Casting swords in the movies - forging a lie
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- Опубліковано 10 лис 2015
- Casting swords in moulds is something often seen in the movies, and is rubbish. Here I tell you why.
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There is a method of making a sword, often depicted in the movies (I give three examples in this video, but there are MANY more), whereby glowing orange iron is poured into a huge mould, and we the viewers see the fiery liquid taking the shape of the hero's blade-to-be. The snag with this is, it's rubbish.
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Casting swords in the movies - forging a lie
/ user "Lindybeige"
Bruh just get a stick and 2 iron ingots
Why isn’t this liked more
Man of culture
Epic Sauce because its not funny
@@Sem.or.sumthin but its true
@@Sem.or.sumthin Incorrect.
I love when they're all like "this is a very magical metal that takes much skill to work with" and all they do is pour it in a cast
It does take a lot of skill... in the magic enchanting they do to the molten material, not actually pouring it or working it... the enchanting does the forging for them once it's cast in the magic mold
@@davejay6855what if you use the special enchanting with the regular molten iron? What would we be left with then?
That explains the shattering sword effect in movies.
Hol up
Duh, this obviously takes place in the less known aluminium age, which happened between the bronze age and the iron age. Cast aluminium swords were in high demand back them.
It's just, they all got smashed into pieces by the guys who still had bronze swords, so none have survived to this day. But they were light! Dang, you could swing them quickly until they burst!
;)
Aluminium is pretty soft, it wouldnt be smashed
@@herscher1297 eh it's brittle enough to shatter if it came in contact with a harder blade at high speed...
those would be effective like baseball bats that are intended to throw shards of metal at your enemy
@@VincentGonzalezVeg sounds good
@@herscher1297 If you get modern high-purity aluminum, yes, it may bend. Or just be cut through, If your aluminum (or any other metal, really) has pockets of, or the wrong kinds of, impurities... snap, shatter, crunch.
There are few who can work with Valyrian steel. We must not question their methods.
This was going to be my comment.
Isn't plot armor great?
Kilo Whiskey that’s such a weird phrase it’s overused they were simply using what George rr Martin gave them in the books
Kilo Whiskey Plot armor is twice as light and even more indestructible than a Valarrian Shield. Long live the mighty plot armor
Andre Photo from season 1-4 yes, onwards no just notes and they fucked it. They fucked it hard. Anally.
Of COURSE you don't "glue two halves together". Only an idiot would do that. Clearly, this is a job for duct tape.
yeah double sided
FLEX SEAL*
flex glue
Flex seal
The handy man’s secret weapon.
No matter what era.
what do you know about re-forging valyrian steel?
there are only 3 smiths who have this knowledge
Clearly the way to work forged steel made with a forgotten method is to melt it down into an amorphous blob then just kinda pour it on the floor.
@@tharqal2764 Of course, it just makes sense. Instead of the thousands of folds, spells, and blood of slaves that it took to actually make it Valerian steel.
@@josharntt Or ya know mix in obsidian and smelt with dragons fire
He knows what the definition of "forging" is as opposed to smelting.
What do I know about re-forging Valyrian steel? Nothing and neither does anyone else because Martin doesn't cover it in the books. In the DVD commentary for that scene, D&D admit that this is not the proper way to make a sword. They also admit that it was based on the sword casting scene in 'Conan The Barbarian' . ua-cam.com/video/DHUoupnOt-E/v-deo.html
I think the orcs in LoTR get a pass because they are supposed a metaphor for like human industrialization and doing the molds would be faster and way more crude
They're also orcs. A crude sword befits them.
Yes definitely
Orcs are very much like pigs, so wouldn't they use technology that would be used for making pig iron?
Yeah but those were Skuruts. Not orcs. Skuruts were big, inteligent and cruel. Orcs were just cruel. Also skuruts are half elfs.
@@annieshineblossom3762 what are you saying mate? Those were uruk-hai, which are orcs bred with men to make them stronger and smarter, all orcs are tormented currupt elves that Mellor tourtured into being orcs. And also what is a skurut?
Hold on, Fine silver will pour silver color, it is sterling that forms the black coating... ok back to watching. Still a great video!
Heheh Cody coming along being chemistry person
Thanks for this, now I have one less piece of misinformation floating around my brain.
Colab
quicksilver will pour silver too.
Ok, definitely didn't expect you here Cody :D
I need that last little "No, no.... No" as a gif.
+psyssi He wasted money on that new camera if he don't start doing this.
+psyssi
gifs.com/watch?v=8E6TzT0eCYs
Use that and make it yourself!
+psyssi But then you wouldn't be able to hear him...
+gogron Probably just put to mute and add subtitles for all your tumblr needs.
gifs.com/gif/casting-swords-in-the-movies-forging-a-lie-jqgjkY
Whoever smelt it, dealt it. (Thanks, I'll be here all week)
Lord have mercy ! ( Amen)
@@garymingy8671 Amen.
Amen brothers
Smelt what?
@@adriannn3720 my fart
I cast silver all the time, and it looks silvery to me.
That said, I'm wearing dark glasses so I don't burn out my retinas.
At what temperature? That temperature says it all actually...
Oddly enough the orc swords made that way makes sense why it's so crude
And they are quite chunky - which would probably help a little with not breaking
What also keeps them from breaking is the fact they're further worked afterwards on an anvil, as shown.
