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James Arlen Gillaspie
Industry Professional
Location: upstate NY Joined: 10 Nov 2005
Posts: 587
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 Posted: Mon 16 Jan, 2012 7:29 pm Post subject: |
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I'm feeling lazy right now, but curious; were the rivets analyzed to find out if they were close to pure copper? 95% Cu 5% Sn looks an awful lot like copper, but with workhardening, it behaves a lot like spring steel! It's harder than iron, too.
jamesarlen.com
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Gary Teuscher
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| Posted: Tue 17 Jan, 2012 9:41 am Post subject: |
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Copper may be softer than steel, but is it more pliable? Could it as a rivet perhaps bend better without snapping than the iron/steel mixture used for mail?
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William P
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| Posted: Tue 17 Jan, 2012 11:25 pm Post subject: |
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could a reason for copper have to do with potential problems with purity and slag within the iron rivets?
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Len Parker
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| Posted: Wed 18 Jan, 2012 5:58 am Post subject: |
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I think that armour was just like clothing to the upper-class. They were always adding decorative bits to stay ahead of everyone. After all, what isn't overly decorated in the Sutton Hoo grave? Do gold and jewels add anything to weapons and armour other than status?
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William P
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| Posted: Wed 18 Jan, 2012 11:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Len Parker wrote: | | I think that armour was just like clothing to the upper-class. They were always adding decorative bits to stay ahead of everyone. After all, what isn't overly decorated in the Sutton Hoo grave? Do gold and jewels add anything to weapons and armour other than status? |
but theres a difference between adding gold and jewels onto a helm thats was already high quality, when it doesnt make the helmet weaker.
and replacing the stronger iron rivets with weaker copper rivets something which would make your armour less functional and less able to save your life.
and this is over the whole garment apparently, sometimes a few brass maile patches were added to spruik up the maile through out history, as well as edgings. but generally maile was made of iron or even steel.
theres nothing fashionable about being dead due to having weaker armour.
unless the guy buried there had a better suit he gave to someone else and got buried in this one because they wanted to make him look pretty.
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Thu 19 Jan, 2012 4:34 am Post subject: |
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We don't know whether the rivets were weaker than iron. James has already pointed out that a small percentage of tin will give it the same strength as iron. A little more tin will make it almost as strong as steel after work-hardening. A Sutton-Hoo rivet will need metallurgical analysis.
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William P
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| Posted: Thu 19 Jan, 2012 7:37 pm Post subject: |
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| Dan Howard wrote: | | We don't know whether the rivets were weaker than iron. James has already pointed out that a small percentage of tin will give it the same strength as iron. A little more tin will make it almost as strong as steel after work-hardening. A Sutton-Hoo rivet will need metallurgical analysis. |
and if it is as strong, one advantage of copper might be that copper alloys , in theory it might be easier to get a more metellurgically consistant rivet,
it also might be that copper is better suited for resisting different kinds of pressures
i was told when comparing bronze to early iron sword, that bronze is generally harder and holds an edge better but early iron was, sort of 'tougher' it couldnt hold a harder edge but it was more resilient.
the same principles might ring true here, the alloy of copper might be overall harder and maybe less likely for the rivet itself to fail?
of course as michael edelson pointed out with his tests, generally the rivet itself didnt fail. but the ring instead.
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This is a standard topic