Subject: Metalworking questions (for a fantasy novel)

From: [email-masked] (Susan Kretschmer)
Date: 20 Jan 1994 07:40:53 GMT

Hi everyone!

	I'm writing a novel/series of fantasy short stories where one of the
main characters is a blacksmith.  The plot requires some technical detail;
unfortunately I have only the vaguest idea about anything related to 
metalworking.  I figured this would be the place to come for help...

	The blacksmith lives in a society where it is forbidden by their
religion to craft anything from alloys; only pure metals can be used.  As
a young boy, however, he makes a knife that defies that rule, and it turns out 
to be a much better knife than any other (keeps an edge better, is sharper, 
stronger, or maybe (my last choice) the alloy is just easier to work with than 
a pure metal and he can make it fancier or something).

	Question: what two metals should he pour together (in dramatic defiance
of the priests!) in order to make his knife?  It would be useful if one of them
was copper, so that the resulting knife is a color that no pure metal would be.
Then if anyone sees the knife they know it's been made against the rules.
It occured to me to use bronze (copper and tin, right?), but someone else told
me that would make a way _worse_  knife, which sounds right now that I think 
about it.  Is there a mixture besides steel that would be superior to pure 
iron?  How far beyond medieval technology is steelmaking anyway?  And what 
would you get if you poured copper and iron together?

	In fact, I remain pathetically ignorant of how you go about making a 
knife or a sword at all.  Do you use a mold?  How do you get all the fancy
designs on it?  All I know is that in movies somebody bangs on it impressively
with lots of flying sparks.  Can anybody point me toward a reference book for 
the complete novice?  A lot of the subsequent plot hinges on various 
technological advances, and I'd like to be as accurate as I can.

Thanks for your time...I hope you've at least found this amusing! :)

Susie
-- 
Susie Kretschmer 
CWRU School of Medicine       "Don't ask me, I'm just improvising"
MSTP Class of 1998		 			--Rush, PRESTO
Internet: [email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (Rick Cavasin)
Date: 20 Jan 1994 13:48:32 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Susan Kretschmer) writes:
|> 
|> Hi everyone!
|> 
|> 	I'm writing a novel/series of fantasy short stories where one of the
|> main characters is a blacksmith.  The plot requires some technical detail;
|> unfortunately I have only the vaguest idea about anything related to 
|> metalworking.  I figured this would be the place to come for help...
|> 
|> 	The blacksmith lives in a society where it is forbidden by their
|> religion to craft anything from alloys; only pure metals can be used.  As
|> a young boy, however, he makes a knife that defies that rule, and it turns out 
|> to be a much better knife than any other (keeps an edge better, is sharper, 
|> stronger, or maybe (my last choice) the alloy is just easier to work with than 
|> a pure metal and he can make it fancier or something).

The first two you generally get with the alloy vs the pure metal (ie. Bronze
vs copper or tin, steel vs iron.  The ability to take and hold an edge is
related to the hardness.  I think you tend to lose maliability with most
alloys (ie. the pure metal is softer, but then that's why you're after the
alloy - can't have your cake and eat it too).

|> 
|> 	Question: what two metals should he pour together (in dramatic defiance
|> of the priests!) in order to make his knife?  It would be useful if one of them
|> was copper, so that the resulting knife is a color that no pure metal would be.
|> Then if anyone sees the knife they know it's been made against the rules.
|> It occured to me to use bronze (copper and tin, right?), but someone else told
|> me that would make a way _worse_  knife, which sounds right now that I think 
|> about it.  Is there a mixture besides steel that would be superior to pure 

History lesson! Bronze superceded copper ('The Bronze Age') precisely because it
made superior tools.  Bronze is harder, stronger, and casts well.  I think it
can be forged to a limited extent.

|> iron?  How far beyond medieval technology is steelmaking anyway?  And what 
|> would you get if you poured copper and iron together?

Steel was certainly made in the middle ages, but not the way it's made today.
Hasty generalization: tools (including knives) tended to only have steel where
it was needed, the 'body' of the tool would be of wrought iron.  Knives would
be laminated out alternating layers of iron and steel (odd number usually) so
that the middle layer was steel.  When the knife was sharpened, the middle
layer of hard steel would be exposed along the edge.  The wrought iron, being
softer and more flexible, balanced the hard brittleness of the steel, making
the knife harder to break.  The wrought iron was cheaper too, so you'd use the
steel sparingly.  Copper and Iron? Haven't a clue.

|> 
|> 	In fact, I remain pathetically ignorant of how you go about making a 
|> knife or a sword at all.  Do you use a mold?  How do you get all the fancy

