Excellent work man,  the bronze age is my favorite,  bronze isnt as good as other metals(strength wise),  but to me its the most beautiful of all I think. at least to me.

Share away. And bronze is probably my favorite metal. I just love the look. I'll try to find the axe and Maori war club I did. When I cast these, I m made two sword blanks at the same time, never finished the other yet.

Wow! That's Great! We had a gas fired forge to melt up to 50 pounds of bronze. I want to figure how to build a small one so I can still play with bronze casting.

I didn't melt that much, lol. It was a large capacity forge for the whole class. I melted about 13 or 14 pounds five going into each sword and the rest being left over bronze. which went into the axe and maori club. Wish I could cast more bronze. I think I would go with a mace head or war hammer type set up.

Lycurgus, your sword is very nice! It's a Middle Bronze Age model from Great Britain, if I recall correctly?
We were beginning to turn our "production"   into swords, but then we quarreled and no more experiments followed  
Are you going to give your sword a handle?

Wannasling, I'd really love to see your Maori club, because I've never seen one and I'm very curious! There're a lot of mace heads, especially from the Middle Age.
In my Region, a lot of bronze daggers have been found. Your sword reminds me of an Egyptian one, dating 1'500 b.C.
I'll show you some pictures of my Region's foundings, maybe you melters like them and reproduce them  


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this is one of the 4 or 5 different kinds of swords founded in my Region; this particular one is the "Tarquinia shape" sword, one of the most used in Central Italy between Bronze and Iron Age.


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This is a simple spear head;


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and this is a helmet of Etrurian shape.
All this bronze weaponry is representative of the higher period of bronze making, because belongs to 9th Century b.C. Bronze making then reached its zenith, and after some decades it will begin to fall, and iron smithing to rise. Knives, then daggers and swords, began to be forged in iron, but mantained most of the bronze one's shapes. Those iron objects are what I'm trying to replicate nowaday.

Here're some pictures of daggers found in a depot of 27, dating to the Early Bronze Age in my Region.

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Greetings,
Mauro.

wannasling wrote on Dec 30^th, 2010 at 11:22am:


I completely agree with you! One of the objectives of experimental archaeology is to test the functionality of the replicas - I could make dozens of cheap wall hangers, but only an effectively working tool, or weapon, can make me proud of my work! And, by testing its effectiveness, I can even record how does it wear, and understand particular shapes (example, a curved sword is best suitable for close melee combats, a huge one fits mounted units, and so on...).

About steel: I know a lot of different types, but I do not use steel when I forge: steel was unknown in the period that I re-create, or, better, ancient ironsmiths forged raw iron, and understood that it became harder by tempering it. In more recent times (from Vth Century b.C.) they even begun to forge different pieces of the same tool, with different grades of hardening (a spear head found in Etruria revealed 6 different pieces of iron, each forged and tempered separately, to grant high hardness in the center, but long-lasting sharpening edges), but I'm involved in IXth-VIIth Centuries iron smithing, so I don't use steel. Howewer, if you would like to try, 440c or c40 steels works fine, but there's a trick for making the finest sword with the minimum effort:

get yourself a pack of cheap truck springs, choose the one you prefer, and shape it as a sword. Add the edge and the handle. Remember to work it without using any heat, or that excellent steel will lose its temper. The work is very hard, but in the end you'll have a sword capable of crushing forged ones. No other steel can beat that one, in making a sword; I've tried one of that against an old anvil and it cut the iron for the depth of almost half an inch!  

Don't think that bronze is weak: it just needs some after-melting additional work: after you've got the object (finished, ready to be hafted), put its edge in the forge again, at a moderate heat (from 500 to 650°), and then hammer it. The heat is necessary to grant a certain flexibility, because with the hammering you distribute the cooper along the edge, thus making it more hard. You could even temper it, but it's ininfluent, because it's not the carbon molecules that you must fix (as it happens when you temper hammered iron).

About weapons: we should open another big topic, about which one is the best weapon. I can tell you that it depends on a lot of factors: which kind of battle will you find yourself involved in, how strong you are, how agile, how much self-confident; how is the weapon made, the terrain... I myself prefer a short spear, combined with a small round shield and a cap, these made of hard leather. I'd add a medium sized (about 25, 30 centimeters long) knife, just in case the melee turns too close for using the spear, and a bow to the spear, for killing or maiming my enemy before he reaches me. But blowing weapons could be devasting, such as heavy axes, which are said to be capable to split a horse's head with a single blow. I repeat, it all depends on a vaste range of factors. I've practiced boxe for some time, and kung fu, and have been involved in some street riots, and I can tell that you almost win when you begin a fight with a high morale and a perfect control of your breath. After that, it's all about how much you've trained yourself in the weapon you like (talking about melee fights   ).
 
Greetings,
Mauro.

Well, I'll be the first to admit that I have no idea on how to temper the edge of a bronze sword. I don't have the room or equipment either, sadly. I'll see if I can find some truck springs and play around with them. Nice work jlasud.