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Message: <blockquote data-quote="buzzard" data-source="post: 454704" data-attributes="member: 3003">Let me put my metallurgist hat on here and explain. There are two reasons why this can occur. The first is that the radii are different. For a given weight of metal, the greater the radius, the greater the strength in bending since bending moments are strongly dependent on this. If they had identical radii there are two other possible explanations. First it simple be because the tube would have been given more cold work which will increase the yield strength. The second possibility is that the weight of the solid rod itself was adding to the force appreciably, and caused the bending, while the tube was lighter. In a mercurial sword you are setting yourself up for failure. While a hollow tube is certainly good for resisting bending moments, the moment it gets dented it becomes very weak. The day to day uses of a sword involve hitting hard things like armor and parrying other swords. All of these would cause dents and make the structure extremely weak.  Also making a good sword requires some metallurgical tricks to make it good. A sword has to be both hard and soft. The hard part to keep the edge, and the soft part to keep it from cracking. This was generally done by either welding on harder steel for the edge or surface carburizing. The Japanese used an interesting technique of covering part of the blade (the non sharp edge) with clay and then quenching it. differing quench rates will make for very different final metal properties. If you take the sword which is to be mercurial and hollow it out, you have removed the material which is ductile (soft), and left only the hard outer layers of the metal. This will lead to a brittle weapon of little use in normal combat. Yes, it would be fine for a little "orf wit 'is 'ead!", but one it was parried you'd have a broken blade. buzzard</blockquote>

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