Those blacksmiths...one's a dwarf, one's an elf

I love that the two smiths look exactly how every rpg portrays a master Smith and their apprentice

2024: "Welcome to the dawn of the nuclear age. Today, we'll begin by mining our own uranium"

It is worth noting that early Iron was of much lower quality than any modern forged steel and in fact it was in many cases even worse than bronze, but the real advantage was that it was dirt cheap as compared to bronze and you could equip with iron weapons much bigger armies than with bronze weapons due to abundancy and availability of iron.

"It will keel." Oops, this isn't Forged in Fire.

I knew it, this whole series was just a way for you to learn blacksmithing.

At the time, bronze was equal to if not superior to iron. You were using a precision made steel bar to forge that sword. Historically, that bloomery iron you made, that was about 90% rock 10% metal, would be what actual smiths had to work with! You can see why they preferred bronze for many years even after the technology to produce iron was developed... Proper steel however, is in a different league to bronze (and bloomery iron).

This video is a bit historically inaccurate. During the transition period they would cast iron weapons like they did bronze. Bronze also is slightly harder than wrought iron, which makes me believe they didn't use a comparable metal, and just opted for the lowest carbon steel they had available. They didn't really have any control over the carbon in the iron at the time too, and you would have widely varying levels of hardness. Some of the earliest iron swords were pig iron cast around a bronze core and the blast furnace for melting and casting iron has been around since 500BC. A concave edge was also something that came later on. During the transitional time period iron weapons were generally inferior to their bronze counterparts except in one major aspect, it's much easier to mass produce when you only need one ore.

Bloomery steel: crumbles Andy: time to whip out my era apropriate kiln

Can't wait for a crucible steel episode. Earliest example of a sword we have is circa 600BCE, and I can just imagine how much hell you'll go through trying to make it. Good way to recycle your bloom, though, as many recipes used a mix of bloomery iron and carbonaceous material, or bloom and cast iron.

Love that the expert with a fedora hat underlined that swords were a secondary weapon not only in the bronze age but in history. Spears along with bow and arrows have been the predominent weapons of hunting and war for thousands of years before swords even came on the scene, and the short reach of swords and daggers makes them a very last resort weapon.

Can't wait to see you keep going I'm liking how the series is coming along.

I understand the limitations of the show but you're using modern hemogenous Iron against bronze which i don't think is representative in any meaningful way. The whole downside of iron is that pre-industrial iron and steel were very difficult to homogenize. I think crucible steel was the only pre-industrial steel that was fairly homogenous and it was not commonly available and almost mythical in places like Europe up into the early modern period. so while you used iron of similar carbon content to your bloom iron it's still not in any way a comparable material because you would have to do some metallurgical wizardry to ever get that bloom properly homogenized. I mean without a Bessemer blast furnace that is. I look forward to that episode.

You should definitely retry the iron smelting. Iron tools will be incredibly useful for progressing. Some good suggestions in the comments about how to work your bloom. And next time, try to stick with just your bronze age tools

Everyone knows when you get your first iron you make a pickaxe, smh

As the Bronze age fighter pointed out: Historical soldiers weren't trained to block with their blades. They had shields for that. Blocking with a blade puts you in a situation where the opponent is building momentum, and you are not. You might as well be flat on your ass in other words. That isn't to say that no one ever won a fight because they blocked with their blade, but that's the rare emergency where it's necessary. At the end of the day: A Bronze wielding warrior could easily kill an Iron one. And no; the Iron one will not be chopping through their blade. The tests here prove Bronze bends; it's not brittle. And only bends if the one holding it makes the mistake of blocking with it.

Was literally just binging through HTME videos. What a nice surprise to see uploaded right as soon as I was running out of their videos.

