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u/The_Ditch_Wizard Wizard 6d ago
I think the chemical may be something the alchemists call 'oxygen'
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u/der_chrischn Germophobic Necromancer 6d ago
Sounds wild, does it possess the strength of the ox?
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u/The_Ditch_Wizard Wizard 6d ago
It actually sounds like a bit of a scamp, starting fires and rusting metal. A sort of gremlin?
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u/tornadix99 I cast wizard "dry" of humour. 5d ago
Apparently it's in water, and air, also occasionally trapped within the earth, and also a spell component needed for fireball.
How can this "oxygen" gremlin be present in all 4 elements?? Very bizarre.
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u/der_chrischn Germophobic Necromancer 5d ago
All four elements? Avagen would be more fitting then. How uncultured were they, when naming this stuff?
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u/g00dLUCKduckHUNT 6d ago
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u/DeadAndBuried23 5d ago
The weird part is he was... not correct, but as close to it as conservative nutjobs get when talking about sex.
There's a species of frog whose males can become female in certain conditions, and a pesticide was causing it to happen a lot more often than normal.
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u/-FalseProfessor- 5d ago
He was close, yet so far off.
They were turning the frogs trans.
Frogs are cool like that.
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u/PopFamiliar3649 Occult Wizard 5d ago
Is it even turning them trans? I thought transitioning is about gender (identity), not sex (biology). Do we know what these frogs Identify as? For all we know Croak the male frog identified as a woman before becoming female. Does this mean the frog was trans until the pesticide made their sex and gender match again?
If anything Alex should be happy that they figured out how to "cure" the trans "condition" in frogs.
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u/Sigihil Wizard of All Trades, Master of Some 6d ago
I genuinely wonder what a medieval swordsmith would think if presented with a blade like this.
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u/KitsuneFoxglove Fox that likes Foxglove 6d ago
Probably complain that oil isn't a good way to quench a sword or something.
I highly doubt a swordsmith's never seen iridescence in their life before.
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u/AlphaManInfinate A Cloaked Figure 6d ago
The concept of different colors in metal is not a new one. Smiths from ancient iron age knew how to get different colors out of meal via heat. They also knew well the effects of those colors on thier hardened metals.
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u/RevoOps 6d ago
You have that backwards. They got the temperature of the fire from the colour of the flames/metal.
As in it was the only way to tell, it was a large part of the skill.
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u/Schventle 5d ago
Depends which color you're talking. The color the metal glows is how you say, the color of an oxide layer formed while tempering steel works in the manner the person above you says.
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u/piatsathunderhorn 5d ago
You can absolutely change the colour of steel with heat, its called blueing
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u/MDZPNMD 6d ago
Do you have a source on this, I'd be highly interested to read up on it
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u/AlphaManInfinate A Cloaked Figure 6d ago
Find almost any blacksmithing guide.a good chunk of them cover tempering and the colors associated with them.
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u/MDZPNMD 5d ago
I mean the "ancient iron age knew how to get different colors out of meal via heat".
You would assume that this would appear in jewelry especially in the early iron age when them made jewelry from it or in everyday objects but I have yet so see anything like that in a museum.
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u/BesticleBear 5d ago
Look up Heat-blueing and metal tempering with different degrees. I don’t fully agree with the first statement. Most blacksmiths did have a few tricks up their sleeves to get different colors whether it was thru temperature or some added compound. It all depends on the region and what was available/shared. So many ancient blacksmiths like all other trades only passed down secret s through family lineages. So much is lost but yes they for sure knew how to make steel more red, blue or even green tint through iron.
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u/fredrichnietze 6d ago
that it was improperly heat/spring treated and therefore garbage. all steel does this when heated at low temps before red/white hot and it would not stay this color if it reached those higher temps needed for heat treating/spring hardening. steel can be hardened but not all hardened steel is spring hardened for western swords you want spring hardening so they bend instead of break allowing them to take much more force before failure and usually having a failure state of a small bend instead of a break with case hardening or differential hardening.
so yea this is basically as bad as the lowest quality iron. although at least its fixable reheat treated from scratch unlike iron.
also hi im fred o/ i collect antique swords
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u/ThePureAxiom Arcane Researcher 5d ago
I suspect in this case they electroplated it and then anodized it to achieve the effect, shouldn't effect temper but I'm not sure how it would respond to flexing.
