About the Dioskouri
1/20/12
While exploring ways to bring better blade materials and options to my customers I have decided to embark on making some pieces in 5160 Spring steel. It is an industry standard for knives and swords. Extremely tough stuff! I can also make them out of L-6 Bainite and while this is mother-of-all-sword-steels; it can produce a fantastic sword at a pretty high price tag. I have explored making these pieces out of laminated iron and case hardened iron, while this is perhaps a more authentic 'steel', the prohibitive investment in time to produce it would make it also, very expensive. Additionally, while it is more authentic to the period, the sword produced will have serious issues in being used without worry as many people like to do cutting tests, etc. It must be regarded as a steel of last resort in the modern era. It is poor in strength and edge holding compared to most any steel. I would prefer to provide my customers with a useable and long lasting sword than a heavy iron and rust-prone piece of dubious abilities. I would prefer to reserve such detailed and labor intensive swords for the Museum researchers to use for testing as their performance for reenactors would be of little use. I will however make such pieces for customers if they wish to wait the time it will take to produce. Overall for reenactment use and historical settings for the average customer, 5160 Spring steel would be the most cost saving choice and produce a real sword with superior properties.
Also in the news here......Consultations have begun regarding the helmet. I have been in contact with one of the world's leading authorities on ancient Corinthian Helmets. The desire to produce the helmet for museum comparison and testing for the original properties of the helmets when they were new is leading to a partnership between these lead researchers and Dioskouri! Dioskouri is set be given unprecedented access to the full physical and alloy compositions as well as micro-scan photography and unreleased photographs of helmets being held by Museums throughout Europe of the original artifacts in order to reproduce a real helmet down to the smallest detail. This partnership will result in not only the MOST accurate reproduction of a Corinthian helmet of the middle 5th century, but also in a greater understanding of these helmet's characteristics in their own time when they were regularly used. To date no such research has been possible. This is an exciting development! The helmet's shape and form as it stands today was deemed a perfect match to the period. Now all that remains is to tweak the alloy to be used and the final small details of construction. The helmet is not going to be 'Museum quality', it will be 'Museum research Quality'! The result will hopefully be a helmet so alike the originals that the only difference will 2,000 years of time in the ground! This will lead to some major breakthroughs in our understanding of the development of the helmet in this period as well as the abilities and strengths of these helmet that we have only been able to guess at up until now. * more information in the Helmets section
Well, I decided to spend the day and update the website. Its only been about 8 months so I figured it was about due!
Most recently I moved into a larger home that included an indoor workshop space and that has been a huge change in what I had been working out of. My days in a Minoan era carport covered with tarp are behind me!
I've added more pictures of some exciting developments here. I acquired some new tools that have allowed me to fully realize the kind of detailed chasing work seen on original artifacts and the level this takes me to is amazing. Like any of you I am most interested in producing the highest and most accurate level that I can in my work so though this can translate to higher prices, the effect of such pieces can be jaw-dropping! I still charge way under industry standard for this kind of work because I fully appreciate the money reenactors and living historians have is usually hard to spare and I almost operate as a 'Not-for-profit'. Almost every cent I take in goes right out for supplies and tools. This is as much my passion as it is my hobby.
The Helmets will soon be ready to be produced and after those are in production I will start to engineer my tools and shop to produce Greaves and other very sought after panoply items. Just bear with me as this is a very costly venture.
My philosophy of producing everything by hand and individually is a hard road but not one taken by the current crop of manufacturers. Sure anything made in India is cheaper......but it's just for playing dress-up! The real people who really made the original pieces I am copying weren't making props. They were making real weapons and armor and so do I. Nothing I make is a fake, or a cheap replica. I do have access to a number of real artifacts to study, trace and examine, some are extremely rare and valuable. To reproduce them is an honor, to remain as faithful to their techniques and materials is all I am concerned for. They'll cost as little as I can get away with selling them for. I just want the Greek reenactment community to thrive and grow by having a good standard in the equipment available to them.
