post-mortem bone as a test cutting medium

[david welch]

After recent test cutting incidents, I read in reply on several forums that almost immediately after death bone starts to "harden". This supposedly makes any cutting done on post-mortem bone not only a recipe guaranteed to damage your sword but so far out of scope of historical use that the results would have had no useful meaning.

However, the only "proof" offered for this idea was anecdotal and followed the line of "since we know that happens... let's try to come up with an explanation of why it happens." But nothing on IF it even happens at all.

Being more than a little interested in this, I have spent the day off and on talking with researchers from the Forensic Anthropology Center at The University of Tennessee Knoxville. This is the place that has Dr. Bass's famed "body farm".

I am going to continue an email discussion with them on the most accurate medium and practice for test cutting to help get us the best info possible. However, these are the facts as I understand them so far...

1) Bone is hard. <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

2) Pigs are probably the best test medium we can use. They are in fact the next best thing to using an actual human cadaver.

3) There is no discernable hardening of "wet" bone encased in flesh after death.

4) The post-mortem "hardening" in the bones of a animal from a grocery store would be so small as to be insignificant, with the possible exception of a fraction of an inch at an exposed end.

5) Normal freezing and thawing should not effect bone hardness.

6) Bone hardening starts when it is naked, as happens through decay, contacts the air, and begins drying.

All in all, the consensus was that if it is fresh enough to eat... it represents living bone well enough to be used as a 1:1 equivalent for any experimentation we would do on it.

[Matthew_Anderson]

Yes, many internet forums are frequented by "experts" who spew forth bum gouge all the time. After a while it starts to be accepted as "fact" by the regular posters and repeated. Good job on doing your own research...now you're the real expert! I always figured that animal carcasses should be just about the most relevant test cutting medium there is.

[David Kite]

Wow! That is very interesting to discover and flies in the face of everything I've read on the matter so far!

And you have an extremely credible and expert source, to boot!

Well done!

David Kite
GFS, ARMA in IN

[JeanryChandler]

Regarding this argument, it's also worth noting that Cold Steel puts out a sort of propaganda video for their swords and knives in which they repeatedly use every one of their weapons to cut through meat and bone, including on several occasions hacking through numerous substantial shoulder and leg beef and pork shoulders and legs and even entire rib flanks with one stroke.

I'm sure Cold Steel swords aren't quite as historically accurate in some ways as some of the more high end replicas, but I personally have a very hard time believing that Renaissance weapons were so much more fragile in cutting bone than these modern replicas.

Jeanry

[GaryGrzybek]

I have to agree with this. I've test cut on several fresh pork shoulders with no detectable damage to any of my blades. I think this "bone becomes much harder soon after it's dead" theory is a bit stretched. The next pork shoulder I cut will have to deal with my Albion Baron. Full report will follow <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />

[Casper Bradak]

Some of my experiences..
I've had a blade very damaged by bone. Fresh bone at that. But, it was due to poor replica quality rather than the bone itself. The metal was left soft, and it failed to cut the pelvis and left a deep warp in the edge. Another replica cut the target fine.
In my experience, bone doesn't really harden, but it sure can dry out, causing it to shatter, where a fresh bone would be cut. So they've both been defeated easily enough, but you could say the dry ones were a lot weaker in general. There's no difference as far as my replicas have been concerned.
Antique swords tended to be far thinner at the cutting portion than replicas, but I also very much doubt that they would've often had temper problems leading to edge damage.

I'm sure Cold Steel swords aren't quite as historically accurate in some ways as some of the more high end replicas, but I personally have a very hard time believing that Renaissance weapons were so much more fragile in cutting bone than these modern replicas.

I handled a cold steel bastard sword recently. It handled ok, but the blade was very thick for a replica, for the entire length. Thick enough that it really made me wonder how well it would cut, and it really brought the weight up.
I'd say antique swords were a lot less beefy, but no more fragile (probably quite a bit less so), given their cross sections, tempers, etc. In fact, that sounds downright silly (so much other evidence aside) now that I think about it, given how often our crappy replicas bust up on us in so many different ways.

[JeffGentry]

Hey Guy's

This was last week at our get together, I used Jaron Bernstien's Albion Sempach to cut through a piece of ham bone after i broke my windlass, here is the video of the cut and it did no damage to the blade/edge.

It is the 6th one down, the one titled sempach.mpg

http://us.share.geocities.com/jfellrath/arma_clb/video/

Jeff

[JeanryChandler]

Wow, was that the Windlass Towton that broke in that video? Pretty scary, lucky nobody was hurt. I had read good things about those and was thinking of buying one ...

JR

[Jaron Bernstein]

For that test cut we used a ham (with bone) right from the Kroger's refrigerator. The Albion and Del Tin took no damage from the bone and went through it like butter. The Towton on the other hand.... <img src="/forum/images/icons/tongue.gif" alt="" />

[JeffGentry]

Jeanry

Yea that was the Towton that broke, it was a nice sword while it lasted.


Jeff