Why swords are so expensive?

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by nanoboy

I don't think that gears have power, per se. It would not be hard to get a big waterwheel to spin a small lathe with fairly primitive gearing.

Precision and good design (to stop them from slipping or binding regularly at that speed) and durability of the gears at that small size (as opposed to the enormous and chunky wooden gears used for millwork).

You need gears that are made of a material tough enough to stand up to the pressures and speeds when cut small enough to spin fast enough. You need gear shafts smooth enough and lubricants good enough to stop the friction from setting it on fire or wasting the energy. Going from something as large and slow as a water wheel to something as small and fast as a grinding wheel provides lots of points for things to waste energy (thus speed) and/or fail entirely.

"High technology" is about materials and tools to work the materials as much as it is about the ideas. If not moreso.

[ClayDowling]

Originally Posted by Sam Cade

Getting the edge geometry correct is a stones and files thing.

It's also a pretty fast thing that isn't generally helped by power. I can make a nice marking knife in about 10 minutes using only a hand powered grinding wheel and a simple set of oil stones for the final sharpening.

Your big grinding technology change isn't a mater of power, anyway. Adhesives were the big game changer for grinding. Once aluminum oxide could be bound securely, the modern synthetic grinding wheel could be made, which can withstand being spun at high speed, and which provided a sharper grinding surface.

Prior to that you were using sandstone, which doesn't have as sharp a grinding surface and isn't as hard. The better sandstone for grinding wheels comes from a place where my family used to own property, and I've used the stones for sharpening. It takes a lot of patience, they're nowhere near as fast as the aluminum oxide wheels, and they wear a lot faster.

[nanoboy]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Precision and good design (to stop them from slipping or binding regularly at that speed) and durability of the gears at that small size (as opposed to the enormous and chunky wooden gears used for millwork).

You need gears that are made of a material tough enough to stand up to the pressures and speeds when cut small enough to spin fast enough. You need gear shafts smooth enough and lubricants good enough to stop the friction from setting it on fire or wasting the energy. Going from something as large and slow as a water wheel to something as small and fast as a grinding wheel provides lots of points for things to waste energy (thus speed) and/or fail entirely.

"High technology" is about materials and tools to work the materials as much as it is about the ideas. If not moreso.

As I understand it, gearing was sufficient in the time period. Prior to the Middle Ages, Romans were using gears for odometers and great flour mills. Whether the gearing would ultimately be economical may be a different story, but I think that the technology existed. It may have even been used on occasion.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by nanoboy

As I understand it, gearing was sufficient in the time period. Prior to the Middle Ages, Romans were using gears for odometers and great flour mills. Whether the gearing would ultimately be economical may be a different story, but I think that the technology existed. It may have even been used on occasion.

I think they're talking high-speed gears.

I'm no engineer, but every time I contemplate a car engine doing several thousand cycles per minute, even if distributed over 4 cylinders (so, e.g., it's 500 or 750 revs. per minute per cylinder), my instincts start screaming that no material can withstand that, because the materials I'm mostly sed to, human tissue, and a little bit of wood and plastic, can't.

A grind wheel for a sword smith doesn't need to go that fast, but an odometer wheel is subject to very weak forces, and the gearing in a wind mill or water mill probably does a fraction of 1 RPM.

[blacksmith]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

I think they're talking high-speed gears.

I'm no engineer, but every time I contemplate a car engine doing several thousand cycles per minute, even if distributed over 4 cylinders (so, e.g., it's 500 or 750 revs. per minute per cylinder), my instincts start screaming that no material can withstand that, because the materials I'm mostly sed to, human tissue, and a little bit of wood and plastic, can't.

A grind wheel for a sword smith doesn't need to go that fast, but an odometer wheel is subject to very weak forces, and the gearing in a wind mill or water mill probably does a fraction of 1 RPM.

Now each cylinder is going back and forth that many times per minute. Of course they only fire half that many times on a 4 cycle engine but the point remains.

Many rotary tools go up to 10 -15 thousand rpm. As for wind or water wheels, probably 2-5 RPM.

[RyanW]

IIRC, mechanical power generation made its first big contribution to metal production not in turning a grinding wheel, but in reciprocating a hammer or pumping a bellows.

[Verjigorm]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

You mean like Age of Sail Eurpoeans encountering Stone age cultures?

Yeah, but a lot of those cultures were not Stone Ages(TL0 or TL1), and had TL2 or maybe even TL3 technologies.

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

Yeah, but a lot of those cultures were not Stone Ages(TL0 or TL1), and had TL2 or maybe even TL3 technologies.

I was thinking Polynesia not south east asia and africa.

[DanHoward]

Low-Tech has a section called Variant Technologies on p.7. Polynesians are used as an example of a culture that is advanced in one particular technology. It says to treat Polynesians as a TL0 culture with TL2 seafaring.

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

Low-Tech has a section called Variant Technologies on p.7. Polynesians are used as an example of a culture that is advanced in one particular technology. It says to treat Polynesians as a TL0 culture with TL2 seafaring.

yeah for the tech the wares kick-ass navigators 8)