I don't think he researched it enough, and I'm not sure he'll do the smelt again unless he improves the bellows, but after you do the melt and break open the furnace to reveal what you've got, you're meant to take it *IMMEDIATELY* and smash the bajeebus out of it for a long time. Basically what he made was a very soft rock/carbon thing which kind of acts like ceramic. It is also very crumbly, which means it's brittle. But that chunk had lots and lots of tiny nuggets of Iron and Steel strewn throughout it, which you saw when it was broken down (think of it a bit like a chocolate chip cookie, but very dangerous, burnt, and probably not very good for you to eat or even touch). What you need to do is while everything is still *VERY* hot (as in, get it out of the furnace stack as soon as you stop bellowing) and start smashing it. What you're doing is forcing all the kind of sticky, treacle-like Iron/Steel mix to move around inside the ball, and because it's sticky, it grabs onto other pieces of almost molten hot metal, and after a while, it all consolidates into one ball of metal surrounded by the slag. Because you're hitting it, you're exerting energy on the ball which will keep it hotter for longer, and not brittle like you found out. Once it cools, that's it, it's not going to come back together unless you smelt it all back down together. But once you've smashed all the tiny bits of metal together and it's cooled, you just give it a quick smash and most of the slag will crumble away! That, or drop it in water, but that sometimes ends up with an explosion, or everything shattering. Both less than desirable outcomes from the experiment. I hope you do it all again just so you can experience what people went through, and what good historical weapon recreators go through to get a very period accurate piece of _art_

This title says forged "iron" and the video even shows a chart differentiating between iron and steel, but the people in the video constantly change between using the words iron and then steel. So we still have no idea whether the sword is actually made of very low carbon iron or higher carbon steel (low carbon or medium carbon steel).

Early iron celtic swords were made out of bog iron, because that stuff was around everywhere in wetlands. But those swords were crazy easy to bend, so what would happen during a fight was that warriors would throw their swords on the ground at some point, and step on them to straighten them out, then pick them back up again and continue. Kind of a crazy thing to think about.

I love that bronze age angle grinder.

I think you should make a second attempt at melting iron, I think you should at least extract a workable amount of iron before you move on to just using modern supplies.

Thank you for the demo ! That was a question that must be asked about ancient warfare !

Best line: "He got hit right in the melon."

Idk if I'm just on drugs but this level of fruit ninjas is so realistic

"Time for the real test. The coconut." *Laughs in Skallagrim chopping into branches*

17:03 Mad respect for tasting the fruits while testing the swords. Most people wanna shoot fruit but never stop to taste it.

I can imagine boomers in the past saying "back in my time we used real weapons not these iron toys"

The Great Fruit Wars lore is getting deep. I dig it!

this man really going to confuse archaeologists Edit wow 300 and i have bad grammer in this Post wow

Can't believe he said "advantage", rather than iron age had an edge...

Fascinating. Great work from all concerned. And this makes the work of ancient blacksmiths, who didn't have access to hydraulic presses or electric grinders, all the more admirable.

When you smelt iron, smash the bloom with a wooden hammer while it’s hot to try to make it easier to forge together later

This is such a cool show. I really like how down to earth the sword caster and blacksmiths were. Looking forward to the next chapter in the series, rock on 😎

I’m 20 seconds in and by the footage that the bronze sword has not been hammer hardened properly.... this example is historically incorrect.... it’s my day job to study Bronze Age weaponary... there seems to be a disruption to the surface of the bronze. This is work hardened by thousands of taps with a hammer to strengthen the edge and flats

No idea what made me search for this. But this video was very fun to watch.

I finally caught up with this series after discovering it Thursday night and immediately binging the whole playlist. Now I have to wait for new episodes :( Subscribed!

I'm not sure the direct combat between bronze and iron is what makes the former superior. Since most armed combat doesn't last more than a few blows, it seems unlikely that either weapon would break before the battle was decided, however in a contest between armies, one outfitted with iron weapons would see greater longevity in their sword throughout a battle. Whether impacting shields, armor, flesh, or other weapons, the iron weapons will be more likely to remain viable for the next strike. This combined with a longer usable lifetime justified the additional craftsmanship required for iron weapons (and tools)

Great. Exactly the clip I wished for. Thx.

Omg amazing conclusion of the blades clashing there

The main issue with your bloom is that you didn't squeeze out the viscous silica trapped in it.

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Pretty interesting stuff, though I can see why when you had access to tin and copper, you would have an advantage with being able to outfit more soldiers far quicker. Though I could see officers and veteran soldiers receiving iron weapons... Though that sword was made with modern soft steel, not the stuff that you would've seen back in the day, that one bar alone would've been of mythical status in Europe at the time. You could pour 30 or so swords before finishing one iron/steel blade, and there's the whole argument of "good enough" to kill.

