01-21-2021, 12:16 AM | #11 | |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: cauldrons
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A tinned copper cookpot is expensive in any society. I don't have one on hand to measure, I would guess that the average thickness is in the low single digit mm so if you know surface area you can compute volume. Most people before the 20th century did most of their boiling in pottery: in a society with iron a prosperous house might have an iron cookpot for stews and porridge and boiled meat.
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01-21-2021, 12:23 AM | #12 | |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: cauldrons
Quote:
Edit: Group Basics were already $50, 20 lbs on GURPS 3rd edition Revised p. 212. So the price goes back to the days before there were a team of simulationist geeks writing GURPS books. And we know that a lot of the stats for low-tech kit in that book are not so accurate, because it came out in 1986.
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"It is easier to banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge." H. Beam Piper This forum got less aggravating when I started using the ignore feature Last edited by Polydamas; 01-21-2021 at 12:28 AM. |
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01-21-2021, 02:45 AM | #13 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: cauldrons
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01-21-2021, 02:48 PM | #14 | |
Join Date: Mar 2013
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Re: cauldrons
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Volume (cubic inches)^0.67 / 6 for containers up to 1 gallon (231 cubic inches) in capacity Volume (cubic inches)^0.67 / 3 for containers up to 20 gallons (2.67 cubic feet) in capacity Volume (cubic inches)^0.67 / 2 for containers greater than 20 gallons (2.67 cubic feet) in capacity Cost is simply Weight (lbs.) x $18 if iron, or Weight (lbs.) x $72 if bronze. Copper is anywhere from x0.62 - x5.33 the cost of iron depending on how abundant it is locally and how difficult it was to process iron at the time (GURPS Low-Tech Companion 3: Daily Life and Economics entry for Metals, p. 22 for the low end, Pyramid 3/52: Low-Tech II entry for Armor Materials Table, p. 18 for the high end). With more modern forging techniques (TL5+), copper is as much as x26.66 the cost of an equal weight of worked iron (also Pyramid 3/52: Low-Tech II entry for Armor Materials Table, p. 18). Assuming you stick with Low-Tech (pre TL5) methods, I'd say an even-ish split of x3 is fair for copper. The cost of iron-based cookery will go down drastically as the mining and processing of iron and steel becomes easier. Less so for copper, I suspect, as scarcity is the primary factor contributing to it's cost. So, ultimately, I'd use the above formulae to calculate the weight of your cauldron based on desired capacity, then use Weight (lbs.) x $54 to determine its cost. Hope this helps, Jinumon PS: There's probably a unified formula for calculated Metal Box weight where the denominator is also some function of Volume, but I lack the time/patience to work that out. If someone else figures it out, I'd be curious to know what it is. |
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01-21-2021, 03:01 PM | #15 |
Join Date: May 2007
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Re: cauldrons
Note that a caldron will almost certainly take less metal than a box of equal enclosed volume (and equal thickness), since a rounded shape has a lower surface-to-volume ratio than a rectangular prism- hence the reduced weights mentioned upthread. I don't know if there are any additional difficulties in working with a rounded vessel as opposed to flat sheets of metal that might bring the cost back up again.
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01-21-2021, 03:10 PM | #16 | |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: cauldrons
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In my Bronze Age game, I used the historical price of bronze and barley in the Amarna Age as the basic economic unit and had a rule of thumb for converting GURPS dollars to qa of barley or shekels of copper or silver. I based starting wealth on historical data from Deir el Medina.
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"It is easier to banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge." H. Beam Piper This forum got less aggravating when I started using the ignore feature |
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01-21-2021, 03:33 PM | #17 |
Join Date: Mar 2013
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Re: cauldrons
I would also just like to point out that only the GURPS community would spend this much time agonizing over the weight and cost a gorram cauldron. And it's precisely why I love this community so much XD We certainly are an odd bunch, aren't we?
Jinumon |
01-21-2021, 09:49 PM | #18 |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Meifumado
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Re: cauldrons
Is there a history museum somewhere with the exhibit, "copper cooking pot, c. 12th C"? That might have some verifiable info.
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01-22-2021, 08:47 AM | #19 |
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Saint Paul, MN
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Re: cauldrons
All of this reminded me of a magic item in the recent D&D adventure, Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden: the Cauldron of Plenty. Check out this physical description: "This cauldron is made of thick copper that has turned green with age. It is 4 feet wide, has a mouth 3½ feet in diameter, weighs 50 pounds, and can hold up to 30 gallons of liquid."
At some point I tried to calculate how thick the sides would be in order to only have a volume of 30 gallons. Needless to say, it required a lot more than 50 pounds of metal! |
01-22-2021, 09:59 AM | #20 | |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: cauldrons
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Cookpot, 2 gallons, somewhere around $50. Roll your merchant skill to find a good deal. |
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cauldron prices, food preparation |
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