Also, if the blade broke, you'd end up with a sharp bit, somewhere (presumably)...which would keep most orcs happy.
quite the opposite
Exactly, Dumdumshum. The uruk swords were hardly more than sharpened bars of iron, and CNC milling or other stock removal of sheet metal and then hammerforging to shape is not an uncommon method for modern amateur blacksmithing. And though even they wouldn't have a long lifespan (especially as they were iron and not steel) the intended lifespan of their weilders were comparatively short. :3
That second camera is excellent for asides. It simultaneously is visually interesting, while adding a sort of punctuation.
+Jensaw101 And for some reason a bit of humor as well lol.
+Jensaw101 Got to disagree, those camera jumps look rather cheesy
we get a nice view out of the window
+Jensaw101 Both camera angle Lindys can develop a dual personality disorder with one another and get into arguments with each other...
+Jensaw101 I found it pretty obnoxious.
As a blacksmith, these scenes in TV and movies physically hurt me
I honestly find that actually smithing a weapon like a sword or axe is far more cinematic and interesting than watching someone pour some supposed liquid metal into a mold
In reference to your Fellowship Of The Ring Clip - I do believe that orc/uruk hai swords are just meant to be like a lump of sharpened metal with perhaps a leather grip or something, crude weapons for a crude people
canonically those uruk swords were supposed to be low quality because they were using techniques to make them as fast as possible rather than high quality
@@spawnof200
"The spy watch I gave to you could be functional even at the melting temperature of tungsten"
"I doubt that I would be functional at that temperature"
They are also heavy, block shaped and crude, just the front side is grinded sharp, it actually would work.
I think they did show Andruil being forged correctly but i can't really remember either
@@ColonelBragg They did, but also kind of didn't. You wouldn't be able to just re-forge a blade like that. They'd have to have taken the fittings off, forged the shards into a lump and then re-forged the blade from that.
That isn't too crazy to think of, though. Good metal is expensive, so recycling it would make sense.
Confirmed, you can't smelt steel beams with casting tools.
(I had to.)
+enoughofyourkoicarp lol! i hope others get that. that was funny.
+Mark Welschmeyer i didnt! yay..
+m n "Jet-fuel can't melt steel beams"
+WB1813 Casting tools can't smelt steel beams. Lindybeige confirmed.
+enoughofyourkoicarp They used jet fuel in middle ages, confirmed.
Seeing that side view just ruined my thought of your room. I don’t know why but I never thought that there would be a window. I had no idea where the room was and I don’t know what I don’t like about that window but I do
Lol
My friend asked his dad to try and forge a sword like this and exactly what lindy beige said happened lmAo
What's weird is, the actual forging and construction of swords arguably looks cooler - there are some neat channels that show the process start to finish and it's hardcore as hell doing it the real way both with ancient and modern methods. So I'm not sure the mentality of showing it this way in movies.
Those muscly bearded guys hitting a glowing piece of metal, sparks flying everywhere, steam filling the air when the sword is quenched... THAT'S badasq
+Joe Mazzola In the Game of Thrones example I'd say they just wanted a short scene to show what happened to Ned Starks sword for potential future plot reasons.
Probably, but there are more realistic ways of doing it.
AND BEARDED BLACKSMITHS ARE BADASSSSSSSS
cyanit42 That's true for Game of Thrones (since it was melted in the book - specifically so they could re-use the metal) but as a rule with regular sword-forging the real process is so cool and involves a lot of heat and clanging and shirtless dudes with hammers and beards sweating in dim light.
+Joe Mazzola From what I hear of G.O.T., having the sweaty shirtless dudes is just that shows style.
I was kinda hoping when Lloyd said the last "no" he would turn and face the second camera!
3:18 the melting point for iron is around 1538, but only for pure iron. If you add other elements such as carbon, you can bring the melting point down quite a lot, but it would still be hotter than depicted in movies
Next on lindybeige "How movies get dragons wrong!"
Thats for shadiversity :v
Obviously the wings of the dragons are too small
I think the biggest problem would be figuring out the food supply a dragon would need to survive. I am not sure if the farmers would be all that happy to have a large stock of their cows be eaten on a regular basis.
I can tell by your beard and sweatshirt that you know exactly what your talking about
My thoughts exactly
You're*
Miles Trollokopolous he is correct. Are you telling me it’s you are beard. Such an idiot
@@mashpotatoxx8139 No, but, it is what you're* talking about. My correction is accurate, idiot. 🙄
Miles Trollokopolous my bad homie
Yes Loyd but *puts on nerd glasses* you don´t know the melting point of valyrian steel!
Valyrian steal still couldn't be cast, maybe that was Tywin's point, to melt the brutally effective Ice that Ned once used to crush his enemies and cast it into two useless play swords as a final "fuck you" to the Starks.
+David Hopwood In a world of dragons, resurrection, and hocus pocus, it miiiiiiiiiight be best not to apply "science" to magic metals.
SidewaysGts There's no hocus pocus in game of thrones, what are you stupid?
David Hopwood
"There's no hocus pocus in game of thrones, what are you stupid? "
Awh, kiddo. Try again without the insults :)
+deck444 thats an easy one, it has the melting point of Plot divided by scenetime multiplied by IMDB-rating.
"The irony" haha
To be fair, in Game Of Thrones it technically isn't iron, but rather Valyrian Steel, which is a fictional metal.
But then again it's implied to be an alloy of iron and obsidian (I know, it sounds wrong to me too) and I think it's also associated with dragons? So it should have an extremely high melting point...so it's even worse
Obsidian in this universe is magical. A Valyrian steel sword is made with spells woven into it's metam.
If it’s steel, it’s iron
Valyrian Steel, is the aSoIaF name for Damascus Steel. (And Dragon Glass is obsidian)
I thought it was just implied to be steel. Coke and iron mixed in a way the Westerosi didn't know and thus couldn't reproduce.