Nope.  What a blacksmith does is 'forging'.  You heat the metal up and hit
it with a hammer on an anvil.  The only operation that really generates alot
of sparks is forge welding (how iron/steel was forged before acetylene torches
and arc welders).

|> designs on it?  All I know is that in movies somebody bangs on it impressively

Lots of ways to get 'fancy designs' these days.  Which fancy designs do you
mean? (different techniques/tools might be used for each)  Because of the
'workablilty' of iron, you can hammer/twist/sculpt it into all sorts of
shapes.  It takes skill and experience of course.  Then you can get interesting
effects by pattern welding.  Then of course there's engraving/inlaying/enamelling
etc.  It's sort of a BIG topic actually.

|> with lots of flying sparks.  Can anybody point me toward a reference book for 
|> the complete novice?  A lot of the subsequent plot hinges on various 
|> technological advances, and I'd like to be as accurate as I can.

If you want to understand things from a metallurgical perspective, get an
introductory text on Material Sciences.  You'll probably get more than enough
info on various alloys.  From a more practical standpoint, check your local
public library under 'Blacksmithing', 'Metalworking', and 'Knifemaking'.  Even
some jewelry making books have some basic blacksmithing instructions in them.
Blacksmithing/Knifemaking books will almost certainly confine themselves to
talking about iron and steel (well these days, steel only actually, since
virtually noone makes wrought iron anymore :(.  I'll try to bring in some
titles/authors tomorrow.

|> 
|> Thanks for your time...I hope you've at least found this amusing! :)
|> 
|> Susie
|> -- 
|> Susie Kretschmer 
|> CWRU School of Medicine       "Don't ask me, I'm just improvising"
|> MSTP Class of 1998		 			--Rush, PRESTO
|> Internet: [email-masked]

Cheers, Rick C.

---

From: [email-masked] (William F. Kaiser)
Date: 20 Jan 1994 16:11:54 GMT

> metalworking.  I figured this would be the place to come for help...

An author looking for technical accuracy.  Great!  I get annoyed by
stories full of inaccuracies and ignorance of a subject.

First off, a blacksmith works the black metal - iron.  There were also
coppersmiths, tinsmiths, whitesmiths, etc.  Maybe you just want a generic
smith.

> religion to craft anything from alloys; only pure metals can be used.  

You might want to consider how your society gets _pure_ metals.  Getting
extraneous crud out of metals is often not a trivial task.

As

> would you get if you poured copper and iron together?

Iron was not poured until 16??, well after the middle ages.  Before that,
the ore was smelted with charcoal as the fuel and produced wrought iron. 
Wrought iron is a mixture of iron and various impurities, not a pure
metal, by any means.  After 16?? coke, from coal, was the fuel.  This
produced a much hotter fire and the iron could be melted.  This started
the cast iron industry and the industrial revolution in England.  Cast
iron has a much higher carbon content (2-3%) than steel or wrought iron,
so it is too brittle for many uses. 

The Bessemer process, about 1850, was the first method to produce large
quantities of steel.  Air was blown through molten iron to burn out the
carbon and other impurities.  Steel was made in small quantities long
before 1850, though.

>From "Machine Tool Technology," McCarthy & Smith, McKnight, 1968: "Copper
in small amounts sometimes is alloyed with steel to improve corrosion
resistance.  It also tends to improve tensile and yield strengths of
steel."  They don't say what "small amounts" is.  I suspect that in large
amounts you may get something that no one particularly wants.

Your copper - bronze idea is practical for a story idea.  You might also
look into Damascus steel for a blade.  It begins with a layer of iron and
steel welded together, folded and welded again, through many cycles.  It
looks distinctively different from a homogeneous steel blade, and has many
advantages over wrought iron.

> Susie

There was a series on PBS a few years ago, "Out of the Firey Furnace," I
think, that was about the history of metalworking.  Maybe you could find
that for starters.  It went way back to prehistoric metalworking.

Have fun.  Let us know when your novel/series is published.

Bill Kaiser
[email-masked]

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From: Doug White <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 94 10:43:34 -0500

> Thanks for your time...I hope you've at least found this amusing! :)

If you want to get fancy (and historically accurate), there are instances
of people making 'stainless steel' in the middle ages.  They didn't know
the metalurgy behind it, but depending upon where they got their raw
materials, it was possible to get enough of the right impurities to
produce alloy steel with properties superior to what they could ordinairily
produce.  One of the most prized items for producing these alloys was
iron from a meteorite.  Aside from having lots of mystical implications,
it usually has a high nickel content, which when alloyed with regular
iron in the right proportions would produce steel with 'magical' properties.
I don't know of any concrete references on this, but I have it on good
authority (a silver-smithing instructor at the De Cordova Museum in Lincoln,
MA, who does metal work of all sorts).

