Cast vs. Forged Sword Blades

Harnuth

Member
This technical note could be more important to the Simfilm project than Exploring the Lord of the Rings, but I'm guessing this might be a good spot to post one of my pet peeves. It's something they kind of got right in LOTRO, and completely wrong in the films.

In both The Lord of the Rings films and the Game of Thrones series, they show swords being formed by pouring hot metal into a mold. I'd assume these are sand-casting molds, but perhaps they discovered some other clever way of assuring that the cool metal will release from the mold. (Maybe lots and lots of borax.)

Those scenes are smokey, colorful, fiery, dramatic... and absolutely wrong.

A sword blade cast in that matter would have a random grain pattern, the weakest possible method of creating a solid chunk of metal. It would shatter on impact with a hard surface, such as armor, a boss on a shield, or another weapon.

Real swords are forged--beaten from a single blob of metal that has been heated until it is plastic. The smith forms the metal into the shape of the blade and in the process, he causes the grain of the metal to run longitudinally through the length of the sword, urging it closer and closer to a single crystal.

Even in modern swords, the metal is forged, albeit by gigantic rollers in a foundry instead banging with a blacksmith's hammer. After heat-treating to lock in the grain, these swords are the strongest and most formidable edged weapons ever made.


Now... in a similar vein, in the scene in the film where an elven smith created Andúril from the shards of Narsil by banging away at the joints, we can only guess that maybe some unidentified elvish magic was at work so that the whole thing wasn't entirely absurd.
 
Good point. I don't know whether casting was used for historical bronze swords, but yes a cast iron sword sounds kind of silly now that you mention it. It wouldn't be made of steel, and wouldn't it require a blast furnace? The medieval-esque Middle-earth probably lacks those (except maybe in Mordor).

Now... in a similar vein, in the scene in the film where an elven smith created Andúril from the shards of Narsil by banging away at the joints, we can only guess that maybe some unidentified elvish magic was at work so that the whole thing wasn't entirely absurd.
How would a broken blade be re-forged whole, realistically?
 
I always thought reforging a broken sword was not possible, because the breaking would not just break the blade but damage the entire steel's structure, so i thought to remake it it would have to be completely melted down and forged completely anew with new ore added.what i would not call reforging in the sense of the term.

But it seems i was wrong...

https://www.popularmechanics.com/culture/tv/a12927/can-one-simply-reforge-valyrian-steel-16675840/

http://www.swordforum.com/forums/showthread.php?71994-The-Sword-that-was-Broken
 
I found another example of a broken sword being reforged. This was done quite differently from the smith on the Sword Forum. These fellows claim to be using a Japanese method to reforge a broken sword, which is probably what you call melting it down, Haerangil. (They actually forge a movie-Narsil replica, somebody in a Sauron costume smashes it, and then they reforge it. :p)


Edit: One viewer is complaining the result looks flimsy and too bendy, though.
 
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Interesting!

Hmm... japanese swords are quite fragile in comparrison to european longswords, i also think they use a different steel... but i'm a mechanic, not a smith, i used to work with tool steel, but not to forge it.
 
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I think all you really need is a proof-of-concept from RL humans doing it and coming close, in order to claim plausibility for Noldor to do it successfully in our show.
 
Ilyia does awesome work! I've actually met him before. :)

Certainly, I don't want our project to have any cast iron swords in it, unless they're supposed to be of terribly poor quality or something.
 
Ilyia does awesome work! I've actually met him before. :)

Certainly, I don't want our project to have any cast iron swords in it, unless they're supposed to be of terribly poor quality or something.

The only people likely to have the technology to melt iron, so it can be cast, are the elves. And they probably knows better than to do it.
 
Na, dwarves should know too!
and it's not really about melting as i understand it but about the carbon in the steel... with modern technol8gy one should be able to cast a suitable blade, but with medieval technol8gy a cast blade would be heavy and brittle in contrast to a forged blade... so yes, swords COULD be cast in the way saruman does it in the movies, but that would only be ONE step in a complicated process... and machinery would have been involved which we do not see on film. Those blades would be REALLY hard, but not very long ...
 
... a cast iron sword sounds kind of silly now that you mention it. It wouldn't be made of steel, and wouldn't it require a blast furnace? The medieval-esque Middle-earth probably lacks those (except maybe in Mordor)...

Before the invention of the blast furnace, smiths made steel by sprinkling carbon on the hot iron, then folding and banging away at it. Repeat to create multiple layers. That's how Damascus and Japanese steel swords were made as well as the Vikings' "[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulfberht_swords]Ulfberht[/URL]" swords.

And it looks like Al Massey proved the concept of re-welding a broken blade, at least where there was a single clean break! Impressive work, that!

Off hand, I can't guess what would have caused Narsil to shatter the way they showed it in the movie. Or, for that matter, how they managed to make the prop, unless it wasn't really steel.
 
I found another example of a broken sword being reforged. This was done quite differently from the smith on the Sword Forum. These fellows claim to be using a Japanese method to reforge a broken sword, which is probably what you call melting it down, Haerangil. (They actually forge a movie-Narsil replica, somebody in a Sauron costume smashes it, and then they reforge it. :p)


Awesomeness! This video shows the technique I was talking about, although they did start with foundry steel.

(Amusement: Crystal noticed that the Sauron costume appeared to be worn by a very mammalian woman, even before I did! Golly. I never though of Sauron as a gurl.)


: One viewer is complaining the result looks flimsy and too bendy, though.

Good swords really do come out quite springy. They cut extremely well and don't break.
 
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