@@Billythetoaster2004 I mean, so is stainless and patterned steel.
So...nobody is going to talk about how the smith wasted all that valerian steel in the got smithing scene? Ok, just saying that its the rarest metal in the world and he's wasting enough to make a dagger or two.
Im sure they didn't use actual steel it's just edited
And as I just pointed out in my comment:
smelting it down would most likely destroy all the property of the steel.
Once smelted the steel becomes molten iron, and well it no longer retain any of it's solid states (which is what makes the different steels)
So a Valerian Steel sword was probably awesome due to the way the metal ingots were made, but also how the weapon was forged.
Smelting it down destroyed ALL OF THAT!
+Magnus Ludvigsen pretty sure it's awesome because it's magic.
Apparently it's either some type of pattern welded steel, or it's been folded many times during forging, or both. Either way, melting it down would destroy it (although it might still be magic).
When I saw the Game of Thrones scene it did strike me as unrealistic, but since Valyrian steel is a fictional, supernatural metal I can give it a bit of a pass. It may very well be that you can't work Valyrian steel with hammer and anvil unless you have access to certain spells/magic, special tools and/or knowledge of lost arts.
Casting the steel may not be ideal, but it may be the only approach that Tywin's smith had available that would work. The fantastical properties of the metal itself could be enough to render moot the usual disadvantages to the technique for sword-making, at least compared to non-magic weapons.
I can see you are enjoying your second camera.
Who doesn't? It adds a bit of eccentricity to his videos that increases the humor.
+S.Rolphsen "adds a bit of eccentricity" as if he needed more.
+Mark Welschmeyer We all need more eccentricity.
This is exactly how I teach my enemies to make swords ;)
That.. "do you know what Steel is made of?... Iron"
Broke me 😂
I love it when lindy explains something I already understand.
It makes me feel really smart.
Truth. XD
But he has some bullshit in there
You really are enjoying that new camera. And so am I.
There was an old Bronze Smith named George,
Who built his shoppe in a picturesque gorge.
But then (irony of ironies), the whole site was quite iron-y.
So he built the first Iron Age forge.
I just found your channel and I feel like I've been missing out most of my life. I've watched your spear vs sword video, your platoon for both infantry and tanks, long bow, halberd, gunshots in movies, your first rifle shooting, and this video with the little time I've had these past few days and this will now consume as much of my time as I can offer. Please continue to make these high quality educational videos. Thank you!
pure silver is very silver when melted. only sterling will end up black. i pour silver bars and i make rings
where do you get your silver?
Mrmoocows99 from a local shop and from dealers online
I'm guessing silver bars like what you can get a jmbullion.com. If you can get a very CO2 heavy room >60% (you will need an oxygen tank), you can pour sterling without it corroding.
Folopolis or u use a Argon filled Tank
Dan Connaughty hum... The Witcher
24 years of forging carbon steel knives. It also pains me to see movie sword making [and the heat treating process], so misleading. That Conan one which shows casting, forging and then "Quenching" [unfortunately only HALF] the blade in snow! This would crack any earthly carbon steels. Special exotic metal or not, it horribly misleads the general public. Sad to gain any such "knowledge" from movies. Dipping a hot [~1500F. blade into oil or water is the quench, not the tempering process, which comes later at much lower temperatures - 300 - 500F. The whole process of quenching and after cooling a tempering is called heat treating. A complete process to make relatively hard, but tough, usable implement.
First of all, pure iron [which does not exist in this state in nature], melts at 2900F. As carbon is added to pure iron [normally by the addition of charcoal or coke], it then becomes steel up to about 2% carbon which is about twice the carbon content of most "high carbon" steels of 1% carbon used in knives and swords - although lower carbon content of .6% carbon is generally preferred in swords. As the carbon content is increased from 0% [pure iron] to up to about 2% the melting temperature actually goes down from 2900F. to about 2700F. for 1%carbon steel. Above 2% carbon content, it is now called cast iron, having 2.5 to 5% carbon - way too high to forge without crumbling under the hammer, and very brittle when cooled, as Lindybeige stated. Cast steel melts around 2100F. so much lower than steel or pure iron and it flows like water and is very easy to cast in an open or closed mold. It is never forged afterwards for any reason, so no, it would not even begin to make a sword or even a relatively shorter knife. Meteorite iron is generally nickel/iron and has been used in swords and knives down through the ages, but combined with carbon steel for the cutting edge as nickel/iron is relatively soft and will not hold an edge. Nickel/iron etches out bright because of the nickel and now carbon to speak of, when combined in alternate layers with a low (10-20%) carbon steel [which etches out gray] for the core or center of a sword makes a pattern of light and dark - "Pattern-welded steel", which is commonly [and wrongly] called "Damascus steel", which is a totally different animal.
Cast knives and swords were first of copper, cast in closed molds. Bee's wax can be shaped like a sword or knife, covered in wet clay which is dried, then heated over a fire to melt out the wax, then much more heat is applied and molten copper - or later bronze is poured into the cavity left from the wax original. Copper melts at 1984F. [George Orwell ref.], and bronze - copper and 2-10% tin melts at ~2200F. This temperature was reachable in a wood fire which had a bellows forced air system which increased temperatures, or in some cases, a forge fire built into the side of a hill where updrafts of wind were used in the same manner.
This is a stripped down version here, but hopefully, it will enlighten some.
David Brunetta Very nice description of the relevant properties of steel. Anyone who has ever messed up a forge weld and accidentally turned a steel bar into a huge sparkler (because both low/high carbon steel burn before they melt) can’t help but groan when they see this absurdity.
