VINDICATION! Addressing the CRITICS of medieval spring steel swords 

Shhhhhh. You'll make the weebs angry.

what do you make as a blacksmith?

Crossbows btw. All metal bows on crossbows were/are spring steel for obvious reasons. Crossbows were pretty damn common (relatively speaking)

us weebs would also be sad to learn that swords were not even the main weapon in japan back then

But can you tell me the riddle of steel?

It's somehow easier for them to do that than to admit they were wrong.

@@zsDUGGZ Im surprised so many people thought the Europeans didnt have lots of spring steel. They used it for centuries in a shit load of random applications. Doors, carrigages, prison locks, multiple weapon types... I didnt realize people were legitamitely ignoring hundreds of years of proof that europe was the most advanced in steel quality and forging for a LONG ass time

busting myths*

Somewhere, Adam Savage just got a surge of pride and he does not know why.

By talking out of his ass as usual. Shouldn't be surprised he shares fans with Shapiro

I've worked as a cryogenic engineer. I'm fairly certain I've observed metals lose their temper at extraordinarily low temperatures

Agree. The damage to the surface, especially pitting and such, will probably be more significant than any loss of temper. Then those pits and rusted areas will act as crack formation points leading to catastrophic failure

@@Ethan-if6hz not really because temperature vs absorbing force would have two different impacts on the steel. Asserting force on a blade doesn't change the temper of the material. If this were the case, then we'd see a lot more steel (and aluminum ) airframes suffer from a lot more warped bulkheads, stringers, longerons, spars, etc. Because the temper is just balancing the hardness of the material with other properties. If steel were to "work soften" as I'm going to call it herein, vehicles that experience a lot of vibration and work loads would have massive issues with softening up and warping badly. Now I do know that Aluminum tends to work harden, by working it normally it gets harder and more brittle, so when we work on aluminum airframes we occasionally have to anneal it. But I've never heard of steel changing hardness by working it at all.

Tldr

@@Voidicusoffical I'm pretty sure steel does work-harden too, if you bend it (plastic deformation, not elastic of course) it will get harder and more brittle until eventually it will break. I'd also note that vibration is _not_ the same as a sudden large impact, you can't assume that lots of small vibrations would add up cumulatively to have the same effect as a single, large shock.

A straight sword is an abomination! It must be curved like a katana!

wo say that?

Nice snark.

Indeed, it was for a special method to stab around the guard. (yesI am joking, incase anyone is wondering).

@@ostrowulf or the good ol' sword smack of humiliation

There are other methods than adding air that can remove impurities. Crucible steel making techniques often supplied little to no air. The method suspected to have been used to make the steel in the Ulfbehrt swords was putting ore, powdered charcoal, and broken glass into a sealed crucible and heating it enough to melt both the glass and the steel and keeping it there for many hours, which resulted in the impurities getting trapped in the glass, which had floated to the top and hardened by the time they opened the crucible, so it could be broken off and the remaining billet used to make a sword. That is what was used in the documentary Shad used clips of to make a replica, where they confirmed there was a high purity with the electron microscope.

@@coopercummings8370 true. The method using extra air is actually relatively new.

I would argue making steel of quality good enough to temper is still much harder than the actual process of tempering though. And as such as soon as good quality steel was commonplace, tempering would also be pretty common.

Using refined Oxygen to purify iron is called Bessemer. It was not the 1st process to liquefy the iron, but it is the most efficient once you have enough Revolutionary Industry.

The only thing making anything a good spring is the tempering. For that reason, I dont think its enough calling a sword a 'spring steel sword', unless it was specifically spring tempered on top. Using spring steel for a sword and not spring tempering it wouldnt yield you a spring... Or it will, to an extent, but its far likely to shatter if bent like a spring than a purposely spring tempered object.

The technical knowledge existed, but they were trade secrets. So much of it was lost during the dark ages (plural).

