Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Footkerchief]

Speaking of which, shouldn't there be obsidian spears, axes and bolts as well as swords?

Yeah, in fact I'd say swords are the least likely.

They were actually used by Aztecs though. In fact most of the Aztec obsidian weaponry was made using similar method, that is attaching obsidian flakes to the sockets at the "edge" of the weapon. They had swords, clubs (axes would be closest equivalent), spears, arrows and javelins made in such manner.

Obsidian swords, at least those used in Central America before European colonization, (most famously by the Aztecs) were not made like most metal swords. They consisted of a central part made of wood, with rows of prismatic blades down two opposite sides.  Notably, these could be used as both swords and clubs. The core was often something similar to a wooden sword, or sometimes other shapes. The swords came in one-handed and two-handed types, the smaller a meter in length, and the longer, supposedly, around two meters. These were extremely effective, and were able to decapitate a horse.

I think what ManaUser was getting at with the "least likely" remark is that the macuahuitl is basically the ultimate obsidian weapon, in terms of the skill (and amount of raw obsidian?) needed to produce it.  It wouldn't be produced except by a culture that had already mastered the making of obsidian knives, spears etc.

[Mephansteras]

Found another good article on ancient blacksmithing: http://www.jaysromanhistory.com/romeweb/glossary/timeln/t10.htm

A lot of the information we've seen here seems to point towards Metal at least benefiting from quality modifiers on the raw material. A good quality Iron bar could actually be steel quality, while a poor quality bar would be almost useless for most things. Bronze isn't as bad but has some of the same issues depending on the mix of metals in the alloy.

The other metals don't matter as much, but purity of metals like gold and silver could still be an issue.

[ManaUser]

I think what ManaUser was getting at with the "least likely" remark is that the macuahuitl is basically the ultimate obsidian weapon, in terms of the skill (and amount of raw obsidian?) needed to produce it.  It wouldn't be produced except by a culture that had already mastered the making of obsidian knives, spears etc.

Pretty much. I know something like that existed, though I wouldn't personally call it a "sword", and it wasn't particularly short either. It just seems like obsidian arrow(or bolt)head would be far easier to make. Obsidian (or other stone) arrowheads are also much more widely known, so I'm honestly kind of confused why they they weren't included while the more exotic the obsidian swords were.

[Andeerz]

Found another good article on ancient blacksmithing: http://www.jaysromanhistory.com/romeweb/glossary/timeln/t10.htm

NICE!!!  It also seems to point to metal benefiting from the experience of the blacksmith and the knowledge as well.  Knowledge is key, and if writing and knowledge spread get implemented, this should factor in, not only in metalsmithing, but other crafts as well.

[Taverius]

Found another good article on ancient blacksmithing: http://www.jaysromanhistory.com/romeweb/glossary/timeln/t10.htm

NICE!!!  It also seems to point to metal benefiting from the experience of the blacksmith and the knowledge as well.  Knowledge is key, and if writing and knowledge spread get implemented, this should factor in, not only in metalsmithing, but other crafts as well.

.. that's why a traditional bladesmithing apprenticeship takes 5+ years.

Even just learning to chop charcoal to right sizes for each step of the process takes at least a few months.

In a Japanese apprenticeship, you'll spend 2 years doing only that, before you even pick up a hammer.

Charcoal size, forge air supply, temperature control, hammer techniques, shaping, tempering, quenching, filing, sharpening, all of these take many months or years to master and they make a difference between a bent stick of fragile metal with  blunt edge and a weapon of war.

[Narmio]

The question is, should all of this be an implicit part of the item's quality modifier, or is there a pressing need for additional game mechanics?  Obviously a large degree of change to the current material raws is needed, but what *else* is needed to get a good model of metalworking?

[Andeerz]

I think this quote from the link cited before deserves some attention:

This technology was not all fully developed by Etruscan times or even by the time of the fall of the Roman Empire. In the West. The Etruscans did make fine weapons of iron and were developing techniques to manufacture steel, though. One thing is certain. The metal workers put a tremendous amount of work into learning the techniques for working with iron. What they did was hard, hot, dangerous work and they were not apt to share their secrets with anyone except their son or an apprentice who had spent years learning this highly specialized trade. Kings, noblemen, and wealthy patrons rewarded them well for their talents and their work was in great demand by anyone in the military profession. There is a surviving letter from a Hittite king dating to about 1200 B. C. that indicates that ironmaking was an industry subject to government controls. One group of craftsmen rarely shared their secrets with another group, and knowledge of ironworking was spread slowly by traveling iron mongers who migrated to foreign lands to set up shop and sell their wares but not to share their secrets. If an entire town was destroyed in warfare, the knowledge that was accumulated by ironworkers over many generations died with the town unless an ironworker was recognized as valuable by the conquering troops and enslaved.