This definitely enlightened me since I'm doing my Engineering degree in metallurgy. Though I got to admit I didn't understand everything, so I still got a lot to learn!
What saddens me, is that some sheeps actually buy what they see in a movie as real.
Interesting, but really I don't share your concern. I don't think anyone actually watches movies to find out how to make swords.
Sterling silver does look a lot like aluminum when melted down, can't speak for pure silver.
1:27 ahhh I love this. just that passive-aggresive tone with the brilliant cut at the end. perfectly delivers the idea.
In LotR the slab form was wanted.
I think a lot of these scenes are inspired by the opening scene of Conan the Barbarian, which is more of a symbolic scene than a realistic one.
+Floppy Guy Very good point.
This. The director wanted the forging of a sword to be the metaphor for the trials of life making Conan stronger.
At some point they did have to cast Arnold as well. So the entire thing could be viewed as a metaphor for Hollywood.
+Drunkduck Why the fuck are you ''verified'' acc with no subscribers and just 20 or so (at least for me) lame videos?
Wtf UA-cam?
Is that such a big important status thing?
This account is part of a verified G+ page for a website of the same name. UA-cam or Google or both of them verified this account as well a couple of years ago.
I don't like commenting on videos with this account usually.
+Floppy Guy Thanks for the input, yoko taro
The dumbest part is that forging a sword the proper way would honestly be more cinematically interesting in my opinion. What is exciting about pouring liquid in a mold? I want a sweaty, hairy man/dwarf with a blazing hot lump of steel, smashing it with a hammer and anvil, sparks flying, etc. If they are enchanted you could add all sorts of crazy stuff in to the mix at the same time too
I know, right? That's exactly what I was thinking! It'd be way cooler to see a big blacksmith, an absolute unit of a lad, hunched over an anvil beating a great lump of red hot metal as sparks fly everywhere, and his magnum opus takes shape, than some yellowish liquid following down a mold, like a steady stream of piss in comparison.
But I supposed that'd take way more effort to do, it's not like anyone can be bothered.
you sir are a pleasure to listen too , i know nothing of casting but your way of explaining things and the amount info you managed to cram in this video is just too good!
Thank you for this. Literally everything about these scenes is idiotic. I have once cracked the side of an old park bench that was a solid 5 cm thick cast iron by dropping it... onto grass. Instead of a cast iron sword you might aswell fight using a banana or put your hopes in spellcasting.
+Fistwagon But if you use a banana someone will pull out a gun, shoot you, peel the banana and eat it. Then you will be a disarmed lunatic.
+Fistwagon I really hate cast iron. It's a useless material in blacksmithing. If ever anyone finds an anvil for sale which is made out of cast iron, they would do well not to be tempted by the low price.
+S.Rolphsen Monty Python reference game, is on point.
+HamsterPants522 that's what my teacher said as well
+Fistwagon The banana is not used for combat per sey, but you can hold up guards with them, so they are still field-efficient. and can also be lunch. All in all, a good equipment for the seasoned field agent.
You can't even forge cast iron, it'll shatter under a hammer even while heated.
Wrought iron was so named because it was /possible/ to forge it.
+Kharmitas Yup, I tried this when I was younger. I even tried melting the cast iron, it just crumbled into pieces before it melted.
There is something like cast steel, less carbon than cast iron and forgable.
+Kharmitas
Actually wrought iron referred to its manufacturing process. In short it was forged from a big lump of metal at the foundry (Ie “wrought”) to its form as a bar.
Bloomery iron is a form of wrought iron, yes, but another sort of wrought iron was made in China by decarburizing cast iron since antiquity. As we got into more advanced metalworking methods, wrought iron was made from pig iron in a puddling furnace, which could melt iron without overloading it with carbon, and it was stirred with rods to give it a stable structure. Perhaps at one point wrought iron referred exclusively to iron wrought into shape, but for a long time now it's referred to the iron having the /ability/ to be wrought without shattering or cracking.
+Adamast Really high melting point though
I love this video! It's always bugged me seeing metal swords made that way in movies. Besides, dramatically forging the hot iron as sparks rain down looks just as cool and is nice and accurate, why can't they just do that?
The two camera angles if my new fav thing about your channel bro
So uh....what did they do?
+umidontno040394 They hammered the shit out of it.
You take a bar, heat it up and then, with a hammer stretch it to the size of a sword. Then you shape it and add the edge. Just search "forging a sword" on youtube.
They forged the blade by heating up iron (or Steel) until it's soft enough to shape it into whatever desired shape you want the sword to be.
+umidontno040394 This guy shows the whole process, all the way from fishing up some iron ore rocks from a river! Pretty cool.
jarkko1.deviantart.com/art/raudan-valmistus-324286519
+umidontno040394 try watching the man-at-arms reforged series on the youtube.
He is strong. If I die I have to go before him, and he will ask me "What is the riddle of steel?" And if I don't know it he will cast me out of Valhalla and laugh at me! That's Crom - strong in his mountain!
+CapnHolic The riddle is answered... just say to Crom the riddle of steel is that Conan's sword was recycled soda cans.
+CapnHolic My god is stronger. He is the everlasting
sky! Your god lives underneath him.
+inthefade Crom laughs at your Four Winds!
+CapnHolic Yes, but Crom has smelly feet.
Sorry, NO mention of Valhalla! That was for the gods of the Aesir, NOT for Crom. Crom lives on a mountaintop, but there's no name for the place
So, apparently, what Conan's father *should* have said to him in that early scene of Arnold's "Barbarian" was: "The secret of steel is that the casting shown in our opening credits is complete nonsense."