Doug White
MIT Lincoln Laboratory

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From: [email-masked] (John Kopf, X6305)
Date: 20 Jan 1994 20:49:18 GMT

In article [email-masked], [email-masked] (Susan Kretschmer) writes:
> <stuff deleted>

Look for the book:  "Pyrotechnica" (available from Linsey Publications as
a reprint of the English-translation)...published in 1560, it should give you
an overview of Medieval metal-working technology.

You might also want to look at "De Re Metalica" (from dover books, author is
Herbert Hoover - yes, the president!) for mining technology of 1540.

JK

---

From: Jim Jaskie <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 22:55:00 GMT

Subject: Re: Metalworking questions (for a fantasy novel) 
From: Doug White, [email-masked]
In article <[email-masked]> Doug White,
As
>> a young boy, however, he makes a knife that defies that rule, and it
turns 
>out 
>> stronger, or maybe (my last choice) the alloy is just easier to work
with 
>than 

>MA, who does metal work of all sorts).

The use of meteorites was high tech during the middle ages.  A meteor was
considered a sign from above, often considered an omen of military
victory.  The meteorite "stone" (though commonly of high nickel content),
if found, would be used for sword making to continue the omen.  This is
believed to be the source of the "Sword in the Stone" legends that occur
across Europe.  The swords made from this high nickel/iron alloy would be
much harder than a regular wrought iron or steel sword.  When struck it
would ring or "sing" (because of the hardness).  This is probably the
origin of the "Singing Sword" type of legend.  This alloy tool steel
sword would also be considerably more impressive banging on the enemy's
armor plate than a wrought iron sword.  Now, if the meteorite landed in a
lake, is this a gift of the "Lady in the Lake"?

At any rate, Scientific American had an article on this about 15 years
ago.  Fascinating stuff.

---

From: [email-masked] (Harry Phinney)
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 1994 00:00:56 GMT

John Kopf, X6305 ([email-masked]) wrote:
: You might also want to look at "De Re Metalica" (from dover books, author is
: Herbert Hoover - yes, the president!) for mining technology of 1540.

Hoover translated rather than wrote this book, as the date may suggest.

Harry Phinney   [email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (NATHAN PHILLIP STEWART)
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 23:44:41 GMT

>was copper, so that the resulting knife is a color that no pure metal would be.

Hmmm. Copper - Berrylium maybe? Except you wouldn't be able to see anything 	but a "copper" blade. Ever since I heard of this little precip hardening trick,	I always thought it would be a neato blade, since copper is normally way too	soft for such purposes. 
Nate

---

From: [email-masked] (Susan Kretschmer)
Date: 21 Jan 1994 07:31:00 GMT

Wow!  What a great response.  Thanks to all who answered my questions,
by both post and email.  I got tons of useful info, and a lot of good book
references.  As to my plot, it will need some work, but I'm off to the library
to read up on swordmaking et al., now that I have some idea of what books to
look for.  However, for everything that turned out to be impractical, I also
found some cool new ideas.

>stories full of inaccuracies and ignorance of a subject.

Awww. :)  Hey, I try...  Inaccuracies bug me too.
>coppersmiths, tinsmiths, whitesmiths, etc.  Maybe you just want a generic

Point taken...he's a generic smith, then.
>extraneous crud out of metals is often not a trivial task.

A lot of people made this point.  Actually I just meant "pure within the
limits of the society's technology".  They don't necessarily get things all
that pure really.  Part of the idea behind the religious proviso was that if
you spent all that time and effort in the (priest-sanctioned) task of
getting it pure, the last thing you'd want to do would be to mix them up again
on purpose.  Thus that eventually got mangled into "thou shalt NEVER mix
metals together".  This is also a society where any technological innovation is
a sin, so...

(oops, munched too much here, he was talking about teeny amounts of iron
alloyed with copper) >but in larger
>amounts you may get something that no one particularly wants.

Yep, that was the consensus on copper/iron.  Although I did take basic chem
in college it was a while ago; the melting point thing makes sense.

>Your copper - bronze idea is practical for a story idea.  You might also

yes, if I use the scene at all, I'll likely use bronze...I need to decide
exactly what level of technology they've achieved.

>advantages over wrought iron.

again, recommended by most people.  This may show up later *grin* as something
the smith either figures out or learns from a master in another land, when
he's grown up.

Again, thanks for straightening me out concerning steel; I didn't know anything
about steel at all, not even its true definition, nor the difference between 
cast iron and wrought iron.
>Have fun.  Let us know when your novel/series is published.
I will! :)  Cross your fingers for me...