Thus, the secrets of iron were repeatedly learned by human beings in many places and at many times. There were no books to consult on the process, as few ironworkers were also scribes. Furthermore, few would have permitted their secrets to be recorded if they had the choice and probably fed any curious outsiders erroneous information. This kind of learning is what we would call procedural rather than academic or informational today and thus was hard to impart except by having an apprentice learn to judge temperature by the color of heated metal or the feel of water on the back of one’s hand. And so, the cycle of learning and losing would be repeated until humankind had developed science to keep up with its knowledge of practical metallurgy and the increase in publication of books to preserve this knowledge.

I think a good part of it should be an implicit part of the item's quality modifier determined by the skill level of the blacksmith.  But I think there should be some stuff sort of independent of item quality modifier as well, and some of these would be determined by the knowledge of the smith him/herself.  I'm talking about knowledge of certain techniques and technologies, such as knowledge of proper proportions of metals for certain alloys (like bronze), knowledge of tempering and case hardening of iron alloys, and pattern welding, even knowledge of the fact that iron is workable and obtainable from its ore.  I think such techniques or techs should not be a given unless the civ or individual dwarf or dwarves that come to your fort have knowledge of those techniques, or learn them through accident.

Another thing that could be modeled, I think, to better model metalworking is regional variation of ore quality.  Ore (or rock) from one vein may not be the same as another.  For example, some iron ores (even those classified as the same type) might need to have slag inclusions hammered out more than ore from another region to achieve iron of the same quality (if it is indeed possible to make it the same quality... someone more knowledgeable of metallurgy should step in here... Arrkhal?).  The smith probably would have to discover exactly how much more or less hammering that is through trial and error, changing procedures depending on the source of the ore. This could be knowledge able to be passed on to apprentices.  Another example of difference in rock quality from one source to another is kaolinite.  Kaolinites in some places are usable for porcelain, while others are not.  So, basically, perhaps a quality modifier for ores/rocks themselves depending on application???

Also, here's another thread that's pretty awesome that touches on a few of these things.
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=47914.msg1182154#msg1182154

     

[Dwarfoloid]

I think regional variations and tech levels are more something for the far future, if they should be implemented at all. That kind of thing would be prone to cause all kinds of headache. And it's also often not really that simple.

The techniques used to make wootz, for example, are complex enough that an entire new method would need to be developed just to take advantage of the local veins' trace impurities. How the dwarves would detect the impurities in the first place is just the first of many problems to come. Messing with carbon and phosporous contents is much easier as those things can be added to ferrous alloys with case-hardening using commonly occuring natural materials like charcoal or teeth, so the developments could happen anywhere and be a part of the integral "tech-level" of given culture or race.

The article above was interesting though, but contained some things that seemed false to me. For example, is it just me or did the author forget to mention that you need to seal the bar in a sealed container with things like charcoal for proper carburization? Also, his claim that ~0.25% is too little carbon to make good weapons is contested by some findings presented in this thread. For example, the Irish Ulfberht sword from one of my earlier links had carbon content of 0.2% in the core and as little as 0.3% on the blade, but still managed to get 49-50 Rockwell C hardness on the said blade, which is within ideal range by even modern standards (and most historical wootz blades would fall quite a bit under that, though they were not quenched). Even the iron age 0-0.25% non-quenched blade got 25, which is quite decent even for late medieval time period. Same goes for his claim that >1% is too much, the wootz blades themself being a historical example of ultra high carbon blades.

What he is rather right is the steel thing though. I think medieval smelters would have been rather hard pressed to get whole bars under the 0.05% carbon content mark which is the modern rough cutoff point for low carbon steel. So thinking wrought iron as low carbon or mild steel with slag is not really that wrong.

On the previous obsidian thing, I think I narrowed down the relative fragility of some materials (like obsidian, but also diamonds etc.) to simple brittleness and fracture toughness, but I'll post a proper account about that in the future.

[Andeerz]

Yeah, that link wasn't the best source ever, but it's got good food for thought and sorta follows what I've read on the matter in terms of tech development, dissemination, and general stuff.  I'd love to know more, though...  Any suggested books anyone?

If any of this metallurgy stuff mentioned here is actually gonna get implemented, though, I imagine Toady would scour the available literature himself and be looking at good primary and secondary sources.  I've actually got a few suggested readings for him, if he's interested...

As for the tech level stuff and regional variations, yeah that's ridiculously far in the future.  I think way too far ahead, sometimes, and that can get people in a tizzy, and I don't want people being all liek "OMG yer psycho and that would ruin the game, Toady should focus on other things yadda yadda yadda whaaaa!" .  But, there's some pretty good threads on knowledge, writing, etc. that suggest methods of doing that kind of stuff without it being like every other game ever with contrived tech points and tech trees and stat boosts that I would hate to see this game adopt.  I've got some ideas meself that I think would be awesome.  Anyway, that's off topic.