Another important thing to keep in mind about casting iron is that you want the whole object to cool evenly because this is when the loosely floating atoms arrange themselves back into a mineral lattice. With uneven cooling you'll get flaws in the lattice which can easily become fracture points once you start using the thing for its intended purpose. With the cinematic casting method you'd get swords whose tips would easily break off.
Here's a little lesson in forgery
This is going down on
Blaccsmithy
glowing 1000 degree sword
If you want to be a blacksmith number one
You have to cast a great-sword on the run
Now look at this ore, that I just found
When I say "go", be ready to glow!
go! pour it at him, not me,
let's try something else.
Now watch and learn, here's the deal
We'll hammer and pound on this anvil steel
WHAT ARE YOU DOING!
I kinda wanted to know what they DID do with iron swords.
Forged them with a hammer and anvil.
It depends on the iron (or steel) that was used, what historical period you're talking about, and, where culture the sword is being made by.
Man at Arms shows often shows various methods of working steel. Sometimes they even smelt the steel from iron ore themselves. If you haven't already checked them out, their work is pretty interesting to watch
Thelongchinbeard
Good suggestion, actually! those guys are pretty good with a hammer!
Cut and stabbed people with them usually.
been using those "prince august" molds for years... just so glad to see them here...
Fun video.
Oi you turd
epic. don't forget to mention about thermal shock to the stone. that can be sufficient to completely shatter stone.
well if they constantly are casting swords then it wouldn't be a problem
very true but how about the first casting. it would splinter in the first instance.
david fletcher just put some fire under the stone and warm it up
Also in a forgery you constantly have high temperatures all around
People really do cast bronze in stone molds (around 2150 f) but obviously you preheat the stone.
GameSpender I think you meant foundry (not forgery), which is a place where metal is poured into molds to become castings. A forge might be found in a blacksmith shop.
I remember those molds. I never really got them to work properly, a mix of youthful exuberance, maternal pride over her stove top and a lack of ambition. In many ways an index to later life.
+English Heart My dad and I even made a few molds ourselves out of gypsym, and cast some tin GoGos :P
h3rteby Nice!
I watch Man at Arms. Every one of their blades are made from ingots, solid pieces of metal, or in the case of (faux) Damascus steel, they fuse multiple flat pieces of metal into a single ingot, fold it on itself multiple times after heating it, and then stretch it out into a blade. They even call out casting as a bad way of making weapons of any kind.
For Game of Thrones scene, that's meant to be reforging of Valyrian steel originally forged with dragon so I don't think they care too much about the realism there.
@@danlann the world game of thrones takes place in is very realistic with the exceptions of dragons and magic so he absolutely can bash itfor making the sword wrong. No matter how magic it is it would still be completely idiotic to make the swords that way... they would be two slabs of iron with no real edge and of you are going to work them properly afterwards, why not just do that to begin with? Also there kind of is a real world equivalent, allthough not magic, to valyrian steel. Google «damascus steel»
Except of course, that's not forging at all. That's casting. "Forging" is specifically a manufacturing process that involves _compression._
As a person who has experience forging swords, as well as blacksmithing experience- albeit a very, very small amount - casting swords out of iron is not intended to form the bevels and geometry in the mold. That is the job of the smith using a hammer, anvil, and files, after the sword comes out of the mold in a single heat as quickly as possible. The swords are then heat-treated in a coal or charcoal furnace to perform an action called Case Hardening, where carbon is infused into the surface layers after the shape and final geometry is finished. Afterward it is treated, tempered, sharpened, polished, and fitted in its mountings and scabbard.
Your rambling tangents and completely incoherent points aside, pouring molten iron or steel into open molds was a very efficient practice for mass-producing cheap swords during wartime quickly. The process drastically lowers the production time of a single sword from taking weeks to months, down to hours or even a day or two just to forge and sharpen the blade. The metal they use for effect in the movies is irrelevant as hell anyway; molten steel used for casting sits at a low point of 2,000F. There is literally no reason they would have that near actors with no metallurgical skills whatsoever, and on top of that it would be too bright to film. The things you see in movies are concessions and compromises to portray an actual practice.
I know this came two years too late, but for anyone reading this:
This seems really funny to me, because I know a smith who makes knives. Stone is almost never used as a cast when it comes to iron blades. It is an incompatible material. Historically, it was never used for iron blades, because the resulting blade would be far, far, far too hard to be used in combat. I have heard that sand, other metals, clay, and even wood were used when mass producing swords for an emergency situation, but never stone. These swords only held a single edge and were often discarded/reforged after battle, because shaping them any further or trying to re-sharpen the edge would often chip or break the blade.
And lets assume that stone molds actually worked, somehow: Everything else in his video still holds up. This is a comment made to complain to complain about a topic the OP literally does not understand.
IF casting swords is a lie; does that mean casting a bust is forging a head?... :)
Casting swords is not a lie, Casting Iron ones is. Bronze swords were cast but not in a fucking open mold.
You obviously didn't get the clever pun. Read it again.
@@Mrmoocows99 casting steel swords isnt a lie, its totally doable
I feel like the excuse for the open topped swords in lotr was, that the uruk hai swords are literally just a Sharp piece of metal. They dont need actual swords, just something that can be made easily and fast AND on masse
I think it makes sense that they’re melting down scrap metal and casting it into the shape so they can forge it. Cuz for example in the lotr scene you can see they’re also doing some forging
Which is as realistic as flying to the moon on fart gas and flapping arms. Real weapons aren't so simple to produce. Tolkien wrote his story to be a semi-plausible prehistory of Britain, not a completely unrealistic fantasy.
