(urth) Fuligin invented

[Lane Haygood]

I've never heard of an actual mercury channel in a sword. I can ask on  
a swordsmanship forum I frequent (where several smiths post) to see if  
it's feasible. From what I understand of sword structure, it's not.  
You need the center part of the sword to be the strongest part, and  
that usually means it needs to be softer and more ductile than the  
surrounding steel. Cutting a big channel out of the middle of it might  
weaken its structural integrity to the point where it would be useless  
for cutting.

The idea is that the edges, the parts that need to be sharp, should be  
harder. When steel hardens, it becomes more brittle. Brittle steel  
will sharpen and hold an edge. But it's also weak. If you made the  
whole sword out of really hard steel it would chip and shatter  
whenever it made contact with something. So you make the non-edge part  
of the sword out of softer, more flexible metal so that it will  
actually absorb shock. But cutting a big channel out of the middle  
would remove a lot of the shock-absorbing material.

Lane

On Jan 17, 2008, at 12:01 PM, Matthew Keeley wrote:

> On Jan 17, 2008 4:58 PM,  <brunians at brunians.org> wrote:
>> That sucker in the wiki article was as long as TE. Couldn't tell if  
>> it had
>> a mercury channel, but that kind of thing would be obvious. I have  
>> heard
>> of swords with sliding weights also.
>>
>> So Severian wasn't joking when he said the horizontal stroke was  
>> harder
>> than the vertical one....
>
> According to the Wikipedia article, "The Sword of Justice at the
> Higgins Armory Museum is a fine example of such ceremonial weapons
> used to designate status and authority." If that's the sword in the
> picture, that's really neat, as the Higgins is only about fifteen
> minutes' walk from my house. I'll check it out next time I'm at home
> (i.e. in six months) and ask about weights and mercury in blades of
> that type. If anyone would know about that sort of thing, it's the
> folks at the Higgins. I'll see if I can get some relevant pictures as
> well.
>
> I recall that Wolfe mentioned basing TE off real swords, so I wouldn't
> be surprised if the Higgins had something similar.
>
> So... report forthcoming I guess.
>
> -Matt
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