But you nail it on the head, Dwarfoloid!  :3

[Mephansteras]

Found another interesting and lengthy article on swordmaking. Seems fairly well researched, although of course I can't check his sources for a lot of this.

Still, quite an interesting read.

[Dwarfoloid]

Yeah, that link wasn't the best source ever, but it's got good food for thought and sorta follows what I've read on the matter in terms of tech development, dissemination, and general stuff.  I'd love to know more, though...  Any suggested books anyone?

The Knight and the Blast Furnace by Dr. Alan Williams that you mentioned earlier seems to be quite respected work, and same goes for the author overall. I belive it mainly concerns itself with late medieval and reneissance armour. R.F. Tylecote is another author who has already been mentioned in this thread, and seems to have done lot of work on archaeometallurgy. The table for bronze hardness and some of the historical weapons came from his work.

Also, do not underestimate the power of google PDF searches. I have found more proper articles and journal snippets from there in process of writing on this thread than I have had time to read. I should especially check those couple of articles by Ann Feuerbach concerning crucible steel that I found. Also, if you have any relatives or friends who hold university account codes for article databases on the internet you could also ask them to dl some stuff for you. Lots of interesting papers on these kind of matters don't always make into a book, or do so with great delay.

Here is one short PDF article co-authored by Alan Williams, for example: http://gladius.revistas.csic.es/index.php/gladius/article/download/50/51

It has some analysis on early medieval "viking" swords, though there are some things I found myself not entirely in agreement with. Mostly I think they overplay the disadvantage of shallow cutting edge on pattern-welded blades, though this might just be because of my cognitive bias telling me that "katanas are über mmkey?" as shallow cutting edges were rather common in that part of the world. However, it is worth note that Dr. Williams seems to have done lot of research in this matter since then, though I haven't been able to find any of his more recent articles.

In any case, if you are confused with all the microstructural terminology that the more in depth articles are full of, I'd recommend reading the article in the link below as a premiere to ferrous metallurgy, especially for the effects and reasons for heat treatment process.

http://swordforum.com/metallurgy/ites.html

Found another interesting and lengthy article on swordmaking. Seems fairly well researched, although of course I can't check his sources for a lot of this.

Still, quite an interesting read.

The way he tries to paint an overall picture of different methods used across the globe is worth a praise I'd say. Also, I didn't see anything that I would consider overtly inaccurate (but I claim to be layman anyways), with the notable exception of pretty much anything related to damascus/wootz. Ofc, you can't really blame anyone but professional academican for that, since wootz can be rather difficult subject.

Heres a good if rather difficult article (or rather, a paper published originally in academic journal) on wootz: http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/9809/Verhoeven-9809.html

Reading the "ites" article above is recommended before delving into Verhoeven's paper.


Here is a site I stumbeled upon: http://www.davistownmuseum.org/TDMtoolHistory.htm

It's mostly notable in that it tries to archive different kind of methods and different kinds of steels and irons produced under specific categories. And it has nifty flowcharts. Everything is better with flowcharts, bluetooth and wootz. Speaking of wootz, the article tries to equate wootz/damascus steel with the Huntsman process, which is wrong. Huntsman process, as far as I have understood, simply aims to make the steel more homogenic.

One question lingering on my mind is what kind of steel the dwarves are producing in the game though. More specifically, are they making crucible steel, which would equate to relatively stable preformance as this type of steel didn't generally get additional heat treatment (at least not the Asian types, don't know about Huntsman crucible steel, which is quite different as I pointed out); or are they making more European style of steel meant to be quenched?

[Mephansteras]

I think it would be neat to have different dwarven civilizations use different methods, much the same way that you can have different armor/clothing options for civs. So each dwarven civ would have SOME way to make steel, but which method would depend on that civ's history.

[Dwarfoloid]

I made a tentative table for iron hardness for weapons and armour.

Quality:: Materials, manufacturing method and heat treatment:: Vickers Hardness

No-modifier:: Phosophorous iron (C:0.01-0.05), non-hardened:: HV 100
Well-crafted:: Phosophorous iron (C:0.01-0.05), work hardened:: HV 150
Finely-crafted:: Natural steel (C:0.05-0.15), work hardened:: HV 250
Superior quality:: Natural steel (C:0.2-0.3), quenched:: HV 350
Exceptional:: Natural steel(C:0.3-0.4), quenched:: HV 450
Masterful:: Natural steel (C:0.4-0.5), quenched, and possibly hard edge (differental tempering and/or welded egde):: HV 550
Artifact:: Like above, but menaces with spikes of unergonomic material on the hilt, hard edge:: HV 600-700

If the object in qustion is a piece of armour, assume that an increasingly large amount of carbon is "injected" in the object with case-hardening/cementation process, making it harder. Technically, I think armour was generally less hard than weapons, but take that as heresay.