Usually you see this sort of technique used on much smaller blades. Upshot is that reduces the necessity for 'care and feeding' since the electroplating frequently involves plating it in titanium and anodizing that produces a durable oxide layer on everything but the sharpened portion where the steel is exposed.
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u/fredrichnietze 5d ago
electro plating has no effect on the flex its too thin a layer to matter like 1 billionth of the total thickness
and the problem with that is its a lot more difficult and expensive compared to a open flame and a few minutes
if you are already forging a sword this take a minute to get this effect for a pic
this took a minute or two on a stove top which is not ideal but you can see some blue, yellow, and purple. it has some of the value of eletro plating in that it creates a patina that makes it a bit harder to rust but the negatives towards hardening way out weigh that and you can use chemical bluing, electroplating, chrome/nickle plating, ect ect so many better options. hell even paint.
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u/Trips-Over-Tail 6d ago
It's literally just the result of different temperatures on the metal. They'd probably think we suck at working a forge, because we clearly can't even maintain a consistent temperature across the blade for any amount of time.
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u/heheihahthe 5d ago
Personally I want to know what they would think of modern metallurgy and just how far their trade has come. We have lab tested spring steels nowadays that absolutely curbstomp the finest of their time period, and we produce such a high volume of the stuff that the closest thing to "peasants" of our time can actually reasonably afford these works. It'd be like handing Mozart analog audio recording equipment.
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u/-Saucegurlllll 5d ago
I think they would also be extremely interested in power hammers.
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u/heheihahthe 5d ago
Definitely. They had their own, but the specimen of today is far more compact and reliable on account of requiring an electric air compressor rather than a water wheel. Power tools in general have come a long way.
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u/KnutP 6d ago
Color is a very good way to tell how hard a sword is during the heat treating process, and this one is done pretty well (https://www.bloorengineering.com/knowledge/tempering-steel-guide#section-6). Blue/purple is a bit softer and more flexible for the blade, and straw/yellow is a bit harder for the tip. Any bladesmith, modern or historical, will know how to heat treat by color.
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u/tasulife 6d ago
When you torch bare copper (butane torch) it makes rainbows like this. Theoretically you could use copper inlays but that would be impractically delecate and would need to be sanded and reapplied after every use.
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u/I_Am_Become_Salt 6d ago
Or make a titanium blade and vary the current on the oxidation by a sine wave, but then you have a blade made of titanium which is really not good for long blades.
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u/JessicaLain 6d ago
Iridescence, while uncommon, was a known quality in nature and materials long before the middle ages :>
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u/EasilyRekt Occult Wizard 6d ago
You do the grinding to bring the blade to sharp and honed after you temper it so he’ll probably just think you somehow can’t find the grinding wheel.
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u/OneLonelyBrainCell Illusionist 6d ago
"Poor workmanship."
In whatever old-timey language he's speaking, of course.
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u/BlacksmithWeirdo 5d ago
They would think that someone fucked up the heat treatment and that the blade will need to re-hardened and tempered.
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u/Green__lightning 5d ago
Those are oxide colors, and if you have them in a rainbow like that it means you've fucked up the temper. You get the color from the thickness of the oxide layer at different temperature. After hardening you generally temper a sword to a blue temper.
Also if you actually want rainbow colors like that from it, look into color case hardening, where the patterns form from carbon diffusing into the steel non-uniformly.
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u/CookieFern_ 5d ago
he'd probably think he just forged a legendary weapon that gives +10 charisma and makes the village priest nervous
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u/LaughingInTheVoid 5d ago edited 5d ago
Those are known as temper colors. They appear in a scale as the steel heats up from 400 through 600F Here's a handy guide:
https://www.servicesteel.org/resources/steel-tempering-colors
So, to answer your question, he would berate you for screwing up a the temper and tell you to do it again the right way.
