Could a pre-renaissance blacksmith make a modern cavalry sabre if you gave him detailed instructions?

Could a pre-renaissance blacksmith make a modern cavalry sabre if you gave him detailed instructions?

A good one shouldn't really have any trouble, provided you've got good metal for him. The hilt guard might be a real pain in the ass for him depending on the tools and how fancy you want it though.

People have made curvy swords for a really fucking long time

Look at 11th century spanish swords. That hilt isn't a pain for somehow who can craft that. The tools and techniques already existed. The cavalry saber is just not good versus chainmail and plate so in a time where those were abundant, it wasn't fabricated. It's long to give reach, light so it's still good to be wielded. But lacks mass and thrust abilities. Agaisnt people using cloth, it's a effective weapon, but agaisnt people in armor, it's much less so.

anything after about 200BC, yes. Though between then and about 1000AD, they would likely have to pattern-weld the back edge, and it might be a little less accurate.

there's nothing that's technically impossible, the biggest problem would be the cutler making the hilt would probably go "hrm, in what? 'Brass'? what's that? OH! You mean latten!" and probably screwing up the first version of the casting just as its not a shape that's been done before and getting the gates right is tricky. second version, cast up in one go, would be pretty simple.

There are very few steels in the Middle Ages that are quite as good as modern steel.

if by "few" you mean "none", yes.

No steel produced then was in any way as metallurgically pure, or chemically consistent as even the most basic carbon steel produced today. Our ability to produce homogeneous alloys of exact carbon composition in volumes unimaginable to the medieval smelting industry is one of the principal factors in the industrial revolution which has created the modern world. Not even very best steels of the medieval era can come close to stuff we take for granted today.

>Modern scrap would produce weapons and armor worthy of a king in 1066

Does detailed instructions include how to make a proper furnace?

Coincidentally, this is why the nation I have in my setting that is extremely famous for producing "fabled blades and suits of armor" became such because they produce their steel using the Electric Arc Furnace technique powered by lightning elementals.

Modern steel is produced using techniques that are simply impossible to replicate using medieval technology. The second best form of steelmaking after Electric Arc heavily utilizes natural gas and high-powered pure oxygen nozzles.

Not quite, but its not far off.

the steel used by William the conqueror would probably have been something like a 1050 or a 1060 spec steel that's functionally of lower quality than the crappy old truck leaf springs used by the shittiest makers of reenactment wang that modern reenactors laugh at for being crap.

the quality of workmanship was far better of course, but the raw material was nothing to write home about.

the links in the mail worn, would be a drawn wrought iron, which would however, be of a poorer quality than even the mild steel scrap in the sides of a washing machine, or a rusty roll of fencing wire dumped for recycling today.

1060 Steel is a marvel of modern metallurgy, there's practically nothing that stuff can't do.

It does make me wonder what steel or alloy would be used if there was a legitimate interest in producing a suit of armor or a sword. I'm guessing 5160 Spring Steel for the sword and 1060 Steel for the suit? Maybe a bit of bluing for aesthetics or nickel for the toughness.

4130 is good for a basic alloy, not too good, but able to take a HT. Better options are 1050, or in europe CS70, which is roughly 1070 is common as its easily sourced for harnesses. Each one comes in standard sheet thicknesses, heat-treats well to about 42-45HrC (you dont want armour to be too hard, as you want a progressive crease failure, rather than a rapid brittle failure mode for it. overly hard armour cracks, and is instantly useless.) softer armour bends, and remains as a covering even if distorted.

blades, 1060 is good, 5160, or EN45, the silicon-managanese steels are excellent. EN45 in particular has a good resistance to crack propagation that makes it excel in blades. the only downside of the 5160 and EN45 steels is they tend to be very warpy in asymmetical cross-sections, compared to 1060.

EN45 and 1070 equivalent, En42j are what I use pretty often, 1050's what Mac uses(used) for armouring, most of the decent bladesmiths were using .6 or .7 alloys for swords.

So you know your metal`?

easily. well maybe that's the wrong word.

watch some man at arms. they do everything from weeb kantana making to machining shit out of stock.

>Modern steel is produced using techniques that are simply impossible to replicate using medieval technology. The second best form of steelmaking after Electric Arc heavily utilizes natural gas and high-powered pure oxygen nozzles.
I suppose. But do they use top quality steel for "modern cavalry sabre"? As far as I know those are ceremonial so they don't have to be top notch. Also I would guess they're mass produced.
A skilled smith with a blast furnace or something should be able to get close enough, no?

>a pre-renaissance blacksmith
No, because the swordsmiths' guild would core his ass out for it.

A swordsmith probably could, though, and if you were okay with it being styled as a meat knife, so could a knifesmith.

>But do they use top quality steel for "modern cavalry sabre"? As far as I know those are ceremonial so they don't have to be top notch. Also I would guess they're mass produced.

See , the stuff we mass produce is as good if not better than the steel used by the finest blacksmiths in Medieval Europe.

OK, seriously, why do you all keep saying blacksmith when it's not only wrong but "smith" takes half the time to type? Blacksmiths are specifically the guys who make wrought ironwork with the firescale (which is black) left on. A guy like that isn't nearly the same thing as a dedicated armorer or bladesmith.

Modern?
Those are sorta shit.
They've been shit since swords weren't a thing on the battlefield anymore.
Also, cast brass hilt...
What type of cheapo crap is this? No Smith worth his commission would present such offal.

The steel we use in bulk today is leagues ahead.
The modern cavalry sabre isn't a weapon, it's a heavy piece of jewelry.

high and late middle ages shure

>They've been shit since swords weren't a thing on the battlefield anymore.
Yeah, we use axes now.

>The modern cavalry sabre isn't a weapon
I have an image of a syrian tank commander posing with a sword before he killed someone with it, I can't find it but I have it.

This one?

You'd be surprised at the general silliness you catch soldiers getting up to, or maybe not.
I have heard (unconfirmed) stories of US Sgt's carrying around their sabres hoping to get some use out of a $500 sword, there is a (confirmed) kill by a Ranger with an MRE spoon and for what its worth- someone tried to kill me with a shovel once in Afghan.

Modern steel is better for industrial purposes, by and large, since it's extremely definable.

But the thing is, even if you had your pick of all steel, you'd end up going with basically what they did use, just more defined and more pure. In the end, the huge advantage the best pre-modern blacksmiths had in craftsmanship would make up in most super-high-quality items for what we have in total materials supremacy.

While we could produce metal of their dreams, our best living swordsmiths/armoursmiths are at best journeymen, and maybe not that in a particularly well-respected place.

While they could produce really good steel, it was by accident and by experiment, and so wasn't consistent.

Since it is more likely to by experimentation to stumble on the perfect mine and process to produce the best steel in the hands of a master than it is for a modern swordsmith to go full-on Dorf fortress mode and make a sword way beyond his skills, and given the sheer number of top-tier blades made by all old masters combined compared to our best swordsmiths now, I suspect that it is very unlikely for our current top-tier swordsmithing to ever produce a masterwork on their scale.

Now our grind-em-out beaters? A half-arsed modern swordsmith could arm an entire ancient army with functional decent swords, given modern equipment and lots of apprentices, or could keep an entire garrison in high quality gear.

>I have heard (unconfirmed) stories of US Sgt's carrying around their sabres hoping to get some use out of a $500 sword

That's from Terminal Lance. A webcomic.