There are some websites which sell swords that are made in third world countries. They do so with all kinds of high-sounding sales pitch giving thousands of shoppers not only an incorrect perception of the capacity of the swords but also a completely distorted understanding of the capabilities of steel, swords, and what is required to give them performance.

"This sword is made of High Carbon Spring Steel" and "it is made to withstand the rigors of stage combat." Heard that all before?

So if a sword is made of this "high carbon spring steel" then that must be good, right? And if it can withstand the rigors of stage combat, then it must be a superior sword, correct?

Wrong on both counts! I thought the same as you did when I first started out collecting swords. And as I learned this information here in this article, I managed to save myself a lot of money. In promoting accurate information on metallurgy on swords, I've anger many retailers. Here's the information they don't want you to know!

First, here's a background on the swords you've probably been perusing on the web. I'm not saying they are entirely junk. You get what you pay for, but you have to understand what you're getting and what you're not getting.

If the swords are in the US$150-200 range, then they are typically made in a third world country. They are likely to be average performing blades and less than average heat-treating (explained later).

"How did it happen," said Connor, "and where do they come from?" Well, in many of these countries, e.g. the Philippines, India, etc. there are plentiful amounts of tank springs, truck springs and mortar shells. This thus becomes the steel source of the blades while the shells become the source of brass for the hilts and pommels of the swords. The springs of, say, Mercedes Benz trucks are typically AISI 5160 steel.

Now here's the marketing: if the steel was once a spring that supported a two-ton truck, it must be good for a sword. Wrong again. Here's why:

What these third world country manufacturers do is take the springs, heat them up in the forge to forigng temperatures, and begin to hammer them straight into shape. There is no "folding" going on here (that would increase the manufacturing cost!).

The process of heat treating is heating the steel up to a certain temperature and then quenching it in water or oil (depending on the steel) in order to achieve a certain balance of hardness and toughness. This is determined by the crystaline sturcutre of the steel you achieve once you quench the steel from a high temperature to room temperature.

Now here's the problem: the heat treating done to these sword blades can be very poor. There can be microcrystaline fractures in the steel that can go completely unnoticed to the naked eye. Also, the steel's former coiled spring shape might want to re-exert itself and cause stresses to occur in the steel.

To minimize these effects and to chrun out the swords quickly, many manufacturers skimp on the heat treating process, and instead make the blades a lot softer than they should be. In many cases, the $200-range swords about are tyically of a Rockwell hardness of only 30-40HRC.

What this meas is that even with superior steel, an inferior heat treat can result in an inferior blade.

So you're not going to get the same performance out of a $1,000 blade or a $700 blade as you are out of a $150 blade (unless of course you're talking about Kris Cutlery which are the forerunners of heat treating among sword manufacturers in the Philippines).

Now the softer a blade is, the more "tough" it is. If you pair your soft bladed sword against another soft bladed sword, yes you'll still end up damaging it, but they'll tolerate one another. However put the sword up against a more qualitative sword like those by Kris Cutlery or Del Tin, etc. then you're going to incur a lot more damage to the edges of your blade (by the way, edge-on-edge fighting is not historically accurate fighting).

The next time you see "high carbon spring steel" as part of the sales pitch on a website or catalog, take it with a grain of salt. Most likely the sword was made in India or the Philippines. If the sword costs under $100 then absolutely avoid it; it may have been made in Pakistain, at which point it might not have been heat treated at all! Such swords have a Rockwell hardness of 20-30.

Rule of thumb: when looking at a sword, don't just look what it's made out of. Take heat treating into account.