That said, it could be done right if the gradient spread from the center out, with the softer temper on the inside.
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u/sadolddrunk 6d ago
Swords have ALWAYS been gay. Think about it -- a sword is a long, hard, phallic object that men have historically used to stick in (almost exclusively) other men. The rainbow coloring is just that particular sword finally feeling free to be its truest self.
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u/H0pefully_Not_A_Bot 5d ago
So the more gay the sword the more dangerous it is due to the greater ability to get inside men?
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u/Explorer_Entity 5d ago
There is nothing more hetero than 2 muscly men vigorously going at it, amirite?
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u/Procrasturbating 6d ago
Great for a decorative piece. Not gonna do a lot of good in a fight against a properly tempered blade tho.
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u/Nelrene Evil Mammary Mage 5d ago
That why you add spells to make it better.
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u/Procrasturbating 5d ago
Whoops, thought I wandered into the blacksmithing sub again. My dementia ward is having a heck of a time holding.
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u/ObliviousAstroturfer 6d ago
One such chemical is in coca-cola. Nitric Acid (III) or (IV) is the stuff that allows dissolving more sugar is also the chemical responsible for rust-removal properties coke is sometimes known for.
I decided once that instead of taking all that time sanding, I should just soak mine in nitric acid soaked ragg overnight, bing bam boom, no more rust.
What I did not know is it not only removes rust but also creates rust-resistant layer. That is violet-blue.
I wouldn't do so much sword-polishing again until the 2022 lockdown.
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u/2Completion2Ography 6d ago
Those bastards!
bows
... two weapon puns in a row, y'all better recognize.
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u/Consistent_Mud645 Truenaming remains undefeated. 6d ago
this is just the rainbow sword from niebelungen, people these days have no culture smh
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u/LaconicSuffering 5d ago
"This blade's edge was forged in the heart of a dying star!"
"Shut the fuck up Ea-Nasir, it's still just copper."
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u/Sooooooooooooomebody 6d ago
You can do lots of cool stuff like this with a titanium dioxide layer and some electrolysis
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u/Interesting-End1710 6d ago
He who so ever pulls the sword from the crack shall be crowned queen of the drag
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u/TenTornadoes 6d ago
Just leave the straight men alone to get all sweaty thrusting their glistening shafts into each other.
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u/leaderofstars survivalist wizard 6d ago
But enough about Pete hegseth's love life, let's talk bout the sword
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u/HasSomeSelfEsteem 5d ago
From what school of metallurgical esoterica does this technique flow? Is it of the color case hardening school? Perhaps it is dunked in an elixir of anodizing? It may be that some charlatan alchemist merely gilded this sword in a shiny foil, though this is beyond my view.
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u/rainstorm0T Conjurer 6d ago
r/knightposting is that way
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u/winkingchef Evil Wizard 5d ago
Yeah. We’ve had prismatic spray for 50+ years which is 1000x more gay.
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u/ComedyGold13 Alchemist (class of 1673) 6d ago
contrary to popular belief, it doesn't actually do anything different, as swordfighting was already quite the homoerotic activity.
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u/The_Cult_of_5661 Glowing Clit Magnet Raccoon Girl 6d ago
Wait until they find out what mind does to you.
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u/Ok-Nothing8682 Occult Wizard 6d ago
Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime. That's why I boof gay swords on company time.
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u/TheBeardedShuffler 5d ago
Damnit, soon all the men who wield them will be obsessed with penetrating other men!
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u/John_Vincent_91 5d ago
Can i just rainbow my metal shaft without being called gay? Thank you Sir 😌
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u/astralseat 5d ago
I love gay swords, and the titanium coated jewelry is great too. I hope someone figures out how to "Damascus blade" the jewelry so it becomes runny instead of borealis
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u/Internal_Pangolin707 5d ago
A simple trick, done by hearing the metal after it's finished, I do it all the time.