Yeah, I remember my eyebrows going up when he flexed that🤣

I assume they did some metallurgical tests before bending the sword, just to be 100% sure it wouldn't break. But all the more reason to prove it would do exactly what it did.

What amazed me was how light those blades were! Even that big broadsword with the lenticular blade (no fuller) was less than 3 pounds. Japanese katana weigh in at 3-3.5 pounds on average. The majority of the European blades were lighter; some much lighter (which does make sense since they taper a lot). The steel quality appears to be much better too. Traditional Japanese swords are not spring tempered in the same way and will bend when whacked against something. That was a helluva collection!

Why shocked? I've handled those swords, you can flex them all day. Great surviving examples.

I thought you said "I am Adam Savage" for a second and had to look at your username. 😅

Sorry. They MUST be unscrewed first. 😁

I have to agree. There has been more knowledge forgotten to time than a lot of these so called “experts” will ever have. Our modern “throw away” society has no clue about what it takes to make things work or how to improve them. Most people take a product, and if it doesn’t work, throw it away and get something different. No one tries to understand why it didn’t work and improve it. We have an old large circular saw blade for cutting fire wood that would whip when loaded. My dad found an old book on tuning saw blades that showed how to draw a pattern on the blade, lay it on an avail and hammer the blade to pre load the center so that it would run true at speed and under load. I was blown away by that knowledge that no one seems to have anymore. Blade works great now…..

The issue is you cannot make all encompassing statements whichever way about the period. One of the characteristic elements of the medieval period is that you do not have any sort of concrete standard on material quality of pretty much anything, due to the difficulties in reliably reproducing things by hand. On this particular topic you have medieval swords that would be springy and able to withstand tension, but you also have accounts of high-end swords that broke under that kind of stress. Maybe that's because they weren't made to handle that; maybe they were made with that in mind, but poorly, since you can't expect everything to always go the way you want it with hand crafts. Even today, with modern standardized materials experienced smiths will screw up every now and then.

@@leonardomarquesbellini Guilds definitely had standards that must be met before qualifying as a journeyman. Their livelihoods depended on reputation, so they had strict standards.

@@jacquesstrapp3219 not all craftsmen were guild members, nor could you expect every guild member to always hit the mark when working with unreliable materials.

@leonardomarquesbellini9202 The sword smith guild had enough power to enforce standards. This is the primary reason lange messers became popular. Long knives were not part of their purview.

And then you remember, "Whew, it's a pristine sword, so it didn't break!"

@@DanielMWJ Even if it was literally 100% pristine (original state), there could still be a purity or temper defect from manufacturing.

@@victorro8760 Why would the blacksmith not test it, and why would an untested sword be preserved?

Actually I think they believe that mid-evil people were stupid because they didn't have guns and cars so there is no way they could of had anything "modern".

Well, go take a look at some of the pieces in the museums. Many of them are quite frankly of rather poor quality. Big asymmetries, bad fitting, general sloppiness etc. After all many of these craftsman were just working-class men who had to provide for their families and as a result often made cuts on quality so they could produce more swords in the same amount of time. I would suggest to take a look at a recent video of Tod's Workshop where he explains this matter in greater detail. I still very much believe that there were indeed a big number of historical swords with great overall quality and an excellent spring-temper. But assuming that all swordmakers of that era would work every sword to perfection out of the shere pride for their craft is not correct in my opinion.

​@@niklasfischer3915Acting like time and weathering wouldn't have a major effect on the overrall quality of the weapons. Man get the fuck out of here lol

Modernist mentality from people who know next to nothing about history

There were definitely well renowned blacksmiths that carried on generations of knowledge from the finest craftsmen but most soldiers could not afford a sword from them. Most sword-smiths were just regular guys who tried to maximize profit margins and cut corners to increase throughput so they could feed their families. So like shad says undoubtedly some swords were very high quality spring steel but the vast majority were as close to scrap metal as you can get while still functioning as a sword. Think of swords like cars today while it is true that some are crafted by hand with great care and detail to achieve maximum performance almost every car in use is the equivalent of a honda civic which performs the basic functions of a car which is good enough for essentially everyone.

