On the Breaking of Blades, or: A Negative Result is Still a Result
Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2017 5:41 am
When I was a very young boy, I found a book in my third grade teacher's bookshelf called Mossflower. The main character, Martin the Warrior, stumbled out of a blizzard in the first chapter with nothing but the rags on his back and a broken sword on a thong around his neck. I didn't know it at the time (My dad had read The Hobbit to me as a bedtime story but The Lord of the Rings was at a bit higher reading level than I was) but this gripping image of the Hero with a Broken Sword was hardly Brian Jaques' creation. Narsil/Anduril in The Lord of the Rings brought it into the public consciousness in our modern age, but Tolkien probably drew inspiration from the sword Gram in the Volsunga Saga, Broken by Odin and reforged by the dwarven smith Regin.
When thinking about building a Ranger kit, I decided I wanted a broken sword. I find it more desirable than a full sword in several respects: First and foremost, it's less threatening. When hiking, I want people to interpret me as an eccentric having fun in costume, not a potential maniac out to hunt The Most Dangerous Game. This is important when encountering your average hiker, but potentially quite a bit more important when encountering backcountry park rangers.
Secondly, I really rather like Caedmon's Cult of Narsil idea.
So I started thinking about how best to break a blade. First, I needed a blade to break, but since its ultimate fate was sundering, I wasn't too worried about getting a good one. I found a wall-hanger piece on Amazon that claimed to be tempered and "Battle ready" and figured that would be adequate.
Rather than launch straight into beating on a moderately expensive blade, I decided to start with a little flea market dagger that had been hanging around forever.
I went down to my local welding supply store and paid $20 for 2 liters of liquid nitrogen. Even knowing how effective vacuum insulation is, I was a little astonished that the sides of my flask didn't get cold.
Steel gets brittle at low temperatures--this is known. However...the extent of the brittleness was not as impressive as I had hoped. I managed to snap the tip off my 440 stainless dagger, quite easily with a single hammer blow, but try as I might I couldn't replicate the result with thicker parts of the blade. despite cutting notches in an attempt to initiate a break. bridging the dagger blade between to bricks and slamming it repeatedly with a splitting maul yielded a slight bend but no snap.
The sword was even more resistant. It seems to be annoyingly robust for an intentionally cheap item.
Ultimately, I decided to give in and resort to Plan B: cutting the blade. Some quick work with angle and bench grinders yielded something which looks...pretty damn good, actually.
But it's not broken. The broken face on the dagger has a very different texture, none of the striations that the sword's cut has. Even if I were to polish away those striations, I still can't think of a way to make the surface texture look like a break rather than a cut.
It's a very minor point, and I'm reasonably happy with how the blade turned out despite its obvious lack of authenticity upon close inspection. The next step is to upgrade the ghastly faux-leather grip and maybe the chromed(?) pommel and guard, and make a new scabbard.
I think if I had tempered the blade to be harder and more brittle before the nitrogen I might have gotten the result I was looking for--but then again, the steel of this particular item might just be too soft no matter what.
Still, a major goal has been achieved, even if not to the level of perfection I had hoped.
At least the left over liquid nitrogen made good ice cream.
When thinking about building a Ranger kit, I decided I wanted a broken sword. I find it more desirable than a full sword in several respects: First and foremost, it's less threatening. When hiking, I want people to interpret me as an eccentric having fun in costume, not a potential maniac out to hunt The Most Dangerous Game. This is important when encountering your average hiker, but potentially quite a bit more important when encountering backcountry park rangers.
Secondly, I really rather like Caedmon's Cult of Narsil idea.
So I started thinking about how best to break a blade. First, I needed a blade to break, but since its ultimate fate was sundering, I wasn't too worried about getting a good one. I found a wall-hanger piece on Amazon that claimed to be tempered and "Battle ready" and figured that would be adequate.
Rather than launch straight into beating on a moderately expensive blade, I decided to start with a little flea market dagger that had been hanging around forever.
I went down to my local welding supply store and paid $20 for 2 liters of liquid nitrogen. Even knowing how effective vacuum insulation is, I was a little astonished that the sides of my flask didn't get cold.
Steel gets brittle at low temperatures--this is known. However...the extent of the brittleness was not as impressive as I had hoped. I managed to snap the tip off my 440 stainless dagger, quite easily with a single hammer blow, but try as I might I couldn't replicate the result with thicker parts of the blade. despite cutting notches in an attempt to initiate a break. bridging the dagger blade between to bricks and slamming it repeatedly with a splitting maul yielded a slight bend but no snap.
The sword was even more resistant. It seems to be annoyingly robust for an intentionally cheap item.
Ultimately, I decided to give in and resort to Plan B: cutting the blade. Some quick work with angle and bench grinders yielded something which looks...pretty damn good, actually.
But it's not broken. The broken face on the dagger has a very different texture, none of the striations that the sword's cut has. Even if I were to polish away those striations, I still can't think of a way to make the surface texture look like a break rather than a cut.
It's a very minor point, and I'm reasonably happy with how the blade turned out despite its obvious lack of authenticity upon close inspection. The next step is to upgrade the ghastly faux-leather grip and maybe the chromed(?) pommel and guard, and make a new scabbard.
I think if I had tempered the blade to be harder and more brittle before the nitrogen I might have gotten the result I was looking for--but then again, the steel of this particular item might just be too soft no matter what.
Still, a major goal has been achieved, even if not to the level of perfection I had hoped.
At least the left over liquid nitrogen made good ice cream.