Great casting video again!

Joe & Adri are the best!!

you need to make iron hammer, anvil, tongs!, files and axe.

Sweet! Awesome show!

I am shure that andy will make almost everything from scratch and waiting for video that will be about gunsmithing

17:15 mom giving me hair cut

the purpose of this series was that he noticed that the stuff he made was made with modern tools and wanted to do a series where he actually made everything. And every episode he slowly drifts from that goal. But now he is Using modern furnaces,power tools etc. He barely uses materials that he got from scratch either he's using tons of store bought material.

Andy: While you were partying, I studied the blade!

"Swords were a secondary weapon in the bronze age..." Dude; they have ALWAYS been secondary weapons.

Got to love the running story of the nation of the fruit people. It's great.

Is funny that the first time a watch dr.stone the first ting that came to my mind was this Chanel

I have to say, putting googly eyes on the fruit feels like a real psycho move

I love everything about this!

What most people don't know is bronze swords were still being used well into the iron age, simply because they were the more superior weapon until smiths figured out how to grade the different parts of the bloom and laminate the different types of steel with iron...such as on swords used by the Vikings, Samurai, and other warrior cultures who forged composite blades.

so this might be skipping a few generations, but he probably has all the materials to make highland bagpipes. I honestly just wanna see Andy attempt to play some scottish hornpipes lol.

The fruit scene was hilarious, is it sad how I empathized with them once you had the Google-y eyes on them?! 😂

Fascinating. Subscribed.

15:36 But overall, it kills. Why don't I see anyone commenting on this? It was such a Forged in fire moment right there hahaha

It's a cool video, but I've noticed a few things that's not accurate. to avoid bending, bronze age swords mostly had a thick spine to make it more rigid. Also, bronze should be a bit harder than wrought iron: 60-258 on the Vickers scale compared to 30-80. (but definetely not as hard as even low carbon steel which is around 130-600). It wasn't iron's superiority that prevailed, but the availability (compared to tin, required for bronze) and the requirement of only one material instead of two. After the bronze age trade collapse and the smelting technologies improvement, iron was cheaper and easier to make than bronze, so it became the main metal to use, but not because it was a superior material at the time.

Love watching them big gloves half an inch on that belt sander lol. Gets my adrenaline pumping lol

You should DEFINITELY do a video on how to make a smith's file!! I realized when the smith said "which would normally be done with a file, but... we have a belt grinder." That I could picture how to make a hammer, a pair of tongs, but I couldn't come up with how one makes a file!

Actually this isnt bronze, it's copper. Bronze is a mix of copper and tin and has different propperties than plain copper. The true test should compare the real bronze(copper+tin) and the orychalk(copper+zinc) which were the main alloys of the bronze age with the forged iron which is technically steel

5:43 He said it right! Take note, Andy!

Can't wait for chain\scale maille!!

I like the sword talk for real! swords are secondary weapons for foot soldiers and last resorts for some unless they had a short dagger wich is great in very close combat

"You have to keep your eyes peeled." I see what you did there.

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Bronze definitely held a edge in being castable, wich is a way quicker process of manufracture. But it also limited the size and shapes. It was very hard or outright impossible to forge. And the resources were a lot more limited to get, as you needed tin and copper. With Iron you had to use forging. Wich while a longer process, also offered a lot better control. Casting was not possible until closer tot he modern age. But the resources (Iron and Carbon) were comparatively easy to get.

Now making a sword from 6-2 Ti & Maraging Inox, compound welded & twisted together would be a challenge, but if possible, would make the ultimate sword. Love that bronze sword found in Czechia with the cast in 8 sided handle, great for grip.

When do we get to the mithril, adamant, and runite era.

There's John Boy Walton with long hair and a sledge hammer. Okay, wait,....am I looking at a "Tom Boy Walton" here?

It is important to note; ancient bronze would have used things we do not use today. Because they are poisonous metals. Like arsenic. Leaving ancient bronzes a bit closer to iron, plus the comparison here would be analogous to a very expensive iron blade for the early iron age, since well. Wrought iron was the first stuff we really could make, and low carbon steel and Wrought iron equivalents don't really cut the mustard to make historical speculations on. They are a bit *less* durable overall and a bit harder and stronger. But good episode; I hope you use your historically accurate iron to mock up another test in the future!

