[TheForge] bronze age and knifemaker questions

[Larry Brown]

Some meteors are huge, some tiny. People in many early civilizations 
collected them, probably believing in their properties being able to rub 
off and being from the gods, at the least damn hard stuff.  People were 
closer to the earth then, rocks were everywhere, so take the pretty or 
unusual home and figure out what to do with it then..

I have cut myself on bronze square stock as rolled, with a very crisp 
corner, a spear or disc, especially if work hardened would be quite dangerous.

Good show, sometimes with very nice iron work in the scenery

L Brown



At 07:37 PM 9/26/2012 -0500, you wrote:
>hello;
>
>last night i watched an episode of midsomer murders season 15 episode 03
>, "Written In The Stars". I will not go into to the whole plot line, i
>do however have several questions concerning the plot which do relate to
>blacksmithing and metal working.
>
>three people were killed with various bronze age objects.
>bronze age britain spanned from c. 2,500 until c. 800 BC.
>
>the first was killed with a large iron-nickel meteorite weighing in at
>several kilograms. irregular in shape so not something that one could
>easily throw a short distance . this meteorite was used to split the
>skull of the first victim.
>
>a bronze age spear tip was used to kill the second victim. the bronze
>age spear tip was attached to a slender wooden shaft and thrown like a
>javelin into the victim's breastplate piercing the left ventrical nearly
>killing the victim instantly.
>
>a bronze age disc alledged to be around 600 BC was stolen from a museum
>and the murderer sharpened/honed the age of the bronze disk to quote
>"a razor edge". this disc was thrown like a frisbee and embedded itself
>in the front of the neck of the third victim.
>
>several thoughts concerning the objects used.
>
>several kilogram iron-nickel meteorites are not that common I cannot
>imagine that they are that readily available. particularly with the
>date given that the meteorite was found. i would assume that any large
>metallic "rocks" would be of great interest to the local blacksmith.
>they would like to have some new source of metal to use. so just how
>many of the iron-nickel meteorites would have survived to the present
>day?
>
>a bronze spear tip does not have to be that sharp if it is thrown with
>enough force
>
>the bronze disc raises the most questions. can a bronze age disc be
>given a "razor edge" through sharpening and honing? Would it be able
>to keep the edge for any period of time.
>
>i have never worked much with bronze but i have trouble imagining a
>bronze age object being able to be honed to a "razor edge" sharp
>enough to nearly take the head off a person if they are hit in the
>neck. much would rely on the person wielding such a weapon.
>
>how precise is their control?
>how much energy can they impart to the disc?
>how much does the disc weigh?
>how much "spin" does the disc have in flight?
>
>so my questions are:
>
>what are the properties of the metal that are desired for it to be honed
>to a "razor edge" and to be able to keep that edge for some reasonable
>period of time?
>
>--
>terry l. ridder ><>
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