought is the acidic digestive process would remove certain impurities and other contents of chicken dropping residue would add a carburizing effect upon re-smelting. I believe a British university tried it and found it potentially beneficial, actually.
 
It doesn't have to do with knifemaking/swordmaking ...

..but one of my favorites is how the fuller or "blood groove":rolleyes: is to provide some sort of relief for some sort of vacuum that is supposed to develop upon stabbing a body, making it 'nearly impossible to withdraw the blade'.:rolleyes::rolleyes:

I hear that one ALL THE TIME!:rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
JCaswell said:
It doesn't have to do with knifemaking/swordmaking ...

..but one of my favorites is how the fuller or "blood groove":rolleyes: is to provide some sort of relief for some sort of vacuum that is supposed to develop upon stabbing a body, making it 'nearly impossible to withdraw the blade'.:rolleyes::rolleyes:

I hear that one ALL THE TIME!:rolleyes::rolleyes:
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absolutely, forgot about that one! People often refer to that as what it is.

the chicken steel is neat, it must be tested beside normal powdered steel and not conventional steel, maybe we will see CH-CPM S30V, CH-CPM 10v etc. in the near future :D!
 
I will always remember sitting in a class room during book report time and getting a belly full of the teacher leading students in a discussion about a book where everybody was so caught up in what the author was really trying to say, and what each character represented or symbolized. All of it seemed to have nothing to do with the wonderfully entertaining story and quite honestly lost the story in all the subjective speculation and clinical searching for hidden meanings. When I finally had enough and raised my hand and asked “Perhaps, just perhaps, the author was just trying to entertain us with a good story, and was not weaving hidden meaning into every page?” I was of course scoffed at for being so ignorant. Years later I read with glee the author himself totally dismissing all of this hidden meaning nonsense, and how he just wanted to make a really good story.

Sometimes stories are just stories. And oral tradition handed down around the fire to entertain and boost morale or ethnic pride through those long winter nights. Quenching into slaves is a dramatic device to make the story more vivid and engaging. Poe wasn’t writing a recipe, or giving us a scientific medical theory when he told us of a heart beat beneath the floorboards- he was trying to scare the hell out of us! I am almost certain most of the ghastly quench recipes and methods from ages ago are really good P.R.! So good that they have survived to this day and we are still falling for it. Exotic things like blood, slaves, water from very special spots or urine from various red haired people and goats fed special things are very exotic and help spark the imagination so that the smith can keep his position as a very skilled keeper of very potent magical secrets.

Think about it Weyland also escaped from an island by magically flying away with a bladder full of blood under his arm. We are not speculating what aerodynamic properties a bladder full of blood may have or what the lift ratio of a Viking smith wearing it would be, why? Some magic we want to believe and some we do not, to us this is obviously just a really good bit of story telling, a flying smith will keep them listening around the fire. I think the intellectuals who published papers about the possible benefits of goose poop sword making made fools of themselves and showed us exactly how much idle time they have on their hands.

Our approach to the ancients has an interesting duality that always interested me, on one hand we believe them to be so much wiser and skilled than we could ever be in the lost methods of working steel, yet on the other hand we are quick to believe they were primitive superstitious louts stabbing slaves and collecting pee and poop from numerous sources. No I still think they were pretty sharp guys who knew exactly who to spin some P.R. that would keep them in very high regard to a rather impressionable public, things haven’t changed too much in that respect.

I would also be willing to bet a years wages that if we could go back in time and ask a 9th century sword smith if he ever considered grinding up a sword and feeding it to geese he would give us a look and apprehensively ask “you do realize that is just a story don’t you?”
 
hardheart said:
is that a knifemaker's wage?

now there's a myth ;)
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Your darned right it's a knifemakers wage! Time travel may just be possible:D So I didn't want to risk too much and a knifemakers yearly wages may fill a gas tank and get you a modest meal after your trip to 800 A.D.:(

Oh yes, I know many who got wealthy making knives, I also have a unicorn ranch, it is run by leprechauns and we have a whole flock of geese that don't poop swords, but instead golden eggs.

The golden eggs help support my knifemaking habit:D
 
Forgive me but there is another aspect of old smithing legends that has fascinated me. You ever noticed how in the east the great swordsmiths would wear white, were very Zen, took ceremonial baths to be pure before beginning their work. When quenching the blade it was done in crystal clear and pure water from a very special spring or water source. Both smith and strikers where mentally in tune to work as one harmoniously with the process. ohhhmmmmm….

Yet in the west the hairy, smelly buggers were peeing on blades, playing with poop, stabbing helpless slaves if they couldn’t collect enough blood before hand and probably making drinking cups out of the quench mediums skulls when done. It sounds like total hellish chaos, and eventually they could only make “good” blades, the really great blades the ignorant brutes had to subcontract out to Dwarves and Niebelung (who probably imported them from Japan )

Two totally different P.R. techniques that worked great in their time for different audiences, yet in the long run one was far superior to the other, since even to this day western swords are just sharpened iron bars compared to the sublime katana…. Hmmmm :confused:

What made a great story 1000 years ago still works all too well in Hollywood today, now the glow is from a screen instead of a fire.
 
IIRC, the hardening was done at night because it was easier to see he subtle colour differences on the heated blade. And because you could not work in pitch black, they chose a full moon.
 
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