Talk:Fuller (groove)

message: The phrase "their purpose is to lighten and strengthen" is not correct.  The purpose of a fuller is to lighten a blade. It is clear from the physics discussion in the article that a fuller cannot strengthen a blade.  Any opposition to removing "and strengthen?" Mathandubh 10:47, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "Strengthen"

message: Why is there a long section on Japanese swords and not on, e.g., modern weapons, Ulfberchts, or pretty much every sword since 500 AD? I get samurai are cool, but the lack of balance to this article doesn't make sense. There also weapons made outside of Japan with multiple fullers and other things that seem more relevant to an article on fullers. Maybe the section on the length of Japanese fullers should remain in the Japanese swordsmithing section. If there are no objections, I suggest removing the section and simply adding a list of sword-making regions (with links) as a replacement section. Throwawaygull (talk) 00:10, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Little balance to article

message: The purpose of fullers in long blades, beyond saving money in steel and making the blade lighter and more balanced,, is to give them some ability to flex when under pressure and when being twisted, much like a railroad rail or I-beam used in construction. A three-sided musket bayonet could thoretically be driven against a hard surface, and only be bent, not shattered. It is easier to bend a piece of iron or steel back into shape, rather than to try to recast the shattered remains thereof.
95thfoot, Saturday, June 09, 2007, 9:10 PM EST
::With all due respect, the edits made to suggest that a fuller adds strength are unsupported by engineering fact.  Even the AG Russell reference first declares that the purpose of a fuller is to lighten the blade.  The talk about it strengthing a blade is misleading because they J Hrisoulas is comparing different geometries.  A fuller is all about getting the best strength while reducing weight.  Note the statement "When combined with proper distal tapers, proper heat treating and tempering, a fullered blade will, without a doubt, be anywhere from 20% to 35% lighter than a non-fullered blade without any sacrifice of strength or blade integrity."  The fuller does not increase strength, it makes the blade lighter without significantly decreasing strength.  How could removing material increase strength??
Look at the Beam_(structure) article.  The i-beam takes the same amount of mass, and makes it stiffer than the same square beam.  Or, since mass near the center doesn't help the stiffness much, one could take the square beam, carve out fullers, and end up with a lighter beam with about the same stiffness. 
In any case, the i-beam structure is designed to resist vertical deflection (in that picture.)  Saying a fuller makes a knife or sword stiffer means it is stiffer in the cutting direction.  Has anyone ever used or seen a knife or sword where the stiffness in the cutting direction was less than the stiffness in the sideways direction?
The main reason to use i-beams in construction or railroads is exactly one of cost.  One uses less steel, ie less cost, and achieves the engineering goal of managing the loads in use.  
The references to "strengthening a blade" should be removed.  (BTW, "strengthening" is vague.  What types of bending does the fuller help prevent?)--Mathandubh (talk) 11:35, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: One final comment.  Look at the article on Second_moment_of_area. Section 7.5 calculates the moment of inertia for an i-beam.  It is clear that the resulting value will always be less than for the square beam of the same outside dimensions.  This means the i-beam will bend more than the square bar for a given load.  Thus the i-beam is less stiff.  Fullers cannot stiffen a blade!  But they can lighten the blade, without affecting the stiffness much in the cutting direction.  I will remove reference to strengthening the blade here.--Mathandubh (talk) 15:41, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Both are technically valid. Strength and flexibility are linked. Think of willows bending instead of oaks breaking. Fullers do not stiffen blades, but stiff blades aren't necessarily a good thing. Stiff blades and snap or shatter. "Strength" can have many meanings, most based around "strong." "Strong" can mean the ability to resist weight, in which case a fuller is not strengthening. "Strong" can also mean effective, then in many cases, a fuller does make a blade stronger.
To make a blade more ridged, a riser (pretty much the exact opposite of a fuller) is used.
That is semantics, though, and for the sake of clarity I see why it was removed. Throwawaygull (talk) 01:15, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Stengthen" = Flexing strength 

