Minoisches Schwert vom Typ A

[Sculpteur]

Hi again Lara, how do you actually plan the sword hilt thing? Can I support you in any way?

[LaraC]

Thanks Pitassa and Sculpteur!

If you don’t mind, I will continue in English, as I’m not sure the translation program is as much my friend now as it was!

Sculpteur: I am very fond of pudding, and of that saying! The trouble with the open mold, as the Egyptians probably also discovered, is that the open face in contact with oxygen gets full of copper oxides that make the metal brittle and so has to be cut off. What I will do though is buy some proper commercial casting sand (available locally) to make your chisel, so it is as perfect as it can be!

Pitassa: Ah, that was a good idea about the sand blasting, I should have waited for your reply! But I was too curious to see the colour of ancient bronze, so I started polishing. I was not disappointed! The bronze is a beautiful gold colour, such as you no longer ever see. I have some pictures, but they do not do it justice.

Still, my father has a sand blasting machine, so I think this will not be my last experiment with this sand (which is good, since I made 10 litres!) I will try once again and send it to him so you can have something to look at! I have some good clay I can use to make sword molds, so that will be my next attempt for the sword.

I will say goodbye with the image of the mammoth, one of my favourite animals!

[LaraC]

Sorry Sculpteur, I only just saw your next message!

My plan for the hilt pieces is to carve the pieces out of wood, then cast them, for which the commercial casting sand will be very useful. In the same way I plan to make the rivets, make a model out of wood of both pieces, then cast them. Wood is much easier for me than metal! I won't make the decorative parts full thickness though, I will have wood between the sword and the decorative pieces on the outside, for strength, and I think that is also historical. I have some nice cypress to use for the wood!

For the pommel, I found a nice basalt stone I plan to use! Basalt is very hard, but I have a diamond edged saw blade that cuts it very nicely, so I will do the initial working with that. After, I plan to get some carbide chisels (once I save my pennies!) to finish the shaping. To drill the mounting holes, I will use some copper wire with silicon carbide powder, as I have both already. It is not bronze age technology, but I am not a sculptor by trade, and good rocks are hard to find here! All my rocks nearby were deposited by glaciers, and they only liked hard ones! I looked for a nice quartz rock crystal so it would look like the ancient ones, but it is not easy here, and to buy a commercial one big enough is very expensive! The basalt I have will polish to a dark grey/black, which will look nice. My uncle is a lapidarist as well, so I will also consult him for ideas once I get that far!

[Pitassa]

Wonderful ! That's it, almost no one any longer does

English is well



See you

[Sculpteur]

Dear Lara, from my side you are welcome to write exclusively in English. There may have been a translation error in your last post.
I enjoy writing and reading in English and I get along quite well with translation software.
If your father has a sandblasting machine and likes to use it, this is very practical. If you want to be closer to historical templates if you have the opportunity and are interested, the following could possibly work, but this is not verifiable and does not bring the same result as sandblasting:
To do this, scrub the piece in dry or wet quartz sand (for a very long time). You'd probably have to "poke around" here and there as well.
I think the idea of ​​using basalt for the pommel is very good, because a quartz of this size is also expensive here.
The thing with the copper oxides in open mould casting is very interesting. Unfortunately, I gave too little time and too few resources to deal more intensively with casting and forging for the foreseeable future.

I also like the translation of the saying with the pudding very much, in German it actually has a completely different meaning: "Trying something out is better than (exclusively) discussing it theoretically - i.e. studying."

[LaraC]

Sculpteur, today is the day I cast your chisel! I bought a commercial casting sand called “petrobond” locally, and I find it worked quite well. I made some mistakes. I tried casting on the side, but without gravity to help, it didn’t fill the mold perfectly. Next time vertically! I also made a mistake calculating the amount of bronze necessary! I thought 300g would be enough, as the chisel blank only weighed 22g, but I was wrong! Part of the error was that the hole to pour the bronze into was probably too big, so I lost some bronze there. Still, the result looks quite gorgeous, and I think it will still serve! I just have to finish grinding the bevels, and the flat end. I am grinding it on Japanese water stones like in the bronze age, so it should fit the part well. I just need a few days to finish the grinding, but if you would like to somehow let me know what your mailing address is, I will mail it once it is ready! I cast it as 11% tin bronze, since I read that most of bronze age bronze was between 10 and 12%.

This is it just coming out of the mold and still hot. After casting, the mold burned for quite some time, which was different compared to the other sand.

Here are two pictures of the chisel after working on grinding the bevels for some time. You can see the bronze didn’t fill the mold properly, and on the top side the appearance of the bronze is because of its contact with the air. It should still work though, the surface layer being pretty shallow. I can grind it off with a file if you want, just let me know, but that will take quite a bit more time! You can see the colours of the tinted glass on the surface of the bottom, red, yellow, and green. I quite like them, would be a shame to grind them off! The grind doesn’t look symmetrical in the pictures, but that is because the shape of the tip is not even. I promise it will look perfect when I am done grinding!

All in all, I’m pretty happy with it, though squaring off the edges with a file will make it look more perfect. You never know what will happen on casting day!

[Sculpteur]

Fantastic Lara, I am very happy!
The chisel turned out really nice, especially the surface coloring!
You don't have to grind much more. The more original the chisel looks, the better!
I will send you my postal address in a private message here in the forum.
Please let me know what the shipping will cost so I can return the favor.
If you design the chisel too beautifully, there is a risk that I no longer dare to subject it to relentless testing.
Wonderful work, keep it up!
I am excited!

[LaraC]

Thanks Sculpteur, it cleaned up quite nicely! I hope I gave it the right grind, but if not, I'm sure you can shape it differently later! I'll put it in the post soon, hope you enjoy it!

[Sculpteur]

Wow Lara!
This is pretty nice!
Also the angle of the cutting edge looks correct.
I think you have found a new buisness!
Im very excited and I'm curious to see how the chisel will react to the materials. Hopefully the mail gets across the ocean safely.

If one day I need 1000 chisels, I know who to turn to.

[Sculpteur]

Hi Lara! The Eagle has landed!
The chisel looks pretty amazing!
I never had realise, that bronzes can look really similar to gold.


[addendum:]
I will subject the chisel to a merciless series of tests at the next opportunity.
[end of addendum]

[LaraC]

I'm glad it made it safely, thanks! It's true it can look similar to gold when well polished. I think using the stones helps! That's why they called them "golden swords" in the book of invasions!

Looking forward to your results! I read already it didn't fare well against the granite. Not too surprised, because my steel chisels don't do well against granite either! Still, it's an interesting investigation!

Regards,

[Sculpteur]

Yes, for me it's fascinating that this chisel is from the other side of the ocean. I think with this chisel i can do some more extensive tryings with a wider view to the antiquities. It's a really nice well formed tool. But it definetely has no chance to cut granites. But it works much better in limestone and sandstone than coppertools.
But as you say: also steel tools can have problems with granites and other hardstones. It's not enough to have steel - you also need the correct steel and the special tempering-technologies - and that's the fascinating thing about innovations in the past.

[Sculpteur]

Hi Lara!
It works well! Just have a look at the link!: there you can find a first video on the subject (to be continued).

https://youtu.be/ccsc-w6qE0A

[Nachtrag vom 18.08.23:] Videolink wurde editiert, es liegt eine neue Version des Videos vor. [Nachtrag Ende]

[LaraC]

That's great, thanks for sharing! I knew it was a good chisel!

Regards,

[Sculpteur]

I'm happy if you're happy with the results: Take a look at the second video on the topic: the demands on the chisel are gradually being raised mercilessly:


https://youtu.be/CA6ReHnsXOo