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Old 01-23-2021, 06:34 AM   #41
whswhs
 
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Default Re: cauldrons

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Originally Posted by DanHoward View Post
You need a high-end gas cooker to get decent heat control. You can get the same precision much more cheaply with electricity.
I have never had a gas stove that didn't give me satisfactory precision, at least equal to that of an electric stove. And the gas stove's clear superiority is in a gas flame's having almost no thermal inertia, whereas the coils of an electric stove stay hot for minutes rather than seconds. I'd also note that it's possible to lift a pot above a gas flame and still get reduced heat, but if you lift it off electric coils the heat flow is all but cut off.
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Old 01-23-2021, 03:22 PM   #42
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Default Re: cauldrons

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I have never had a gas stove that didn't give me satisfactory precision, at least equal to that of an electric stove. And the gas stove's clear superiority is in a gas flame's having almost no thermal inertia, whereas the coils of an electric stove stay hot for minutes rather than seconds. I'd also note that it's possible to lift a pot above a gas flame and still get reduced heat, but if you lift it off electric coils the heat flow is all but cut off.
Induction cooktops eliminate most of those issues. I have been selling both gas and electric cookers for fifteen years and have attended countless seminars and training sessions. I personally own a gas stove and gas oven but only because they are cheaper to run than electric ones and I often need an open flame for non-cooking projects. Every single one of our suppliers and manufacturers claim that electricity is the superior way to cook and have a long list of reasons why. They are the experts with decades of experience and data.
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Last edited by DanHoward; 01-23-2021 at 03:33 PM.
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Old 01-23-2021, 03:38 PM   #43
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Default Re: cauldrons

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Induction cooktops eliminate most of those issues.
The problem I have with my induction cook top is I have yet to find a decent wok that works on it.

(Also that the buttons on the cook top are far too sensitive to water, but that's just bad design, not an inherent flaw in the technology.)
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Old 01-23-2021, 03:48 PM   #44
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Default Re: cauldrons

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Using that I would say that pot would represent at minimum a full months wage if not two, just to acquire this item, and I mean the full month not the portion of the wage that wasn't going to food and living expenses. Stuff like this was probably part of a dowry, to help establish a new household.
This is something people took care of and spent time and money to maintain. This is one of the primary functions of a "Tinker" was to mend pots, its one of the reasons villagers would welcome or at least not be hostile to these outsiders.
We had a guest speaker in some college history course I took involving colonial America, who noted that most museum recreations of a colonial kitchen are misleading. Because the curators naturally want to show off their stuff rather than hide most of it in the warehouse. So you see a fireplace with dozen pots and half a dozen variant on a fireplace poker, where in reality most households would have one or two pots at most, and one poker, because that stuff was expensive.
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Old 01-23-2021, 05:05 PM   #45
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Default Re: cauldrons

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Originally Posted by DanHoward View Post
Induction cooktops eliminate most of those issues. I have been selling both gas and electric cookers for fifteen years and have attended countless seminars and training sessions. I personally own a gas stove and gas oven but only because they are cheaper to run than electric ones and I often need an open flame for non-cooking projects. Every single one of our suppliers and manufacturers claim that electricity is the superior way to cook and have a long list of reasons why. They are the experts with decades of experience and data.
I don't consider induction to be "electric." It's powered by electricity, but it's a different technology for generating and applying heat.

In any case, I'm not moved by expert opinion. I've used both gas and electric stoves and my experience with gas has been more satisfactory. I have explained at least one of my reasons above, so I won't go on about it further.
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Old 01-24-2021, 06:40 AM   #46
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Default Re: cauldrons

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We had a guest speaker in some college history course I took involving colonial America, who noted that most museum recreations of a colonial kitchen are misleading. Because the curators naturally want to show off their stuff rather than hide most of it in the warehouse. So you see a fireplace with dozen pots and half a dozen variant on a fireplace poker, where in reality most households would have one or two pots at most, and one poker, because that stuff was expensive.
I hate to join the divergent conversation about cauldrons, but I have to throw in that if you consider the cost of heating a gallon of water gas is still cheaper than induction.

That said gas is not available in my neighborhood, so we have induction which is far superior to electric coils to cook on. I still prefer gas.
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Old 01-24-2021, 09:51 PM   #47
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Making a cauldron is no different to making a helmet. If a craftsman can make single-piece iron helmet then he can make a single-piece iron cauldron. Riveted ones were more common (just like helmets) but single-piece ones existed.
Dan, you are about the last person I'd quarrel with about this, but if (as WHS set the parameters) looking at TL3, I would think that we'd be looking at a copper smith (white smith?) as the craftsman not someone with armory skill. (Granted, related but at a -1 to -3 depending on the complexity). Then factor the dishing of armour grade weight/thickness metal is different than copper weight/thickness for cookware. If nothing else we are looking at lower, more controllable temperatures.
I admit my ignorance about if you would need to temper the copper cauldron as part of the process.

Also, no where (I may have missed it) did item quality get factored in.
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Old 01-25-2021, 12:33 PM   #48
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Default Re: cauldrons

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Dan, you are about the last person I'd quarrel with about this, but if (as WHS set the parameters) looking at TL3, I would think that we'd be looking at a copper smith (white smith?) as the craftsman not someone with armory skill. (Granted, related but at a -1 to -3 depending on the complexity). Then factor the dishing of armour grade weight/thickness metal is different than copper weight/thickness for cookware. If nothing else we are looking at lower, more controllable temperatures.
I admit my ignorance about if you would need to temper the copper cauldron as part of the process.

Also, no where (I may have missed it) did item quality get factored in.
A copper-smith or bronze-smith is a 'brownsmith' (or a redsmith for copper specifically), a whitesmith is either a tinsmith (or other smith specialising in 'white' metals) or an ironsmith specialising in finishing work.
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Old 01-25-2021, 01:16 PM   #49
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Dan, you are about the last person I'd quarrel with about this, but if (as WHS set the parameters) looking at TL3, I would think that we'd be looking at a copper smith (white smith?) as the craftsman not someone with armory skill.
The way GURPS breaks up metalworking skills does not really reflect how things work before the 20th century. Armourers trying to understand how rich societies made helmets spend a lot of time studying bucketmakers in Turkey or Italy and coppersmiths in Mexico. Guild rules might artificially restrict who can work on what in a town ("stop right there! you are a shoemaker, you can't repair a shoe! That is work for a cobbler") but in 15th century Europe, the copperworking guilds made gauntlets and headpieces and other armour.

Regardless, you start with a thick ingot and work it into the shape you want. This is fundamentally different from our approach in the age of rolling mills, where we start with a thin sheet.
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Old 01-25-2021, 06:23 PM   #50
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Default Re: cauldrons

Sean is right but I never meant to imply that cauldrons were made by armourers. I meant that they used the same tools and and techniques. Any culture that has one-piece iron helmets will also have one-piece iron cauldrons. And one-piece iron helmets have been around since the Roman period.
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