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Post by larason2 on Mar 29, 2023 0:59:43 GMT
So I have started to get things together to cast a Minoan/Greek Type A sword. What you see above is the wooden model. I drew the form on some scrap wood I had, cut it out with my band saw, and sanded the edges down. Next is sanding it into shape. What impressed me about it is how big it is! I knew it was 110 cm, but it didn't figure in my mind that's 43 inches, almost as long as an Odachi! The one from Arkalochori is 111 cm. I have only seen one other reproduction online, and it may be there aren't many of them because of the size. I have the green sand, the copper and tin, and just putting the finishing touches on the forge and the flask. I have read that most of these swords range in size from 500-900 grams, and I'm going to try to get it down to the 900g mark. At 2 lbs, that's still a pretty heavy sword! I didn't think they had swords this big in the bronze age! It has a pretty elegant shape in person. The plan is to also hilt it in bronze (also casting the hilt components), and make a scabbard for it with red leather and bronze medallions like it is in the Type A illustration on this page: www.salimbeti.com/micenei/weapons1.htm
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Post by legacyofthesword on Apr 1, 2023 4:14:40 GMT
Awesome project! Looking forward to seeing the finished results.
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Post by larason2 on Apr 30, 2023 22:18:06 GMT
A short update. I finished painstakingly chiseling out the form, but I found that once I "thought" I was done, I was still at roughly 4x the target weight! I calculated the density of the wood I was using with a rectangular block at about 0.47 grams per cubic centimetres, and with Bronze being about 8.7 g/cc, it weighed in at 218g. That would give it a final cast weight of 4 kg! I could keep chiselling, but I figure that the time/benefit ratio probably doesn't make sense, and I'm afraid I'm going to splinter the wood when it gets thin enough on the edge. Had I carved it out of hardwood, it would probably be alright, but I just used a softwood board I had lying around. Instead, I'm going to buy some relatively thin acrylic and have a go carving it with that! At least my carving skills improved as I was working on it! Acrylic is relatively easy to carve too, should have thought of that at the beginning. I'll still use the wooden model to help with measurements/refinements, etc. The copper melting furnace is done, I settled on ceramic wool painted with fireclay. I have a full tank of propane and a propane burner that works with the furnace, I have more than enough green sand (filtered sand with filtered clay unscented kitty litter). I have some borax, a crucible, and some tongs. I have the flask completed as well, made from wood with fibre board on either side to hold the sand in, with the right diameter hole. I have the tin and the copper (tin ordered online, and a copper tube from the hardware store). All that's left is to solder together my thermocouple probe (I bought a separate temperature controller and temperature sensor that just have to be soldered together), and heat treat my crucible, and I should be ready to go! Here's a picture of the way too thick wooden model. It really looks and feels the part, just too beefy!
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Post by blairbob on May 1, 2023 7:36:43 GMT
dang, that seems incredibly long! i did pull up a fast search and saw 20% were between 55-75cm which sounds about what I was thinking was typical. myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=9096 showed some very long Qin swords though those are far older and I would guess superior metallurgy
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Post by larason2 on May 1, 2023 17:51:08 GMT
I'm going off the finds at Malia and Archalochori. The Archalochori sword was 111 cm, and I understand the Malia ones are pretty close. I'm using the more complete Malia one as my guide, though mine is only 110 cm. With more calculations, seems the sword was pretty thin, only 0.45 cm at the widest part (the tang). The good thing is, I have acrylic that is pretty close to that thin! It does seem odd to have such a long sword be one handed. I think the idea was it was supposed to to over the opponent's shield when using a shield, as in the carved seals that have been found, so length would be an advantage for stabbing before you were stabbed.
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Post by blairbob on May 1, 2023 22:12:01 GMT
yeah, being that thin makes sense as I did see them refer to them as "rapiers"
very similar to a short spear
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mrstabby
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Post by mrstabby on May 7, 2023 13:42:36 GMT
I have a question about bronze swords. If had a piece of flat stock, would it be possible to forge it into a sword without a forge or smelter? Just hammers, files, a small blowtorch and an anvil? Is there any specific bronze that is best for swords?
I would just love to have a small bronze sword, but nobody sells them for a decent price where I live.
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Post by mrbadexample on May 7, 2023 16:28:51 GMT
Bronze can’t be forged the same way as iron or steel. You could grind a thicker piece of bar stock and have a go at work hardening the edges. The biggest issue is that there are many alloys of bronze, and the ones commonly available as bar stock are often not ideal for blades. If you want a little bronze sword to look at and dry handle, go for it. Bronze shapes nicely with hand tools. If you want it to perform, you might do better to save up.
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mrstabby
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Post by mrstabby on May 7, 2023 18:43:48 GMT
I know you need to work harden it, I just wasn't sure if there is really nothing else I'd need to do besides hammer on it. Can you tell me what bronze is at least OK for blades? I think I remember ancient sword were made from something like 10-20% tin, so something in that ballpark should be OK, right? Saving up makes no real sense, there is just nothing out there. Just 2 versions of decorative sword for around 200€ or comissioned work, and there I wouldn't know who would or could do it. Just wanna try it.
