Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 2, 2015 6:55:58 GMT
My entire collecting days were spent with Anglo/Norse weapons and I acquired a good collection and picked up a fair bit of knowledge. But I know NOTHING about Chinese swords. PERIOD. Well, I just acquired a Hanwei Song Sword and so was looking at the swords for sale on ebay. Just what is the 'red" folded blades I see there? At first I though it was something the smiths used on the cheaper fake folded blade swords, but I found one sword at a price over $1200. I can't find much about it on Google, so was just wondering?
Thanks Robert |
|
|
|
Post by Timo Nieminen on Jul 2, 2015 7:26:25 GMT
The red ones are probably a response to red-bladed katana selling well. I don't remember seeing them until after red (and black) bladed katana were a thing. Not historical.
Seems like a silly thing to do on a $1200 sword (though wouldn't surprise me at all on a $120 sword that somebody was trying to get $1200 for).
|
|
|
|
Post by DigsFossils-n-Knives on Jul 2, 2015 11:58:48 GMT
The red is just a coating, perhaps titanium. It will scrape off if you use your blade. Looks cool if that's your thing. You can find the red damascus katanas for under $100 on ebay.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 2, 2015 23:04:31 GMT
 Thanks everyone, so it is kind of a streaky finish to look like folded steel, with folds of red and black. Sounds poor.
Robert |
|
|
|
Post by Timo Nieminen on Jul 3, 2015 0:10:02 GMT
I think that it is done on actual folded steel, with the coating reacting differently with the different steels. The basic idea is traditional, and old. It's described in Al Kindi's book on swords (9th century, and an English translation is available: www.amazon.com/Medieval-Islamic-swords-swordmaking-Hoyland/dp/0906094577/ ). The only surviving traditional use of this kind of technique I know of is the staining of the Indonesian keris and other Indonesian pattern-welded blades. Since the Chinese used decorative pattern-welded cladding on sanmei blades, they may have used something to enhance the visibility of the pattern. The two choices are some kind of stain, or etching. If stained, then I expect something along the lines of Indonesian stained blades, with black/grey drak blades, and not the modern shiny bright red and black blades. I haven't seen any historical evidence of stained Chinese blades. |
|
