Comment on Radioactive Steel
87Six@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
Maybe game mechanics aren’t so unrealistic after all because now “you need this rare metal that is only found in ancient relics and we don’t know how to make it” sounds really fucking plausible. Wtf.
Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world 2 days ago
There are examples of lost metals in real life. Damascus/wootz steel (the actual historical alloy, not the pattern welding technique often marketed as Damascus steel) was famous for millennia for its ability to hold a sharp edge and resist shattering, before the technique to make it was lost in the early 1900s.
Modern material analysis has identified some of how and why it was so resilient and metallurgists have come up with reproductions that achieve some of its qualities, but the exact technique and circumstances behind it remain lost to time.
yuri@pawb.social 2 days ago
A guy called Frank Richtig made knives from the 30s to the 70s using a heat treatment that’s never been replicated. He would do demonstrations where he’d use a hammer and a knife to cut through steel, and then use that same knife to slice through paper as if nothing had happened.
even heavily worn knives fetch a high price these days.
Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Oh no, another rabbit hole.
Well, down I go!