Thanks again for everything!

Susie

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From: [email-masked] (Michael J. Edelman)
Date: 21 Jan 1994 13:10:40 GMT

>Herbert Hoover - yes, the president!) for mining technology of 1540.
Translated by Hoover, not written- I don't believe Herbert was around in 
1540 ;-)

I believe Lindsay has this book, too. It covers all aspects of mining, refining
and working metal.

--mike

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From: [email-masked] (Roy F. Cabaniss)
Date: 21 Jan 94 23:01:15 CST

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Susan Kretschmer) writes:
> about it.  

Your first thought is right.  (That's why we call it the bronze age.) 
It's harder and keeps an edge better.

>Is there a mixture besides steel that would be superior to pure 
> iron?  

Iron of the medieval times was already alloys of some form or another. 
Upping the carbvon content of iron was relatively common, though not
apparant to the naked eye.

>How far beyond medieval technology is steelmaking anyway?  

How medieval it the relavant quesiton here.  And whose medieval? 
European, Middle eastern, Chinese, Japanese?    

The _Golossary for Armns andArmor_ says Damascus steel started around
the 10 century.  You can bet your bottom dollar that the Je Japanese
were making swords of iron before 900 AD.  So I don't think it beyond
medieval technology to be making steel.  Especially if the suspicions
aboutDamascus being a layered cast iron form with the iron being
poured around the matrix are correct.

>And what 

I remember that there is a specific name for it, but I don't know what
that name is.

Hope this helped.

Roy F. Cabaniss
Western Kentucky University
[email-masked] : rfrcaban@wkyuvm
Life is a metaphor for a baseball game.
**If it came from my account, ain't no one else responsible!!**
***************************************************************

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From: [email-masked] (William )
Date: 21 Jan 94 17:28:42

...only pure metals can be used.  As a young boy, however, he makes a
    knife that defies that rule, and it turns out to be a much better
    knife than any other (keeps an edge better, is sharper, stronger, or
    maybe (my last choice) the alloy is just easier to work with than a
    pure metal and he can make it fancier or something).

Given that bronze (and brass?) are "better" than pure copper, I think the
copper/brass would make the best story.  You'd have the added element that
the brass allow would look something like pure gold!  You'd have to check
on the relative properties of Brass vs Bronze - you could have a second
level of alloying there...

Most fine "patterning" of metalwork in the old days was probably done via
etching with acids and other chemicals.

As some others have expressed, it would take some "suspension of disbelief"
to accept that any old technology was capable of producing "pure" metals in
the first place.  How would they even tell?  (There was an SF story I've
heard of where a modern Jet fighter goes back in time to like 1940 or so.
The "Integrated circuits" in the electronics (silcon chips) would show up
as impossibly pure silicon in any 40's style chemical analysis, even though
the chips are composed of silicon with at least two distint impurities...)
"What do you mean 'not pure'?  This knife is made of the purest brass
available!"

Chops

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From: [email-masked] (bui tho xuan)
Date: 25 Jan 1994 20:34:59 GMT

[email-masked] (William ) writes:
>the brass allow would look something like pure gold!,,....
>
He might have a hard time finding metallic zinc (to make brass) 
without electricity.  Metallic tin (for bronze) can be found in nature.
This is the reason why we had a "Bronze Age" and no "Brass Age".

tho

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From: [email-masked] (Andy Dingley)
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 1994 21:12:03 +0000

> extraneous crud out of metals is often not a trivial task.

Not a problem here. Assuming we're talking about copper/heretical bronze
metallurgy, then a pre-bronze age society is pretty primitive. At that time,
all (nearly all ? - go on, prove me wrong 8-) ) metals would have been found
in their native form as "dendritic" copper, rather than smelted from ores.
This also fits nicely with the religious theme. Of course there isn't much 
of this stuff around, and even less of it left today, but you can still see 
small pieces in craft/lapidary shops - the greenish brown tree-like 
structures.

---

From: [email-masked] ()
Date: 31 Jan 1994 03:26:12 GMT

> small pieces in craft/lapidary shops - the greenish brown tree-like 

  True, but as I understand it... the raw copper, silver, etc... is
often found with minor impurities -- ie. alloys.  However, there was
no way for the smith to know that this was a natural alloy... they
only knew that the coper from place X and the steel from place Y were
superiour for some reason -- the spirit of the place maybe.  They had
no way of knowing.  To verify this, you can check some of the assays
of ancient chineese copper and japanese steel.  I have not kept references,
however I may have a couple at home...

  EBo --