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Hey so this might be a bit different, but I like demonstrating aspects of lore in real life for people and one of the things that I have been working on for friends and for my own curiosity is the use of Scrap Copper to construct rudimentary tools. Copper (along with Brass and Bronze) are some of the few metals that had reliably survived and as such they are commonly used to make tools, jewelry, and ceremonial objects by the majority of drekir societies across the dragonscape. It's common, easy to find and easy to work into tools.
So here are two examples of what could be some tools made by drekir, both have been cold formed into shape mostly through the use of Rocks as anvils and hammers, though I did do some extra work on the axe with a ballpeen hammer on the concrete. (the axehead was annealed once, the pipe knife was not annealed at all).
So first to discuss is the "Pipe knife" as it was very quick to make and the idea was to see what I could do with no tools and a chunk of copper pipe (sorta like a drek scavenger in the early days of the dragonscape). All I did was crush the pipe, work harden and sharpen one edge of it to as sharp of an edge as possible. After that I had a small chunk of paracord and figured "Why not?" and wrapped it around. It's not the cleanest edge nor is it the sharpest but it cuts meat and reed plants well enough, though dulls quickly with any sort of wood or bone. So I suppose a very crude sorta skinning knife?
Next is the scrap axe. The axe blade is made of a 1/2" piece of scrap copper that was hammered flat enough to be broken into two parts with the longer going here ont othe final axe and it was sharpened. I found a branch that was part of a BSU tree pruning thing that was sawed up and I decided that would make for a good handle, I am pretty sure it's cottonwood but to be honest im not fully sure. I carved a slot into a part of the branch on the side to fit the axe blade, to attach it, I glued it to the wood with Hide Glue as its a glue drekir could make a version of (though pine pitch and other things could work too in the setting) and to secure everything into place I gave it a good wrap with a chunk of thick scrap leather I had laying around (Scalehide or scaleather would be the in canon equivalent) It is only about a foot long so... more of a hatchet but that is fine! I may also put some more decoration onto the handle as I go along as at the moment its pretty bare.
I haven't tested the hatchet yet (I just got done with it a few hours ago) but I am excited to give it a test out! It's not razor sharp (its an axe so its best not razor sharp) but its decently sharp. Hoping it will work on wood well enough though we will have to see!
Some future projects might be things like projectile points, sewing needles and awls from brass, bronze and copper, and hopefully a nicer knife or an adze. Though those will have to take time as my school life is about to get REAL busy so i will probably just be doing the comic and schoolwork for the next few months.
anywho yeah, it was fun to make these and i might update this with the results of the axe test!
So here are two examples of what could be some tools made by drekir, both have been cold formed into shape mostly through the use of Rocks as anvils and hammers, though I did do some extra work on the axe with a ballpeen hammer on the concrete. (the axehead was annealed once, the pipe knife was not annealed at all).
So first to discuss is the "Pipe knife" as it was very quick to make and the idea was to see what I could do with no tools and a chunk of copper pipe (sorta like a drek scavenger in the early days of the dragonscape). All I did was crush the pipe, work harden and sharpen one edge of it to as sharp of an edge as possible. After that I had a small chunk of paracord and figured "Why not?" and wrapped it around. It's not the cleanest edge nor is it the sharpest but it cuts meat and reed plants well enough, though dulls quickly with any sort of wood or bone. So I suppose a very crude sorta skinning knife?
Next is the scrap axe. The axe blade is made of a 1/2" piece of scrap copper that was hammered flat enough to be broken into two parts with the longer going here ont othe final axe and it was sharpened. I found a branch that was part of a BSU tree pruning thing that was sawed up and I decided that would make for a good handle, I am pretty sure it's cottonwood but to be honest im not fully sure. I carved a slot into a part of the branch on the side to fit the axe blade, to attach it, I glued it to the wood with Hide Glue as its a glue drekir could make a version of (though pine pitch and other things could work too in the setting) and to secure everything into place I gave it a good wrap with a chunk of thick scrap leather I had laying around (Scalehide or scaleather would be the in canon equivalent) It is only about a foot long so... more of a hatchet but that is fine! I may also put some more decoration onto the handle as I go along as at the moment its pretty bare.
I haven't tested the hatchet yet (I just got done with it a few hours ago) but I am excited to give it a test out! It's not razor sharp (its an axe so its best not razor sharp) but its decently sharp. Hoping it will work on wood well enough though we will have to see!
Some future projects might be things like projectile points, sewing needles and awls from brass, bronze and copper, and hopefully a nicer knife or an adze. Though those will have to take time as my school life is about to get REAL busy so i will probably just be doing the comic and schoolwork for the next few months.
anywho yeah, it was fun to make these and i might update this with the results of the axe test!