Perhaps you are correct, but the Jian seems to be very similar to European sword design, but it started out made from Bronze, then (presumably non-spring) steel. I think it may not be quite as simple as "European design only works with spring steel."

@@merpius The jian is still a rounded tip, short sword, although it is double edged. You never see triangular longswords or rapiers pop up in east asia.

Spring steel also existed in Asia. There are plenty of Han dynasty swords which are still springy, and India had bows made of spring steel.

@@thescholar-general5975 India has all kinds of things that are super-springy; I assumed he was referring to East Asia; primarily China, Japan, Korea, and SE Asia.

@@edgarburlyman738Also Han dynasty jian were narrow blades with acute tips like rapiers. Anyway, I think that it is true that heat treatment can have an impact on blade design, but the fact is that a majority of blades from both Europe can easily be with differential hardening. Acute points on differentially hardened spears were common throughout history. And so were differentially hardened swords of great length. Both Japan and China had swords which approach or surpassed 2 meters in total length. The main limiting factor when using differential hardening is blade thickness because blades which go below 2mm in thickness start to encounter durability issues regardless of how they are made.

BOIIIIIIIIIIING

Very interesting. I have a similar story where I made a machete out of 80CrV2 but messed up the heattreatment. Tested only 30 HRC. Probably underaustenetized. But it was still felxing without problem and did not bent even after a lot of hard use.

@@ArthurHerbst yup! 30hrc shouldn't be too far from medieval exemples (the ulfberth sword had between 27 and 30 hrc of hardness). Basically completely unhardened high carbon steel. Harder than low carbon steel beacause it's 0.70-0.75% carbon (for the ulfberth) but still nowhere near hardened steel. BUT it can still flex, chop trough bones, and somewhat hold an edge as long as you respect the blade

rly common thing for knights actually. I'm no historian, but, plate armor by it's own design is good enough to protect ppl from such things... After best way to rid of the knight was knock him out cold and bury in dead bodies of peasants, than trying to find those gaps and kill a person inside :D

Horses rolling on riders is not an unknown here in the States. It is extremely dangerous, but if on soft ground, and things like the saddle pommel aren't driven in, riders often walk away. On rocky uneven ground, or unlucky enough to catch the pommel, if a 1500 lb horse is on top of you, armor isn't going to make a difference.

Battlefield plate armor wasn't that heavy, 50-70lbs isn't out there, that much extra weight isn't that big a deal for a horse. That type of fall is a risk even without armor.

@@UltimRoGuE Not entirely true.. Often you'd want to knock out the knight so you could ransom them. Two ransom rates available, one with and one without the return of their expensive suit of armor.

This is why people in the olden days used to install roll cages on their horse to prevent such things.

Been a long time since we had a castle analysis, I miss those so much if I had the denarii I would fund a trip for Shad & team to fly out to some castles and forts just so I could watch the video of it later

I think you mean a ferritic/perlitic core

Well, brand new types of steel are being researched and created pretty much constantly in modern times. Entire research institutes dedicated to steel making. Some types of steel were known since, well, medieval times, and after standartization and refining are still used today. Others contain elements that weren't even known in medieval times. So it really depends. When talking about steel, correct question would be 'Which one?'

Especially against the massive onslaught of the Emu war happening in the land down under, the Aussies will prepare any way they can to seize victory.

@@TheSilverShadow17 Victory over the emus is certain under Minister of Offense Shad M. Brooks.😉

That’s why centers of competence developed in northern Italy and southern Germany where arms and armour of superior quality were manufactured on almost industrial scale. Solingen and Passau were even mentioned in the video by Adam Savage.