Regarding the use of Damascus steel in our weapons.....
As numerous papers continue to be presented, mostly in the doctoral fields of Metallurgy our information is constantly amended. Books published in the 1930's-1990's are already out of date as new techniques in science can draw far greater understanding of the complexity and variance in ancient metallurgical techniques. Steel as we understand it today, seems to have an older history than was previously assumed. Steel is. after all, merely a technique in carbonizing iron ores to various percentages. It is not as complex to create basic steel and numerous ancient iron artifacts display various states of carbonization. The problem in ancient Greece and Rome was a standardization had never been put forth to ignite a 'steel industry'. The below excerpt appeared in a paper academically published but not as an available public book, though long and dry, it establishes that Wootz (a kind of Damascene steel) and steels of various strengths are well established in the ancient Mediterranean before Alexander's time.
It
also well theorizes that this type of steel had little application for
the bulk of iron or steel use as mundane items so it never became an
industry. Its superior properties were most evident in weapons use and
so its appearance is scattered but not absent from the ancient period. A
given date of general usage of Damascene steel in a later age is
conjectured to be from its greater standardization in manufacturing and
not its invention.
I always endeavor to use what was accurate. The Damascus I use is not a tightly woven pretty pattern even, but a looser pattern much more akin to the level that it could have been used in this period. I maintain this is perhaps not true for every sword in a museum as a great many are pretty poor steels or simply hardened iron, but I'm not trying to sell the ancient equivalent of Wal-mart weaponry am I?
One such sword I've studied in person is something I can't talk much about in any detail as I am not its owner. It was however examined by the British National Museum and verified as authentic and worth about 5 million dollars, how exciting! It however is definitively a pattern welded or Damascene (to use an easy and common term) blade and not a simply iron sword. The B.N.M. was unconcerned by this fact as it seems such examples, though rare, are not unheard of. I can't throw out all kinds of evidence as I have no permission to do so at this time, however, I am told a full release and study of that sword is forthcoming at some date. I made the decision to use this steel when I started to make real pieces and I also decided that for beauty, durability and to represent the 'best in class' I would use Damascus steels. Anyone wishing to have a mild steel or purely iron sword can I suppose, order such. However....I can't guarantee it will go through a car door like a Damascus sword will and any breakage, rusting or bending has to be an acceptable part of owning a purely iron piece. As always and with everything I'll try to accommodate the wishes of my customers.
The method employed seems a more straight forward building process and is suggested by S*****[21]. After a wrought iron bloom was formed by reduction it was broken into small pieces and placed in a sealed clay crucible with a premeasured amount of charcoal. The crucible was about 7cm in diameter and about
15cm tall. Again the crucible was placed in the blast furnace and heated to about 1200°C until the carbon was absorbed by the iron; thereby reducing the melting point. When the crucible was shaken a sloshing sound was sought to confirm the process had been completed. Slow cooling of the crucible over several days would result in an homogenous alloy of steel with 1.5-2% carbon.
During the slow cooling a crystal growth occurs that has a large proportion of iron carbide (Fe3C). Metallurgists identify this white structure on metallographs as cementite. Ancient smiths in the eastern Mediterranean discovered a forging technique that produced an amazing strength and toughness that has only recently been explained[22]. By heating the wootz to a temperature between 600°C and 850°C cementite would not dissolve into the austenite. If it was worked (pounded) at that temperature the cementite crystals would be made smaller and retain the strength of the steel without keeping the brittleness
intrinsic with the larger cementite crystals. This metallurgical explanation for the strength and spring properties as well as the swirl coloration of Damascus steels (made by this process since about 500-330 BC) is a direct contrast to earlier explanations. F******[23] and P***[24] are amongst those that explain these steels as a blend of cast iron and wrought iron pounded together. However, the evidence assembled by S***** and W********[25] discredits earlier hypotheses advocating the blend of cast and wrought iron.
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