casting

OpenArch Dialogue with Skills Issue
***What we know about Bronze Age metalworking in Italy basically relies on finished artefacts and on stone, clay or bronze implements involved in the process of manufacturing (tuyères, crucibles, moulds, hammers, chisels, et cetera; Bianchi, 2010; Bianchi, in press).

Spawned from an HMS (Historical Metallurgy Society) conference at West Dean College in 2010, this book is a unique compilation of papers written by both academics and craftsmen. Further articles not directly drawn from the conference have been included and cover non-ferrous experiments and an ethnographic study of blacksmithing...

7th UK EA Conference Cardiff 2013
***In spite of the very large quantity of Bronze Age swords in Northern Italy, only a few stone moulds have been found. Tests have shown that carving such big stone moulds (more than 60 cm long) requires a large amount of raw material, deep knowledge and skill, rather than a wide set of implements...

7th UK EA Conference Cardiff 2013
***The so-called ‘Treasure of A Urdiñeira‘ (A Gudiña, south-east of the province of Ourense, Spain) consists of an assemblage of three metal artefacts: two gold bracelets and a bronze button or disk, dated from the transition between the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age...

In this study the sustainability of crucibles used during the Scandinavian Bronze Age is tested. Due to the crucible’s high or low sustainability the idea of it being a disposable object may be ratified or discarded. Earlier experiments focusing on the casting process in Scandinavian Bronze Age have concluded that crucibles such as the ones used during Bronze Age were disposable objects due...

1999 Wilhelminaoord Workshop
***The limits of precision casting were explored experimentally at the Bronze Casting Workshop at Wilhelminaoord, the Netherlands, by making wax models, moulds and lost wax castings using essentially early metalworking conditions. Geometrically patterned models of Dark Age type dies were used to...

1999 Wilhelminaoord Workshop
***Considerations about a lost ancient fabrication technique of bronze attachements from a merowingian treasure box pointed out that practical experiments had to be done to reconstruct the cast and coldwork. A self made oven and mould sould help to...

1999 Wilhelminaoord Workshop
***The question studied within the framework of the Wilhelminaoord Workshop was: In which way the mould material does influence the cast structure of a bronze object? For this, casts in two different mould materials...

Experiment

When the subject of techniques of reproduction was raised these questions came back to me. Casting a slab of silver and subsequently hammering it might be a way to answer some of these questions. This would involve following the suggestions of certain treatises in combination with scientific research.

Dr Leineweber (1951) has an impressive track record in German experimental archaeology, reaching over two decades back. She worked with metals, cremation experiments and much more, with museum colleagues, university students and researchers and inspiring many people in how to experiment in a way which is not only fun, but brings progress...