@@lucanic4328 We should also remember that a lot of Chinese wars were just meat grinders, the casualty counts are dizzying. That is to say, in larger scale combat the tradeoffs of a differentially hardened blade might win out.

@@lucanic4328 this whole topic is a generalisation, your point? Europe had smaller scale battles, this influenced design... that is all I am saying.

@@lucanic4328 Thanks, much more clear what you mean.

@@lucanic4328 Although some of them might have gone through a fire.

It's worth it. Plus that entire channel is awesome too.

Same. The moment I saw Adam in a room with a bunch of historical swords, I 100% knew Shad was going to comment on it. Especially once they flexed the swords.

I loved Mythbusters.

Weapons remain very functional well after their time. I'd reckon there's a number of original brown besses in good enough shape to shoot me dead with as well, and that's got more places to fail

Try to find his single videos and four part series on the katana, it's myths et c. He compares Medieval Japanese vs European techniques and goes into e.g. blast furnaces, states of iron and ores. Those videos are quite revealing and recommended.

@@bluegent7 just had a look at those videos he goes into the ore of Europe and Japan a lot but only the details about the smelting in Japan. Still great videos but nothing about smelting in Europe apart from modern stuff.

Imagine if the blacksmith that made those swords centuries ago could know that their work would not only survive hundreds of years but remain in pretty solid condition centuries later. The smith has been dead half a millennium and yet something he made survives

​@@VegetaLF7I'd imagine they had some idea it was possible. Weapons don't just despawn after all. I recall there was quite a few centuries-old polearms sent to the new world in the age of exploration because well, they'll still work, especially against the uh Opponents they had in mind.

Austrian

After watching the new video I can add a few additional things: The japanese are prefectionalists and traditionalist to the point that you can identify a smith just by the polish alone. HIstorical european swords are mostly a mass product, to the point that straight lines in a sword where the exception, not the norm and the steel made by the same smith varied more inside the same sword than between different smiths in japan. You could even "destroy" a sword by polishing it to much because of how thin some differences in the steel where inside the sword. Note that all of this is just by the final finish alone. A quick functional quenching for a mass product that will be replaced in a few years either way doesn't need to be as well made as for a sword that will be handed on for many generations. So once again: the quality difference in european swords is ridiculously high. You can get complete trash that will break after the first fight (because the smiths where forced to make mass produce them very quickly for a big army) or you could get a masterpiece that will cut through the low quality stuff like magic. Japanese swords where harder to make in general and had a much narrower quality gap. Maybe most importantly for any discussion about sword quality: most surviving examples of historic european swords where not maintained well (or almost at all). Most of them have rust or other damage. Worse, a lot of them where "glowed" for preservation, meaning they where literally heated up to remove impurities, completely destroying the heat treatment and making it a useless piece of junk... So if anybody argues that a lot of historical sword are not spring steel.. this is why. Idiots of later generation destroyed the sword by pure ignorance! Similar thing with the very typical black color of many historical examples. They removed the outmost layer with acid and left the "inactice" oxidized surface as it was. Which is horrible since, sooner or later, steel continues to oxidize this way, letting rust get inside the sword. So once again: ignorant mistakes while "preserving" destroyed a lot of historical examples. Medieval steel smiths could btw made rust-resistant spring steel, either by coating or treating the outer layer of the sword to lowering the needed maintainance. Something that is extremely rare in surviving examples since.. well the "preservation process" destroyed most of it. He is even addressing spring steel on a historical sword from 1350 he is polishing and about the historical development of iron and steel swords. It was very rare for most of the medieval period but more common at the end, when new technology became more common. Before that they had other methods to prevent swords from deforming or breaking, even in mostly pure iron swords. Even the notion that iron swords are inherently soft is wrong and based on pure modern iron. Historically you just had other non-carbon compounds, mostly byproducts of the process itself.

@@Marc43666 lol yes, weird but obvious mistake on my part. Thanks for mentioning it. corrected it (and a few other things).