Note that while I list different materials in the description, I assume that the extra work is abstracted. However teeth, bone or coal could possibly be needed as extra raw material in the higher quality items.

Conversion of hardness to very approximate ultimate tensile strength:

HV 100: 333000 KPa
HV 150: 488000 KPa
HV 250: 789000 KPa
HV 350: 1150000 KPa
HV 450: 1489000 KPa
HV 550: 1902000 KPa
HV 600-700: 2111000-2501000 KPa

This sourced paragraph from http://www.nikhef.nl/~tonvr/keris/keris2/swords1.html was helpful.

The metal between these two extremes was steel (or "hard iron" in the classical period). It looked different and worked different since the higher the carbon content the more "stiffly" it worked. Steel could be hardened and tempered, and it didn't take that much carbon to give a good cutting edge. Several cutting implements such as axes and chisels from the Mastermyr find were analyzed and the cutting edges were found to be only 40 pt. steel. This is low by modern standards but if you were to graph out the maximum quenched hardness of steel against the carbon content, you would notice a peculiar phenomenon: 10 pt. steel has a hardness on the Rockwell "C" scale of about 38; at 20 pts. the hardness is about 50, at 30 pts. it's about 58, and at 40 pts. the maximum hardness is about 61. From 40 pts. to 100 pts. the steel only gains about 7 more Rockwell "C" scale points in maximum hardness as the curve levels out.

Also, the article I posted just while ago, at http://swordforum.com/metallurgy/ites.html, provides us with this:

To temper the steel, the fully hardened piece is placed in a kiln or oven and heated evenly to above 200oF. If we just go to 350oF we relieve some of the stresses but do nothing for reducing brittleness. To temper we will go higher. At 400oF we will have a blade with a hardness of Rc58, this would be great for a knife blade with a fine balance of edge holding versus strength, but swords blades putt a greater emphasis upon toughness than a knife. With continued heating, according to the steels specs, we will get Rc55 at 500oF and Rc50 at 600oF. So now we determine what levels of toughness or shock resistance as opposed to edge holding that we want for our application and then make the required compromises to achieve those ends.

This seems to make it quite clear that even a proper steel blade would not benefit much from hardness over 55 Rockwell C (or around 639 Vickers) and that extra hardness would actually become liability at that point due to hardness coming hand-to hand with brittleness. Only way to get above that point would be to go for harder edge made with either welding the edge in (ie. forge welding) or using differental tempering while leaving the body/core softer. However, this would reduce the life of the edge.

Hardness comparison table: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardness_comparison

The table I made would leave the worst quality iron items slightly worse to on par to non-hardened bronze, worse than well work-hardened bronze at second tier, bit better at 3rd tier and then going though the near entire range of steel item hardness (or rather, what I imagine such range to be). So iron would become something of an "wild card" material, which I feel would be interesting from gameplay precpective.

Now I need to re-read stuff and especially pay attention to objects that are not swords (though swords generally seem to be in upper range of quality).

[Andeerz]

I <3 this thread!  :3

But but but perhaps the use of the term "mild steel like" should be clarified a bit... I am not familiar with any mild steel that is temper or quench harden-able.  Perhaps the term "spring steel" should be used instead, though it's an anachronistic term? 

Anyway, I like the idea for the current skills and quality modifier system in place now.

And:

If the object in qustion is a piece of armour, assume that an increasingly large amount of carbon is "injected" in the object with case-hardening/cementation process, making it harder. Technically, I think armour was generally less hard than weapons, but take that as heresay.

I think you're right from what I've read (a few Osprey books and "Arms and Armour of the Medieval Knight").  I think the consensus is that it was not as hard since it was not economically feasible to use a lot of the same methods used for making swords...

However, the Holy Grail resource for these suggestions is a book called "The Knight and the Blast Furnace" which is unfortunately a pricey book.  It's basically a 300+ page compendium of hardness and metallurgical compositions of all manner of arms and armor specimens from throughout European history.  It also has wonderful historical information as well.  I'll go in halfsies with anyone that would like to buy it and scan it in!!! You can also access the book on some online library website thing, but it requires membership to view it past the first few pages... this book comes with my and a lot of armorers' reccomendations.  Another really super awesome book is "Techniques of Medieval Armor Reproduction", often called TOMAR, which is pretty much the bible of any armorer worth their salt.

[Mephansteras]

Wow, that book is over $350...