I’ve recently watched a video of Tom Scott on his second channel where he made (with the help of a blacksmith) make a bottle opener.
The guy first made Tom to blacksmith a punch or whatever then he mentioned that “Blacksmiths had to make their own tools” or something among the lines anyways.
So it struck me. How did people make their first tools? Are there any records? Or were people just banging rocks to the metal, made a primitive sledgehammer then used that further on?
How did they even came up with the idea that if you put metal in fire you can *remodel* it?
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The first metal working was done with metals with a reasonably low melting point – things like lead (328^(o)C), tin (232^(o)C) and zinc (420^(o)C) will easily melt over an open fire. Since these melt so easily, it can happen by accident. That gives you the knowledge that metals exist and can be melted with heat. Of course, these metals are all quite soft and weak but from there you can start experimenting to find other metals that are more useful.
Silver (893^(o)C), gold (1063^(o)C) and copper (1084^(o)C) melt a bit higher than is possible over an open fire but wood is still ok a a fuel if start build a basic furnace to contain and focus the heat. Copper is relatively easy to cast and by mixing in a little of the lower melting metals (Copper + Zinc = brass, Copper + Tin = Bronze) you can lower the melting point and get different properties (Brass is corrosion resistant, looks a bit like gold and is malleable, bronze was the hardest metal in common use for a while which is a useful property for sharp tools)
The good thing about all of these metals is that they can be easily cast so you don’t need tools to make basic things out of them – you just make a mold out of something like packed sand or clay and pour it in (so long as you have purged all moisture out, otherwise it will flash to steam and the whole thing might blow up in your face)
Melting iron needs more like 1500^(o)C which is harder to reach . This is a fair bit higher than copper but still achievable in a furnace. Melting iron was recorded around 1200 BC by the Hittites who discovered black rocks that melt. Iron is a useful material but to get the most of it you have to make steel – The knowledge that you can smelt metals to get alloys was already around (see copper alloys above) but smelting steel is a more challenging process so took time to get right.
To get tools from nothing, you would probably start by casting them then use those tools to make better tools and so on. You could also use stone tools but once you’re working with decent metals, they are the way to go (imagine trying to get a smooth finish on a metal part when working with a stone tool)
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