Bronze is made by melting copper and tin together to create a new alloy that is very hard and durable. In this picture, copper and tin are carefully weighed in order to obtain the right mixture to create a very durable bronze.
For this project, we used a mixture of 90% Copper and 10% Tin. This roughly matches many historical bronze items from the ancient world.
The copper and tin pieces are placed into a crucible. The crucible is then placed within a forge and heated to very high temperatures (nearly 2000 degrees F). It is very important to wear safety gear during this activity.
A view of the crucible inside the forge. The tin has melted and the copper is just approaching the melting point.
Here the copper has melted and the two metals are merging together.
Pouring the molten bronze into the mold.
Here the bronze is beginning to cool and harden within the mold.
When removed from the mold, the bronze has imperfections on the surface that must be sanded and polished to reveal the bronze.
This is what the bronze looks like beneath the surface. This is a beautiful honey-colored bronze. Bronze can be polished to a mirror-like finish.
Once the bronze has been created, it can be used in a variety of ways. Here the bronze was used to create a guard and a pommel for a reproduction of an historical European knife called a Seax.