Category Artwork (Digital) / Miscellaneous
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 561 x 1280px
File Size 179.2 kB
Thanks! I feel they're pretty crude (Rocks and a lot of time mostly to make these) but at least copper being such a pretty metal helps a lot. I am excited to see what they look like as they oxidize! they've started to dull a little bit which is the first sign of oxidation though I am excited to see where that goes.
What about railroad spikes? I recently learned from an unrelated source that the maximum corrosion rate for exposed iron is 0.48 inches per millennium (and a minimum of 0.001 inches per millennium). And railroad spikes are both pretty nice and chunky and relatively well protected. So I think they might be a pretty good source of tool parts. For stabbing, hammering, chiseling, and digging, maybe. Not particularly good for cutting, chopping, slicing, dicing, or sawing, though.
Thoughts?
Source: https://youtu.be/WCpPg4FHP1Q
Thoughts?
Source: https://youtu.be/WCpPg4FHP1Q
The hard part is mostly trying to make use of them in forming them. To forge steel you need a good amount of knowledge on forging and heating it, and hammering it to shape, it requires someone to be both an experienced blacksmith on everything with steel and knowledgeable on making all the tools for blacksmithing (hammers, tongs, brushes, etc.) from nothing, and the knowledge to make properly coked charcoal that can heat that steel up. How exactly are you going to remove the rust that has formed on it in that time? A rusted spike isn't that useful.
Its one of those examples where its technically there but its hard for a drek to justify using it and going through all the trouble of setting up the infrastructure vs the far more simple prospect of hammering some copper into form. In some ways like steel girders.
If you want to mess with that railroad spike, you have to put so much work into the infrastructure, tools, etc. that you already don't have in order to make a tool that you could of made far easier through just hammering some copper with some rocks
The other thing to note is there are a lot of other decaying factors in the DragonScape, the reality warping of the pulse, magical destruction caused by mana, obelisks and voicelakes, deliberate destruction by the sivilão, etc. that tends to render a lot of the more rural infrastructure more or less gone and a lot of the cities far more damaged than they were prepulse. The Creation of the DragonScape and the 100 years between the Pulse and the Awakening are their own sort of incredibly destructive series of events that do everything from radically shift the geography of the americas to burn down entire cities.
Also I have seen that video, its a nice video! And also very one sided and reductive of a lot of the reasons archaeological organics like wood, basketry, etc. survive as long as they do (with the majority of that time being in a state that is unusable to anyone walking along, barring lithics) As the question is not just the if something perserves, but how useful it is to someone stumbling upon it 100 years or more later.
Its one of those examples where its technically there but its hard for a drek to justify using it and going through all the trouble of setting up the infrastructure vs the far more simple prospect of hammering some copper into form. In some ways like steel girders.
If you want to mess with that railroad spike, you have to put so much work into the infrastructure, tools, etc. that you already don't have in order to make a tool that you could of made far easier through just hammering some copper with some rocks
The other thing to note is there are a lot of other decaying factors in the DragonScape, the reality warping of the pulse, magical destruction caused by mana, obelisks and voicelakes, deliberate destruction by the sivilão, etc. that tends to render a lot of the more rural infrastructure more or less gone and a lot of the cities far more damaged than they were prepulse. The Creation of the DragonScape and the 100 years between the Pulse and the Awakening are their own sort of incredibly destructive series of events that do everything from radically shift the geography of the americas to burn down entire cities.
Also I have seen that video, its a nice video! And also very one sided and reductive of a lot of the reasons archaeological organics like wood, basketry, etc. survive as long as they do (with the majority of that time being in a state that is unusable to anyone walking along, barring lithics) As the question is not just the if something perserves, but how useful it is to someone stumbling upon it 100 years or more later.
ok so there are still a couple problems here assuming we're talking about the above example of a heavily rusted railroad spike.
1) Why go through so much trouble to make one tool in the first place? Assuming all of this works. This feels like an occams razor problem. You can either spend a ton of effort and time to sand all the rust that has built up over 130 years onto an old railway spike, and then sand it in such a way to turn it into a tool (give it an edge, a point, etc.). Or you can spend that time finding a piece of copper, hammering it flat and putting a quick edge on it to skin that snake now.
For a small piece of iron that isn't likely to survive at all in 200 years is not going to be in a very useful state 100+ years into that time. It's going to be a lot more effort than its worth to try and change a rusted hunk of scrap into a useful tool when compared to simply cold forming copper or copper alloys.
2) There is a reason why sandpaper was, at its earliest, invented in the 13th century and only really took off in the 19th century and it has a lot to do with glues. The Glues that drekir would likely have at their disposal are glues like Pine Pitch, Hide Glue, etc. These are strog glues but they're also very thick, globby glues that don't lend themselves terribly well towards making something like a good, even abrasive surface on a flexible platform for sandpaper. For much of the history of sanding things like abrasive and soft stones were used like limestone or sandstone, along with a variety of plants such as Japanese Horsetail. But in regards to making sandpaper it's going to be difficult.