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Post by mrbadexample on May 7, 2023 18:46:59 GMT
I don’t recall the nature of the alloys used for blades, but I believe there are some older threads here that go into detail on the topic.
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Post by larason2 on May 8, 2023 2:01:08 GMT
In the bronze age, they usually used between 10% and 12% tin, the remainder being copper. The ideal if you want the sword to be functional is to cast it. The resulting bronze is quite pliable, and you can harden the spine by bending it back and forth, and the edge by hammering it. Then it won't be likely to break if you use it, but still be stiff enough and have a sharp enough edge to use. I got my copper as a copper pipe from a hardware store, and I ordered the tin online.
Bronze is forgeable, but you can run into trouble because you can work harden it in the wrong way by forging it, cold or hot. They say you can hot forge it once (that is, one heating/cooling cycle), but I think you still risk breaking it that way. Cold forging can potentially do the same thing, but probably less than repeated cooling/heating cycles. If it's just going to be a wall hanger though, then I would have at it.
If you want to use it, but don't want to get into casting, you can get a fairly flat piece and use sandpaper or stones to shape it, providing it has been cast and not rolled. Most bronzes commercially available though are aluminum bronzes, which aren't appropriate for swords, as the aluminum makes it more brittle. For instance, C954 is a common Bronze alloy, and it is 83% copper, 3-5% iron, 1.5% nickel, 10-11.5% aluminum, and 0.5% manganese. B10 is probably the most suitable alloy for sword making if you can find it. Just remember that most bronze age swords were quite thin! I estimate the sword I'm making was 0.45 cm thick at the spine, and the blade section would have been something like 0.2cm.
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Post by mrbadexample on May 8, 2023 10:02:18 GMT
Excellent info. Thanks!
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Post by mountainsylph on May 17, 2023 22:54:19 GMT
In the bronze age, they usually used between 10% and 12% tin, the remainder being copper. The ideal if you want the sword to be functional is to cast it. The resulting bronze is quite pliable, and you can harden the spine by bending it back and forth, and the edge by hammering it. Then it won't be likely to break if you use it, but still be stiff enough and have a sharp enough edge to use. I got my copper as a copper pipe from a hardware store, and I ordered the tin online. Bronze is forgeable, but you can run into trouble because you can work harden it in the wrong way by forging it, cold or hot. They say you can hot forge it once (that is, one heating/cooling cycle), but I think you still risk breaking it that way. Cold forging can potentially do the same thing, but probably less than repeated cooling/heating cycles. If it's just going to be a wall hanger though, then I would have at it. If you want to use it, but don't want to get into casting, you can get a fairly flat piece and use sandpaper or stones to shape it, providing it has been cast and not rolled. Most bronzes commercially available though are aluminum bronzes, which aren't appropriate for swords, as the aluminum makes it more brittle. For instance, C954 is a common Bronze alloy, and it is 83% copper, 3-5% iron, 1.5% nickel, 10-11.5% aluminum, and 0.5% manganese. B10 is probably the most suitable alloy for sword making if you can find it. Just remember that most bronze age swords were quite thin! I estimate the sword I'm making was 0.45 cm thick at the spine, and the blade section would have been something like 0.2cm. What are your thoughts on Cannon Bronze, as in the same type of Dark colored Bronze they used for Cannons in the 19th or 18th centuries? I've seen someone talk about how they wonder it would do.
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Post by larason2 on May 18, 2023 5:10:04 GMT
Apparently the bronze they used for guns for most of European history was pretty close to the same alloy, or if anything had less tin: heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40494-021-00534-zIf the barrels weren't strong enough with a given thickness, they could just make them thicker. Bronze was something like 4x as expensive compared to iron though. Apparently the gunners preferred Bronze over iron because if it failed, you didn't get an explosion of iron shrapnel. In the bronze age they didn't use any lower tin content though because it affected how hard the edges and the spine could get. The Chinese sword of Goujian, however used differential casting to get the blade edge up to about 50% tin and 50% copper. You couldn't use this for a whole sword though, because it would be too brittle.
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Post by larason2 on May 18, 2023 5:21:58 GMT
All that being said, casting can be a fair bit dirtier than the ideal. Here's in interesting paper looking at the composition of some old bronze cannons: ees.kuleuven.be/eng/archive/isa2012/proceedings/ISA%202012%20van%20Os%20et%20al.%202.pdfEven the sword of guojian has some iron in it, but as far as we know, inclusion of iron in copper alloys was usually accidental for most of history. They used recycled metal a lot, and iron was cheaper to get your hands on. Most of the dark colour of many bronze alloys comes more from patination from the environment than anything else. That's why some of them are green, some are black or brown. Most of them had the same copper colour when they were first cast. Bronze though does have quite a variety of different colours depending on the exact tin and copper content. Zinc being added also can change the colour quite a bit, and also affects patination.
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