At first I thought you were complaining about, say, casting a long sword in a role that should have been played by a short sword.
Finally someone said it! They only cast iron into ingots to be used in forges to be pounded out into sword shapes by folding and welding and folding and welding and mixing various grades within it periodically and after it was shaped and hammered into a sword like shape, it was ground and then heat treated and cleaned up and sharpened again. The only poured sword shapes were the bronze swords, which were quite a lot weaker and smaller than iron and steel could be worked.
+traderjoes I would like to point out that bronze swords were better than iron swords, the main switch to iron was to do with that bronze is an alloy and very expensive, thus hard to get, where iron is cheap and lighter. We didn't beat bronze until we got to steel.
+Mr Roberts eh, all my research on it has iron and bronze being pretty comparable in mechanical properties relevant to weapon-making (hardness, strength, weight, etc).
Iron has the advantage of it being a gradual transition to steel (and of course the most important factor: cost)
Bronze is rust resistant (hence why bronze hilts were so popular on iron and even steel swords at many points in history) and you can re-cast it in the field if needs be with mostly improvised equipment instead of a full smithy.
That said, yes, we didn't really beat bronze until steel, and the main factor was cost.
DynamicWorlds My point exactly good sir, and from what I've been told by my blacksmithing pal, iron swords were rather brittle when compared to bronze ones, just what I heard. I do know they are lighter though, so that might play a part in the transition to iron armour as opposed to bronze
+traderjoes Also folding was generally only done in the case of very poor quality ore, in an attempt to improve quality. With access to decent metal sources they didn't fold, as a general rule, as it only serves to weaken good metal (as every fold and weld process removes carbon) and risk forming shunts or inclusions, or other weak points. That's why you here about Japanese swords being folded, because their metal was god awful. (But they rarely folded more 6-12 times, just enough to even out carbon loads) And folding was much less common in Europe where they had access to much better steel. The folding was also done to the raw billet, not during the shaping process.
+Mr Roberts
Iron swords may have been brittle, but that doesn't mean that bronze swords were particularly resilient either. Depending on the allow, you would do well to thrust with them because they didn't necessarily take shearing forces lightly. And given how the parts of the hilt were often simply riveted through the tang, I've read of at least one sword in which the rivets simply made their way through the tang sideways....
Steel is just basically Iron with an max of 2.06% Carbon. Actually Carbon causes that the melting point lowers. Still noone would ever try to melt iron, not even steel (which melts about 1300), it's just to difficult to reach this temperature. Instead you melt cast iron (1120°C), which has more Carbon (4.3%), than steel so the melting point is lower. But more carbon makes iron extremely brittle which is extremely bad for a sword.
Ha ha. I like the James Cosmo pic on your wall. I worked with him twice, a legend, a gentle guide and with some awesome stories of Glasgow.
OK, of course, all this doesn't work for iron, but how about adamantium? 8D
Besides, this was to be expected, movies get stuff wrong all the time, they got ir wrong even when there is no stuff involved, I mean those movies where so called "actors" are completely naked and _interacting_, even they are fake in some ways.
P.S. Now seriously, I think that was not aluminium, that would be weird, where artists work with bronze on regular basis, and the melting temperature of bronze is around 950 °C, which fits the number mentioned in this video.
+SwineNahNah Wouldn't that be a little expensive for a shot that might have to be done several times?
Mr Roberts
No idea, at work I deal with sheet metal, but yes, copper is insanely expensive, we are doing one project right now with it, where aluminuim is pretty common.
SwineNahNah Yeah, I think that might be a bit dear if you're trying to pay actors, sfx crews,cameramen etc. as well
+SwineNahNah Was it metal? The Conan thing looked just like a liquid with a flame in the foreground. Same for GOT, it could be a liquid with CGI.
Why put a film crew at high risk when pouring colored water could do the trick?
Adamast
LoL, yeah actually, perhaps even milk with red lights underneath will pass for molten metal in a cheap movie.
Is that a tiny Dalek hanging on your wall?
I believe that it is!
I really love how you use the second camera
Lindy:”that’s Ahloo-mini-yum, now why do I say that?”
Me:”because you’re British.”
Add to the fact that casting steel is problematic: it can burn at free-flow temperatures.
The additional carbon to make iron into steel makes the metal somewhat flammable. Showers of sparks during the pour = metal burning.
There is one [non-Hollywood] precedent: casting rods/bars of steel as a means of making forging 'starts'.
Long slender billets that are the starts for forging swords.
Casting billets never worked for me because once the liquid hit open air all that carbon went bye bye in a bright shower of sparks. I only use pucks of custom alloys made using the crucible method.
I just had to give this a thumb up for that pun at the end.
I love your videos, they are fun and educational - thank you!
4:25 correction: my dad was a sculptor and oftentimes cast aluminium or annealed it (heat it). Aluminium doesn’t colour like steel or other metals at all. It remains the same bright metallic colour for all temperatures, even when melted. Ive seen molten aluminium many times and its not red, its metallic. Its a metallic liquid that looks reminiscent of mercury
thank you, i had to scroll forever to find someone say this, it made me cringe when i heard it
I bet all the comments on here will be "actually that will work because ita not iron, its Valyrian Steel, its magic🤓🤓"
valyrian steel is specifically said to be folded steel, and hundreds of time at that. So its completely wrong by that standard also .
Superior Valyrian steel, folded over 9000 times!
In the books it says that valyrian steel is made with a long lost method, so magic may be involved (like with wildfire) but it's properties would still probably be lost if melted down.
Now available at your local GOT retailer.
