Roasted blue and burnt blue

Roasting blue is different from burning blue. Burning blue is an enamel process, which is mostly used for the decoration of Oriental hilts. After being filled with sand-colored glaze, it is baked, and the glaze can be fixed on the navel after the solid is melted into liquid and cooled.

Blue baking is a chemical process. When the sword is immersed in alkaline oxidation solution, a dark blue oxide film will be formed on the surface of the sword. Roasted blue is also called bluing.

Etching is a process of eroding metals. Coat the sword with a layer of corrosion-resistant varnish or paraffin wax, then carve a pattern on this layer of varnish, and then immerse the sword in strong acid for corrosion, so that the exposed part is corroded into a pattern.

Because of the low cost of this process, some people use this method to imitate the patterns and textures on the precious Damascus knife, so as to confuse the real with the fake. The distinction between Damascus steel and Damascus steel is also very simple. The etched pattern only exists on the surface of the sword and disappears after polishing, while the pattern of Damascus steel is made internally, exposed and will not be worn off.

Gold-plated mercury can dissolve gold and form gold amalgam. The craftsman mixed gold and mercury, heated them to dissolve them, then cooled them into mud paste, smeared them on the sword, and drew various patterns. Then bake to evaporate the mercury, and the gold will adhere to the sword.

However, if you are exposed to heavy metal mercury for a long time, it is easy to be poisoned, so behind every exquisite gold-plated sword, there may be the tragic fate of gold-plated craftsmen. Gold plating technology existed in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, but it was most commonly used in swords in India.

Mosaic is developed from carving technology. First, a groove is carved on the surface of the sword, then jewelry, gold and silver are inlaid and compacted.

It should be noted that there is still a difference between gold and silver inlaid with gold and silver. The sword with gold and silver inlaid with gold is slotted, that is to say, the surface of the sword is excavated first, and then the silver wire and gold piece are filled and polished with a small hammer.

In ancient times, people used to call things attached to the surface of ceramics "glaze", things on buildings "coloured glaze" and things on metals "enamel". It is made by adding non-ferrous metal oxides to mineral materials (feldspar, quartz, silicon, etc.). ), then fired and ground into powdered colored materials, and then painted and filled on the sword.

Steel chisel carves steel into various complex and exquisite artistic decorations with high technical content. During the Renaissance, European craftsmen had mastered this technique to decorate the handles of small swords and daggers.

Gold and silver twisted wire twisted gold and silver thread into patterned silk thread, wound and fixed on the handle, mostly used to decorate European ceremonial swords.

The sword is cruel and bloody on the battlefield, but it can also be exquisite in art. For thousands of years, craftsmen have devoted all kinds of creativity to it, such as enamel, burning blue, gold plating, decoration, inlaid gold and jade. ....................................................................................................................................