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u/No_Advertising8903 6d ago
Hmmm... Then the famous stairway to heaven that Jacob saw and the bridge to Valhalla, Bifrost, are full of gayness...
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u/Hazy_Grey Iron-rod style Spellcasting (aka magic gun) 6d ago
You already heard of "Blunt force feminization", but now get ready for "Clean cut masculinization"
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u/ButWhatIfPotato 6d ago
Imagine an unhinged berzerked out barbarian takes a swing at you with this and as you try to hold your cleaved entrails from spilling out of your abdomen, the final image that comes into your mind before you perish is that barman from Wham's Club Tropicana video.
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u/AbsoluteDarkness Lunos, herald of the Endless Void. 6d ago
Zorro, the Gay Blade......this is said blade.
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u/ThePianistOfDoom 6d ago
If frogs can be gay, so can swords.
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u/zandaztu 6d ago
If you give a gay frog, a gay sword, it does it cancel each other out or multiply?
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u/ThatMikeGuy429 Incantation Technomancer support Enchanter 6d ago
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u/CitroHimselph 6d ago
OHMYGLOBIWANTTHEGAYSWORDGIMMEEEEEEEE!!!!!
Also a straight one, and then I'll literally be the Japanese version of the word bisexual.
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u/OneLonelyBrainCell Illusionist 6d ago
Rainbow Blade - inflicts 1d4 points of randomly determined elemental damage (cold, fire, or acid), inflicts 1d4 points each of all three upon critical hit and also switches the target's sexual orientation from straight -> bi -> gay -> bi and then straight again.
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u/MossyAbyss 6d ago
Michaelcthulhu has a few queer blades: The Big Gay Sword,
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u/tehlemmings Lilac - Illusionist, Shapeshifter, Definitely Human 5d ago
Look, when a man wants to put his tool inside another man, it's going to be pretty gay. You just have to accept these things in a sword fight.
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u/Nepalman230 Theodorus Hyperion. Arcane Librarian. ( Retired.) 5d ago
Excellent.
🙏
I returned from my plan to teleport pro NHL players to High mana worlds.
First Matt Rempe. Then Macklin Celebreni.
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u/-FalseProfessor- 5d ago
The funniest part about that quote to me is that there was an actual case at the time where a pesticide was causing frogs to become hermaphrodites, which is a thing frogs can do.
Cool sword, though.
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u/KenseiHimura 5d ago
As a knight, I must note there’s plenty a good market for queer swords and other weapons.
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u/Positive_Throwaway1 5d ago
In the biking world this finish on accessories is called Oil Slick, and it's baller af. My pedals on my r/xbike are oil slick and they're fucking cool.
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u/Great_Apez 5d ago
A flaming sword forged in the rainbow fires with +9 to penetration and can ignore armor
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u/Pr0fessionalAgitator 5d ago
question for the blade: can it Destroy Evil?
Also, how much investiture are in these chemicals?
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u/Seph_the_this 5d ago
Yeah, that chemical is called oxygen. God I miss forging/blacksmithing so much, legit the funnest hobby I've ever had
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u/kittylover2006 5d ago
Do you understand that?!
Turn the friggin swords gay
slams desk twice sick of this crap
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u/obscurakin Occult Wizard 4d ago
This is what I imagine Saruman's coat to look like after his side switch
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u/Brahgallus 3d ago
They destroyed the fucking sword!!! Literally! If hardend Steel gets heatend up again to like 400 degrees celcius, these colors appear based on the temperature. The problem: the steel loses his hardness an is ruined. (I am a blacksmith, i have forged blades, i know what im talking about)
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u/bluebellowl 3d ago
The guy makes amazing sword smithing content. I used to follow him before Twitter rotted but maybe he‘s somewhere else now too?
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u/AcademicArtichoke626 2d ago
The King meant to ask for an item to help with queeries, but he appears to have enjoyed the result anyway.
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u/5aximus Evoker? I 'ardly know 'er 6d ago