Try making Bolas, a weapon used to trap things as the last stone age weapon.

Greg kind of feels like a part of the team by now

The coin shortage happened cause everyone saw HTME's video on making a sword from pennies

I can imagine how legends about magic swords began: when a bronze age culture was conquered by an iron age culture and saw those blades. Longer, tougher and sharper than anything they could make. Then, when the war was over, one of the most technically inclined minds of the bronze age culture asked a blacksmith of the iron age culture where that metal came from. The blacksmith explained their smelting technique, but added that the first iron came from the sky, enveloped in fire, and when it struck the ground, it created a huge crater with the most deafening noise anyone had ever heard, louder than any thunder. That day, somebody's mind was blown.

As a learning Blacksmith I found this interesting and lotsof great information. As a gardener them mellons wasn't ready to pick or eat, So glad I raise my own. Great video, Thanks

It just occurred to me: I don’t think you have made a plough. You should make a plough.

If Age of Empires has taught me anything, it's that Bronze Age doesn't stand a chance against the Iron Age unless you plan on a Fast Castle strategy.

The lore gets deeper and deeper each new episode

"Keep your eyes peeled" ISWYDT

It's only easier to cast than forge, when you use modern casting methods like sand casting.. Which was not done in the Bronze Age...

God, Lauren is a woman after my own heart.

Complete with a brutal tale of melon butchery. Glory to our sacred melon ancestors. Their carnage fueled this show.

Parabéns. Ótimo vídeo!!

Imagine how crazy would it be, if he re-discovered Damascus Steel by accident while making one of his videos...

The idea of magic swords makes more sense now.

I'd love to see two people in fully protective armour just take an absolute welly at eachother's blades in the bronze vs iron duel

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Hmm. I think through a combination factors what you had here was a very good quality piece of iron going up against a comparatively less good quality bronze sword (no disrespect to the smith who cast it....maybe a *bit* of disrespect to your slightly wonky work hardening :P ) - haven't watched all the videos you've done but I am curious whether it was a comparable alloy to the contemporary ones - I know they got very specific in tailoring the alloy to its use. On the iron side, good quality homogenous iron existed, and even steel tools could be produced back in the bronze age, but doing so was rare and less consistent. By the time the iron age is in full swing hey could make pretty decent ones, but a good quality bronze tends to be superior - though IIRC more so for something like armour, mechanically speaking - I have certainly seen a top class bronze naue ii cut through steel plate (under favourable conditions, but the fact it did it at all was astounding) which judging from the performance here I'm not certain this one could do (though granted that was made by possibly the world's best bronze bladesmith we have today) As for parrying with the flat of the blade....kinda sorta but not like that. A full on strike to the flat of the blade is far MORE likely to bend it than to the blade's edge (thats basic mechanics, there's a lot less depth of material to deform). If you want to block the enemy blade you want to do it with the edge, its not onyl less likely to bend the blade its also a MUCH stronger barrier (for slightly more complex mechanical reasons) The disadvantage of course is edge damage, but we do see edge damage like that on artefacts. Using the flat of the blade would be for a *deflection*, so you're doing it at a slight angle and not taking the brunt of the impact, just giving the incoming strike a slight nudge and letting it skid off. The real advantage of iron is the logistics, and not needing tin (which has onyl a few large sources in the entire Mediterranean) Once you get to actual steel though, yeah its better

Well, in some cultures it was pretty popular scare tactic to EAT YOUR FRICKIN' ENEMIES

Unless you are cutting harder stuff like coconuts then the sharpness of the swords don't really matter as the stuff you are cutting are really soft and pretty much any blade can cut

Thank you Greg for helping this guy go from ooga booga to oogus boogus

I have a suggestion. Make Damascus Steel. You can't miss that in the iron age

if this came out around 8:30 his time then when was the upload started?

i liked the random little hammering noises added in during the forge section, would have been cool to really embrace that sound for the music there

Never let him play with sharp objects without proper supervision.