We're talking about bronze... but not the historical bronze you're probably thinking. Instead, we're talking about aluminum bronze and you are capable of making it. All you need are copper and aluminum scraps, found everywhere in today's world.
Code: Select all
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elaJ7CB8-YU
Seeing is believing, so before you lose interest I give you this resource as a primer on how strong it's capable of becoming as well as what not to do.
Traditional tin-based bronze has two big problems. For one, it's more than twice as soft as aluminum bronze which makes it pretty subpar by today's standards. Better than nothing, but there are too many alternatives out there to want to bother. Second, tin is actually kind of rare today. Your main source of tin will be vintage tinware which really isn't going to be worth melting down just to make a weaker, historical bronze.
"But Psychlonic, won't it be harder to melt down and alloy?"
Nope. Aluminum is still easier to melt than copper, meaning if you can make traditional bronze you can also make aluminum bronze with no problem.
Code: Select all
https://www.onlinemetals.com/en/melting-points
Code: Select all
https://material-properties.org/what-is-strength-and-hardness-of-aluminium-bronze-definition/
Code: Select all
https://material-properties.org/hardness-of-materials-brinell-mohs/
Traditional bronze as you can see has a mere BHN hardness of 75. Aluminum bronze, on the other hand, is more than double the hardness at 170 BHN. For those interested, you can't really convert 1:1 but that sits right around 53 on the Rockwell rating you might be more familiar with. Now, ~53 isn't super material, but it's more than adequate and sits up there with many steels you've probably used. It's not "close but weaker", it's 100% on par.
But wait... there's more.
Code: Select all
http://www.coyotesteel.com/assets/img/PDFs/weightspercubicfoot.pdf
What we're left with is, practically speaking for cutlery, a steel-like (in terms of strength and weight) material that you can cast from relative garbage.
Aluminum bronze is 11% aluminum to 89% copper, by weight. You can cast both materials to their individual ingots, divide ingots to their proper ratios to alloy together in a foundry - doesn't take much because you can hit the melting point of copper in some really crude set ups - then you can cast your alloy to ingot or straight to your cast.
Casting can be done easily using three proven methods - lost wax, lost styrofoam, or a more carefully made sand cast. I recommend the styrofoam method for starting out. Looking up "lost foam casting" on YouTube will net you endless hits.
The important thing to know is that bronze is cold worked to hardness. That means hammering the material after it's already been cooled down after casting. This too is covered extensively on YouTube. An anvil, improvised anvil, and time spent hammering will give you the strength you're looking for with no need to constantly reheat the material, heat treat, and temper. Much, much easier.
I give you these two sources so you can compare the numbers to 1045 and 1055:
Code: Select all
https://www.azom.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=6130
Code: Select all
https://www.azom.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=6541
I hope you guys look into this more and enjoy it, it's been mind blowing for me. I've cast a few bushcraft knives and I'd be satisfied having them alone if forced in a long term scenario with them, let alone much shorter expeditions. Or overnight usage. You're not going to dull these in short order, you're not going to notch the bevel, it's pretty badass stuff.