From: cptully@med.unc.edu (Christopher P. Tully,Pathology,62699)
Subject: Re: Forging a Glass Sword
Reply-To: cptully@med.unc.edu
Organization: UNC-CH School of Medicine
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 17:49:48 GMT

Well, here goes nothing.  You guys (and gals) have gotten me annoyed
enough to post on this subject.  This is a correction to the below
post, as well as comments on some of the later posts.

In article 7yJ@news.cso.uiuc.edu, mpd48941@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Mike Duff) writes:
>In <456@blue.cis.pitt.edu> seawasp@vm2.cis.pitt.edu (Sea Wasp) writes:
>
>>	About one day. First get a real sword, preferably a very high
>>quality one. Make a mold, very carefully, from the real sword. Fill mold
>>with high-quality molten glass. Let cool. Voila!
>
>This is not a flame, but molds don't work...
>Glass can NOT be made by pouring molten silica into a mold.  It won't
>crystallize correctly.  If you want it to crystallize evenly, you have to
>keep the sides at the exact same temperature.  I don't know all of the details
>about glass-making, but I do know that molds don't work.
>

1) Glass CAN be molded.  How do you think that coke bottles are made?
2) Glass does NOT crystallize!  Depending on who you ask, glass is
either amorphous or non-crystalline.

Another approach that no-one has suggested yet:

As above, make a mold froma high quality sword.  Fill the mold with
VERY fine sand (in terms of modern technology, less than .5 micron
diameter particles) and pack tightly.  Depending on what you make the
mold out of, I would suggest 5-10 tons packing pressure (of course if
the mold won't take this it will have to be lower).  Once the sand is
well packed, either heat it in the mold, if the mold is steel or
porcelin (sp?) or, if there is no convient way to heat it in the mold,
it may be possible to take the "green" sword out of the mold (VERY
CAREFULLY) and then heat it, but this will take longer as you cannot
heat it as much, and must watch to make sure that it does not deform as
it is being heated.  Of course, these are crude methods that will not
work the first time.  If I were a high level mage wanting to do this, I
would try some along the following outline:

1) make an enchanted mold, or come up with a spell to contain the sand
mentioned above with no mold.

2) fill this container, then since it is enchanted, either cast firball
on it (if you're impatient) or heat in some other way to completely
liquify the glass, adding more sand if necessary (the glass will appear
to reduce its volume as it melts and air space is eliminated)

3) allow the sword to cool in the container and enchant it as desired
befor removing it from the enchanted container

Yes, I realize that this requires LOTS of magic research, and etc, but
this is the approach that I would try first as a high level mage in
Dark Sun.

BTW, my comments are based in a Bachealors degree in Materials
Science.


Chris
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*********************************************************************
Christopher P. Tully				cptully@med.unc.edu
Univ. of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
CB# 7525					(919) 966-2699
Chapel Hill, NC 27599
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I get paid for my opinions, but that doesn't mean that UNC or anybody
                     else agrees with them.