I forge poptarts into poop it's warm and brown and quite malleable but stinky
In the case of game of thrones, Valyrian steel is supposed to be like magical damascus, And any special properties gained by layering steel with different carbon contents will be negated by melting it into iron and burning all the carbon out of it, and any properties obtained by the expert quenching and tempering of the blade will be erased .
was gonna say the same thing, also, even in the books I'm kinda wondering how they would turn a broadsword into two smaller swords. Could probably be done, and would probably be interesting. And it would have been neat to see them as red tinted damascus steel
+zibbazabba905 Great swords are big af so the amount of metal wouldn't be a problem
I don't get it. Normally, Hollywood wants to _add_ loads of scenes of beefy guys hitting things. In this one specific situation, though, they're determined to _remove_ it.
When is Lindy going to make his own sword? I want to see it done properly, is there a crowd funder?
ua-cam.com/video/KYydVZRbl6M/v-deo.html and others
A sword smith and a blacksmith are not the same thing. A sword smith is fully capable of smelting their own source metals, knows how to turn iron into steel (and at that steel with the qualities they desire) and how to work with steel. It's the difference between a Barber and a Salonist.
Many sword smiths would have cast pig iron (also casting "pig iron" and having "cast iron" are not nearly the same thing). Pig iron is best cast in long thin ingots, because it is more easily forged worked to get out the impurities. At which point it become wrought iron. at this point you can take it one of two directions (aside from working it as is). You could bring it to the fusible point in a furnace and introduce a ridiculous amount of carbon. That would make it cast iron which is very hard and brittle. or introduce less carbon through more mild furnace heating and it becomes carburized steel. But this is not a through steel (hard shell, soft core). If you then work carburized steel you can get folded steel (which would be good for making a sword).
You can get maybe 75% of the shape you need out of folded steel. but to save dozens of man hours....once you get it close enough. you absolutely would take it to a "big grinding machine" (which "they" had: www.thearma.org/essays/grinding.JPG). Where you could do some final contour work, including and edge bevel, edge grind, and tip finishing. And it would not have wasted much metal. because "they" did not have electric motors. And so said "big grinding machines" turned very slowly relative to todays' electric grind wheels, with not nearly as much torque. That ends up migrating more surface metal then it actually removes.
+TheHelleri They had stone wheels for grinding, yes, and these could help with final flattening and sharpening, but think how much work and waste it would be to use that as your primary blade-shaping method. That poor guy turning the handle would be near dead. I don't think a typical smith would have a big wheel as pictured. They don't turn up much archaeologically, unlike flour mills stones. Someone consigned this comment to the 'held for review' bin, and I had to rescue it from there. Thanks for contributing.
+Lindybeige When you look at these big wheels it looks like an impossible task just looking at it. That massive wheel and a tiny little hand crank, even the foot pedal ones look difficult. But actually sit down to one and you will find there is only a bit of difficulty in getting it going. Once that wheel gets turning it wants to keep turning (they are actually difficult to bring to a stop). It only requires a small touch of encouragement on the crank once in a while. And the big boys don't work by ripping off metal in showers of sparks. They turn very slowly. They migrate the metal over time. There really isn't much at all in the way of waste. It can take almost as long as it would to do it by hand with rasps and files. But it's a lot less effort and exertion. The wheel does much of the work for you, instead of wearing your arm out.
And again, a blacksmith is not a sword smith. a black smith will spend most their time making work tools, utensils, nails, and horseshoes (there is a local black smith at roaring camp who does exactly that all day). A typical smith would not have something like that. A sword smith would absolutely need it.
Lindybeige i think iron and steel are the same thing.
No. Iron occurs naturally. Steel is made when you add carbon to molten iron.
Christian Shemak
Ferrite, Magnetite, Hematite, Limonite, Siderite, Taconite, and Pyrite (all Iron oxides/sulfides/sulfates/silicates mixed with something else) occurs naturally. But elementally pure iron is a furnace product. Not naturally occurring. In nature it almost always comes in the form of rust mixed with something.
Because iron in nature bonds with oxygen. Even where it may not bond with oxygen (like the near vacuum of space). It has a tendency to weld with other metals (welding can occur with metals easily without heat if there is no oxide barrier).
You're never going to find a pure iron crystal in nature. You'll find an ore, a natural alloy, and rust. But not strait up iron.
Also most steel is iron with a carbon content. But there are steels that have no measurable carbon content as well (non-carbon steels). Albeit you are likely to never encounter one of these as the production of them is very low and they are very specifically purposed alloys.
However even among carbon steel. It isn't just iron with any amount of carbon content. It's iron with a sweet spot of carbon content and carbon content that is past a threshold of distribution. we're talking 0.32%-1.98% Above or below that range it is generally considered iron.
A cast iron pan for instance can have a carbon content from about 2%-3%. Oddly enough. So can pig iron. Accept in pig iron it manifests mostly as slag. The distribution isn't good enough for it to be a steel or cast iron. Just Iron with bits of carbon, silicates, and other junk as inclusions.
All that said...Not really disputing the general thrust of what lindybiege is saying. Just saying that there are plenty of aspects of what filmmakers choose to show about making a sword that are not entirely inaccurate.
And one thing we are not even considering here is that these movie fantasy swords, while called steel, may not actually be steel. They could easily be Monel for instance.
Could be molten copper?
It would explain the orange glow.
+Kuramai Don't quote me on this (as I don't know for sure), but more than likely they're just using a syrup-like liquid at room temperature. The orange glow is probably just added in post.
Actually going through the trouble of building stone molds and using molten metal is both extremely costly and extremely wasteful, not to mention potentially dangerous.
