Re: Re: The Irony

From: (nil)
Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 01:49:55 GMT

In message=20
<1149.134.245.148.28.1110554223.squirrel_at_webmail.toppoint.de>=20 "Joerg Baumgartner" writes:
>Donald Oddy:
>> "Joerg Baumgartner" writes:
>>>The 450 cubic centimetres describe the raw ingot.
>
>> That's a heck of a lot of wastage for working iron.
>
>Have you ever seen the corroded surface of a worked piece of iron splinter
>off and fall down (translated from German this is called "Hammer's Beat")?
>Have you seen the black broth called water after used for cooling the
>piece? Do you have an idea how much iron gets lost in the heating?

I've done some forge work, though with wrought iron. Certainly there is some loss but not a high percentage.

>I expected a cache of rusted iron implements reworked into ingots, then
>into swords.
>
>If you have damascened iron, the waste is actually larger than my estimate.
>
>> While there will
>> be some loss from finishing, polishing and sharpening there'll be
>> little or none in the forging. It's not a modern process where you
>> cut off the bits you don't need and throw them away because it's
>> more trouble than it's worth to reuse. Instead you hammer the ingot
>> into the right size and shape for the blank you need and then
>> hammer and fold it into the sword. Any cutting is done early on in
>> the process and the scraps are recycled. A lot of the skill is in
>> knowing how the hammering needs to be done to get the right result.
>
>I was referring to the classical process, under the assumption that the
>corroded bits cannot be recycled.

If you're recycling rusty iron implements to provide the iron there's no reason for not recycling the corroded bits - they're far purer and require less work to use than ore.

Certainly the less refined the ore is the higher wastage there will be but that's going to be mostly impurities.

-- 
Donald Oddy
http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/


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End of Glorantha Digest, Vol 11, Issue 52
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