hello this is IPostSwords and today we're going to be revisiting a sword
covered in a previous episode.
The reason we're revisiting this sword is because I
made some incorrect claims about the steel it was made from when I first
purchased it - I thought it was dendritic wootz but after a recent etchit was
revealed to be made out of twisted ribbon steel
this is a Turkish pala a subset of the kilij family
Kilij is merely the
Turkish word for sword, and there are many different variants
however this style the pala has one very specific purpose
these swords were designed to by infantry swords
that could deliver extremely devastating
effective and fast drawing cuts
there are few design features of this sword
which make it uniquely suited to performing extremely effective draw cuts
so let's discuss them
this pala has a t-shaped spine that means that while the
edge may be in one plane the spine is exactly perpendicular to it
the t-shaped spine on this sword allows it to have an
extremely acute edge angle and be very
sharp but also allow you to be very stiff in this direction
by having such a stiff blade with an acute edge angle
it's possible to perform very effective drawing cuts
however it is impossible to perform an effective chopping cut with
this portion of the blade because you'll experience extreme resistance as soon as
you reach the spine you can however perform a chopping cut of the distal
portion of the blade as it features no spine and is extremely thin
this minimizes of resistance when passing through an object
however the lack of a spine in the distal portion
and the extreme thinness at around two
millimeters at the base to around one millimeter in the furthest portion of
the blade means that this is a very flexible part of the blade and being
both flexible and broad it's not particularly well-suited to performing a
thrusting attack. the secondary curve unique to this style of sword is the
reason it's so effective at performing a draw cut - in a draw cut the sword passes
over the entire surface of the object you're cutting increasing the amount of
time that the edge is in contact with your target this allows it to defeat
textiles which are otherwise difficult to cut including things like layered
silk which can be a problem for other sword designs. This sword has an
extremely unique and well-made blade - in a recent action video I reveal that this
is in fact made out of Turkish ribbon twist pattern welded steel. The Turkish
ribbon twist also referred to as a form of Damascus steel is a pattern
welding method which utilizes multiple bars stacked on top of each other and
compressed these twisted bars create a starburst shaped interaction at the edge
of each bar which gives it its distinct appearance and also makes it extremely
technically challenging to produce this made these blades exceptionally valuable
they also had a good mix of rigidity and edge retention due to the fact that they
mixed a slightly softer and a slightly harder steel
it is however mono tempered - this does have a bit of springiness to it
the blade is also scarf welded - shout-out to both my previous video on scarf welding
and to Matt Easton who recently discussed scarf welds and swords
a scarf weld means that the high carbon portion of the blade
in this case the elaborately pattern-welded portion of the blade
has been attached to a soft iron section which comprises the forte of the blade and the tang
this was done for functional reasons not to save precious steel
at this point extremely complex pattern welding was possible
and they could have made the whole blade out of this sort of pattern welded steel
however the craftsmen chose to use a
scarf weld in order to have a softer iron tang on this hard steel blade. This
meant that in the event that this sword was used in a particularly harsh manner
it would be more likely to bend at the tang or in the fort than break. This was
far easier to repair than if the sword were to break and could have saved your
life - you can still parry with a bent sword, you cannot parry with a broken sword and
on the topic of use this does have evidence of edge use - in fact the patina
inside this indicates that it was done hundreds of years ago. This sword has a
very typical hilt for a kilij it features horn grip scales and a
copper alloy cross guard which features langets that extend both into the grip
and into the sword. The langets on the bladed portion of the sword are used
to grab onto the of the scabbard in order to prevent a
sword from falling out of the scabbard and hold on to it a bit better although
it's arguable that with a blade this curved it's a little bit redundant as
this isn't coming out of a scabbard unless you tug on it very hard this
sword balance is relatively far from the hilt
being around 18 centimeters from the cross guard however it is light overall
at 673 grams the sword is only 79 centimeters in total length with a blade
length of 66 centimeters this means that while it balance is relatively far from
the hilt is extremely light maneuverable and fast sword it's quick to cut with
and quick to recover from this sword is therefore extremely well designed and
well made for its purpose this being an infantry sword designed to cut through
textiles and produce fast devastating draw cut it's different from the
traditional cavalry kilij which extends back in history to the 15th
century it doesn't have fuller's and instead uses a t-shaped spine and even
the yelman the back edge of this sword isn't sharpened like a traditional kilij
it would be. There are therefore extreme differences between classic kilij and
the pala, which you have to bear in mind if you're a collector of sorts like
these it can be easy to assume a sword is and earlier kilij based on just the
profile if you don't know the geometry of the sword. This has been a quick video
looking at one of my most interesting swords, a pattern-welded pala from
Ottoman Turkey around 1780, I hope you've enjoyed the video because
that's all I've got for you today until next time stay sharp