How are Fullers Applied?

Sword typology and Edge Weapons forms of the Chinese Empire and related cultures with an emphasis on their relationship to Swordsmanship.

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bond_fan
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How are Fullers Applied?

Post by bond_fan » Fri Dec 26, 2008 12:55 am

Anyone one know how the fullers on swords are added? Are they added after the blade has cooled or are the channels carved while the blade is still hot in the manufacturing process?

Thanks!

Freebooter
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Fullers

Post by Freebooter » Sun Dec 28, 2008 3:32 am

The fullers I have seen applied in very old European texts and in modern sword making videos have been created using a tungsten draw file for want of a better word.
In the video the steel was removed from the blade cold and it fell to the floor as though it were wood chip. I have all my books and docs packed away whilst renovations take place but there is one image that comes to mind, an old European engraving of men doing just that with the swords held on a small bench that they are straddling.

Gav

I have just poped in to edit this post as the next post I read had just the type of pic I was talking about. In the image Scott posted I beleive the man is shaping the blade, the same method and set up is used to cut fullers.
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bond_fan
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Post by bond_fan » Sun Dec 28, 2008 6:46 pm

Gav,

Thanks for referring me to that photo. I find it very interesting to see how things are made!

Philip Tom
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fullering a blade

Post by Philip Tom » Sun Dec 28, 2008 9:59 pm

Based on my conversations with bladesmiths who do this sort of work, and are familiar with historical methods, here are two basic ways of doing it:
1. Hammering the channels in during forging process by which the bar of steel laminate is drawn out to shape. The shape of the concavity is controlled by the used of shaped tools called swages, one fixed, the other moveable and struck by a hammer (needless to say, the smith needs an assistant on hand). The surfaces are trued up with scrapers and shaped whetstones after heat treat. There are two rationales for this approach:
a. For wide channels, or complex cross-sections, it can be a labor-saver. Especially with some kinds of blade material, like Indian crucible steel, which can end up very hard throughout after quench and tempering.
b. Some smiths believe that the compression of the steel is beneficial to relieving internal stresses.
Care must be taken during quench to avoid distortion of the blade because of more rapid cooling of the thinner area at the bottom of the swaged channels.

2. Cutting the fullers in with a chisel, drawknife, and whetstones after the blade is forged to shape, quenched, and rough-shaped by grinding. I've watched Japanese swordsmiths do it this way, it's a practical method with most Far Eastern blades because the fullers tend to be fairly narrow, and the differential heat treat means that only the edge zone of the blade gets really hard, the dorsal regions are relatively soft and thus easily cut and ground.

A swordsmith friend, Vincent Evans (who makes stunning recreations of Near Eastern and Chinese swords) has devised various "jigs" to guide the hardened steel scrapers so that he is easily able to keep the boundaries and depths precise, and to gouge out large flat sunken panels if need be, with considerable exactitude. All the tools he uses for these operations are home-made.
Phil

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Post by Nik » Thu Jan 01, 2009 9:15 am

My smith who was the last person to carry the Solingen weapon smith tradition (until con'ed out of the city boundaries) uses this bench described under 1), for example to hammer the fullers into various armies ceremonial sabers. It's a bench with a curved apparatus for each design.

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