Board Thread:General Mod Discussion/@comment-32765490-20180501161434/@comment-32765490-20180502163444

You're right, I don't know a whole lot about forging, it's not like I've actually done any myself. And I didn't think that there weren't any blacksmiths left in this century, I just thought that it was a very rare art that only metallurgy-enthusiasts and people who really liked medieval history knew how to do. I didn't realize that people did it as a hobby or anything.

And I was never saying that bronze was better than iron in all aspects. I have been saying repeatedly that bronze sucks as a weapon, but is better than iron as armor.

So I did a little bit more research and figured out what the case is:

At the time that bronze was in widespread usage, smiths and people knew a lot about bronze. When iron came on the scene, it was new to everyone, and iron armor/weapons were inferior to bronze simply because people didn't know half as much about iron as they did bronze. Thus, bronze was superior to iron at the time. As iron increased in usage, smiths began to become more and more comfortable and familiar with it until iron armor and weapons became all-around better. Of course, once steel was invented, it surpassed both and was the clear winner in all areas.

So that's what I think the answer is.

By the way, Kick, how much carbon did you use in your iron weapons, if any at all?

Also, sources seem to indicate that the bronze used in armor/weapons during that time was 88% copper, 12% tin. It seems weird since you said the more tin, the better. Have you tried forging bronze with these ratios?