message: I just thought I'd mention that the physics section of this article is completely wrong. When I have more time, I'll gather up some sources and fix it. In the meantime, I'll just mention that the forming of the fullers has nothing to do with leverage or tensile strength. The fullers are formed through plastic deformation of the metal caused by hertz-contact stress. When steel is heated to red or yellow-hot, surface tension is not a factor, but the metal becomes very plastic (formable), similar to playdough (not nearly as soft, of course). Imagine pushing a finger into a block of playdough; the surface will depress and take the shape of the finger, and the displaced material will move sideways, forcing the adjacent material to rise from the surface. The shape of the fuller (tool) determines the shape of the fuller (groove).
The displaced material can increase the strength (resistance to bending) of the blade by increasing the thickness of its cross section in various places. However, it only decreases the weight of the blade if the displaced material is subsequently removed by grinding or filing it away, returning the blade to its original thickness. However, this is typically not done because it would lower its rigidity. Instead, this allowed the smith to create a blade using less steel, therefore being of lower weight and cost, but with the same size and rigidity of a heavier sword. Zaereth (talk) 21:33, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Physics section 

message: "Fuller (weapon)" suggests that a fuller is a weapon, whereas it's really a tool used in making weapons. 109.157.79.50 (talk) 15:39, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps. This article is about the term as used in blades; that includes both the tool used in bladesmithing and the groove left in the blade. Maybe Fuller (blade) would be better? You can go to Wikipedia:Request for move, and see if there is any objection to such a move (title change).Zaereth (talk) 12:02, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  A better title would be "fuller (groove)". The 2015 objection above is correct that "fuller (weapon)" suggests that a fuller is a weapon, whereas it's really either the tool to make the groove — fuller (metalworking) — or the groove itself, fuller (groove). Per WP:BOLD, I am moving it, rather than begging anyone for permission to move it. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:44, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  This is not a good article title 

message: The article listed various types of "bi" as different types of groove on Japanese swords (bo-bi, futasuji-bi etc.), whereas it should be "hi" (bo-hi, futasuji-hi, etc.). I have no idea what possessed someone to write them as "bi". I corrected the spelling. Tsuka (talk) 07:32, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Either spelling in English is acceptable, and common in reliable sources. Like Peking to Beijing, English spellings do not always match Japanese pronunciations. (I know, that's a Chinese city.) According to Kokan Nagayama in the book, The Connoisseur's Book of Japanese Swords, "...please note that "hi" is usually pronounced "bi" when preceded by other characters." Zaereth (talk) 20:24, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Japanese terminology 

message: I fixed the "I-beam" muddle.  See the edit summaries for some explanation.  The I-beam is clearly referring to the caps of the "I" being at the extremes of long cross-section direction, which needs no more stiffness.  The Physics section gave a nice, and fairly accurate, explanation of the compressive and tensile stresses in a beam (even though it was fully uncited).  It seemed to me that the direction where more stiffness is needed would be the short cross-section direction.  It wasn't jiving.  Then I reviewed the talk page and saw in the "Stengthen" = Flexing strength section that others were also concerned.  So, basically it's a mistake to go on about I-beams unless it's more clear about which direction, and it's supported with reliable (not similarly muddled) sources, and it's applicability is clear and supported.  Usualzukor (talk) 19:10, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fixed the "I-beam" muddle. 

message: Is there a source for the 25-30% lighter claim in the introduction? The entire introduction is not annotated but some of the information is repeated further down. This specific claim is not and it seems to need justification, given that the main purpose the article ascribes to fullers is increasing bending moment to weight.
Based on most swords I've personally examined this does not seem like an average figure. Most fullers I've seen are quite narrow and do not meaningfully change the sectional area of the blade.
:The lede typically doesn't need sources, because everything should be sourced further down. The lede is supposed to be a summery of the rest of the article. I'd have to look to see if any of the sources further down give that actual number, but to me it seems about right for swords. Keep in mind we're talking volumetric weight, not area. A typical katana with a fuller will usually weigh about 2 to 2 1/2 pounds. Without a fuller (my preferred style) typically 3 to 3 1/2 pounds. That's a 30% reduction in the fullered sword. Those same weights are typical of Merovingian swords, Viking swords, etc., both fullered and not.
:In combat any little bit helped. (See my comments two sections directly above this one.) It also helped in ancient times because steel was a very, very expensive and rare commodity, so anything you could save for the next sword, and not have to file away, was very important. Zaereth (talk) 01:23, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lightening  

message: This entire article needs to be rewritten 
One of the sources used for the article is Alex bealer "the art of blacksmithing" who never once in his book refers to blood grooves as "fullers".  On the contrary, he defines fullers as tools used to make blood grooves (among other things)
Blood grooves have never historically been called "fullers" and despite assurances of self proclaimed experts like Matt Easton no evidence is ever provided 
IMO this article should contain a proper definition of fuller in the context of blacksmithing with reference to it's use in bladesmithing but NOT defining the groove itself as a "fuller", because it isn't. CharlesedwardbishopIII (talk) 16:15, 10 June 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rewrite