by Keith Weiner
GoldSeek
Wow, it has been a heckuva year! One thought leads to another on this sunny-but-cool January 1.
Having watched a few seasons of Forged in Fire, I’ve gained an appreciation of how difficult it is to pound and grind a lump of steel into a blade, even with power tools. There are many ways for it to go wrong. And “wrong” generally means catastrophic failure—a crack in the metal that will cause it to break into pieces when hit.
That led to thoughts regarding an advantage, in Medieval warfare, to using an axe compared to a sword.
If you could swing your axe against a sword blade, you’d have a good chance to break it and thus disarm your foe. Then I thought about rapiers and foils, which were much lighter and springier. Then I had the first “a-ha” moment.