And again, as a foraging society where you are either busy gathering food or, with the freetime you find yourself and the want to spend that freetime likely going through a difficult process of handmaking sandpaper, its far more straightforward to use natural abrasives like sandstone. Again drekir aren't trying to do the best job they possibly can in a lot of cases, good enough is good enough, they have lives to live an things to do.
So I doubt they would be using sandpaper as opposed to other quickerthings that allow them more time to do other things that are just as important. Sandpaper is a lot like Screws in history, It's useful but its incredibly hard to make without modern day industrial manufacture and making it in the dragonscape would likely be very time intensive and at least a little wasteful if it was principally being used for the purposes of sanding out a railway spike fo some strange tool that could of probably been finished with copper/copper alloys more quickly.
Basically remember that these are people who may not have all the knowhow on creating things and are people who may prefer something that is faster and good enough as opposed to spending way too much time on a piece of iron that is more simply left to corrode in favor of the quickly worked and hafted copper.
1) Why go through so much trouble to make one tool in the first place? Assuming all of this works. This feels like an occams razor problem. You can either spend a ton of effort and time to sand all the rust that has built up over 130 years onto an old railway spike, and then sand it in such a way to turn it into a tool (give it an edge, a point, etc.). Or you can spend that time finding a piece of copper, hammering it flat and putting a quick edge on it to skin that snake now.
For a small piece of iron that isn't likely to survive at all in 200 years is not going to be in a very useful state 100+ years into that time. It's going to be a lot more effort than its worth to try and change a rusted hunk of scrap into a useful tool when compared to simply cold forming copper or copper alloys.
2) There is a reason why sandpaper was, at its earliest, invented in the 13th century and only really took off in the 19th century and it has a lot to do with glues. The Glues that drekir would likely have at their disposal are glues like Pine Pitch, Hide Glue, etc. These are strog glues but they're also very thick, globby glues that don't lend themselves terribly well towards making something like a good, even abrasive surface on a flexible platform for sandpaper. For much of the history of sanding things like abrasive and soft stones were used like limestone or sandstone, along with a variety of plants such as Japanese Horsetail. But in regards to making sandpaper it's going to be difficult.
And again, as a foraging society where you are either busy gathering food or, with the freetime you find yourself and the want to spend that freetime likely going through a difficult process of handmaking sandpaper, its far more straightforward to use natural abrasives like sandstone. Again drekir aren't trying to do the best job they possibly can in a lot of cases, good enough is good enough, they have lives to live an things to do.
So I doubt they would be using sandpaper as opposed to other quickerthings that allow them more time to do other things that are just as important. Sandpaper is a lot like Screws in history, It's useful but its incredibly hard to make without modern day industrial manufacture and making it in the dragonscape would likely be very time intensive and at least a little wasteful if it was principally being used for the purposes of sanding out a railway spike fo some strange tool that could of probably been finished with copper/copper alloys more quickly.
Basically remember that these are people who may not have all the knowhow on creating things and are people who may prefer something that is faster and good enough as opposed to spending way too much time on a piece of iron that is more simply left to corrode in favor of the quickly worked and hafted copper.
I can relate to that and boy does it suck.
That is interesting! Though I am still unsure if it would be a widespread thing. If something isn't in someones paradigm then they may never get around to it and I feel like a rather niche application of soaked scaleather and various abrasives, especially to do something like clean rust off of a kinda not very useful piece of steel that is at best heavily corroded.
That is interesting! Though I am still unsure if it would be a widespread thing. If something isn't in someones paradigm then they may never get around to it and I feel like a rather niche application of soaked scaleather and various abrasives, especially to do something like clean rust off of a kinda not very useful piece of steel that is at best heavily corroded.
Also couldnt get this in in time on the edited comment, All of my research goes against that claim of iron, what are your sources and what is your proof as if that IS true then we may as well have somewhat perserved iron from the early iron age when 90% of the time from my reading into the records, if it wasnt actively preserved its mostly a rusted husk. If what you say is true then you would be finding thick metal objects that are over 500 years old sitting on the surface just fine.
Moreover If you want I can show you some articles on the corrosion of iron and galvanized steel if you are interested, I am pretty certain you are just wrong with no disrespect meant
So what are your sources outside of this one video and the links within it? These are already articles I've read through that generally seem contradicted by more recent research into these topics.
Moreover If you want I can show you some articles on the corrosion of iron and galvanized steel if you are interested, I am pretty certain you are just wrong with no disrespect meant
So what are your sources outside of this one video and the links within it? These are already articles I've read through that generally seem contradicted by more recent research into these topics.
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