+StrunDoNhor that's a fair enough statement. if they're lazy enough to try and pass off open top molds they'd probably do that
Kuramai Indeed. In their defense, though, it's not always a matter of laziness, but instead practicality. Time is money on any production, and if you can find ways to save time you always should (I should know, I work in VFX). As for the open top molds, that's just plain old misinformation.
+StrunDoNhor That is most likely true but google search some iron casting images, it gives an impression of being orange because of melting container walls glowing orange.
From a visual standpoint, its mostly accurate.
+Kuramai EVERYTHING at 950 C glows orange.
Liquidus temp of iron
= 1537°C - [(C%*88) + (Si%*8)]
As cast iron is poured the sparks explode as the iron rejects the carbon in favor of oxygen and little flat flakes of graphite is created in mid air.
sorry this is kinda small but specific heat is not how fast something can transfer energy, its how much energy it can take before it raises temperature, if something has a high specific heat, it requires more energy to be raised to the same temperature as something with a low specific heat
bigredhawkeye, came here to say this🙌
Well that's that's fairly small but tbh it needed saying
I kept seeing these videos in my recommended feed and occasionally watching them without being subscribed, and then I watched this one and thought:
"Wow this guy is salty. I LOVE HIM"
Keep up the good work, Lindybeige. Stay salty.
mate what is your lays potato chips favourite falvour?
I think i know!, it's "salt and vinegar"
ha!
I like your use of the word salty but hopefully I'll not see it used again as I hate it when good words get cool like the word merkin 🙂
Totally awesome, please, more criticizing movies, it's delicious.
Your asides were super funny. Makes a nice change from those weapons enthusiasts who are mega angry. This video by contrast is super good humoured but still really informative. Fun to watch and I learned a thing
the one movie from the 80thies i think about the norse mythology of the guy dunking himself into dragons blood and then a leaf falls onto his shoulder making that the only weak spot he has everywhere else he is invulnerable to damage.
they show a very different method of forging swords, they twist the steel then hammer it down.
That quote at the end is brilliant 😂😂😂
So wait...does this mean I can't open stone mould cast a rifle either?
5:07 Really quick Lindeybeige while casting the sword is ridiculous it would be possible to anneal the cast iron (by heating it again and cooling it several times) to turn it into workable iron or steel, the only problem then would be the massive waste of fuel and time (And losing iron to the fire).
Question! But first, thanks for your well thought-through and passionate content, Lindybeige!
Question: Indeed, most of the forging I know of starts from an ingot or mass of raw, smelted iron, but couldn't a smith have a long slab of a mold into which he could pour his molten metal and then use the resulting long iron/steel slab in the rough form of a blade to beat and hammer into the intended result? In short, wouldn't it still be efficient to pour a long thin metal slab from which to shape a blade, rather than to shape it from a big block of iron?
I might be a bit too late to the discussion, but making a distinction between iron, steel and cast iron is quite important because it makes a lot of difference in the properties of the metal.
Cast iron is a carbon rich metal and the amount of carbon in it makes it load resistant but very brittle indeed, as seen in cast iron pots, for example.
On the other hand, steel while still has carbon on it, it isn't in such a big amount as cast iron making it tough but not brittle, so it is quite the apropriate material because it has a good mix of stenght and maleability. One example is steel beams that you see in contruction.
Also, heat treatment can make steel even better while it would do nothing for iron. (*castiron and steel are alloys, not pure metals)
Construction Beams are as far as I know Steel wich is alredy solid wich gets pressed trougth an mold, with brute force.
Also lets throw in there decarburization, which is how you take the extra carbon out of cast iron to make it not brittle. This fool knows nothing of working with steel, forging or casting. He is completely wrong on every single point he brought up. Completely ignorant and doesnt even know how stupid he sounds.
I would argue that while movie makers are notoriously lazy it is just as true that in a magical world like Westeros or Middle Earth we don't know enough of the attendant thaumaturgy that goes into their sciences to judge the appropriateness of a purely visual medium.
I think Tolkien was pretty clear that swords were forged in Middle Earth. It explicitly says that Anduril was "reforged". This was just another fail in the movies.
+S.Rolphsen well, the return of the king movie even showed it being reforged. The orc swords on the otherhand, i can understand why a film maker might not know the vast difference between casting and forging, thinking that it gets the point across that they're cheap and mass produced, but it's a weird movie trope to be sure.
I also want to add the lovely detail that the new valyrian steel swords have the same forge welded patterns as the greatsword...
Thank you for educating me on smithing! You earned a subscriber!
I know in reality it's completely rubbish, but reading the books those two swords in the beginning of the video are made of Valyrian steel, a magical and ancient metal forged in the times of dragons. That metal needs a special kind of forging process ( it's written in the books) and Tywin Lannister brings a terrific Swordsmith from, i think, Braavos, one of the few people in the known world who can moold Valyrian steel. In that sense ( i know it seems like a bit of a stretch) that scene can work
+sulrandir In the books, it may be different. I haven't read them, but the telly series shows metal heated in a crucible and poured into a mould.
And of course what's shown is stupid as you said in your video, with which i completely agree. My comment was just to contextualize a little bit, that's all :)
Exactly, it needs a forging process not casting. XD
I agree, but those are magic swords. That was my point. What if the reforging method needed casting to pour the fire of the dragons in the newly born blade? Silly and pointless issue here, moving on now XD
Thank you! That scene drove me mad!
That different camera angle reminds me of Limmys shows Twentys Plenty episode
One of those things that I kind of knew was wrong but still never bothered to question it