Material samples

Recycling has always been very important part to my life & business and almost the half of the metal objects in my gallery are made from recycled materials. I have collected over the years very huge stash of all kind of metal junk and there you can see some nice examples, what are usually very good materials for weapon and jewelry related projects.

All my "normal objects" are forged from mild steel or some other very soft alloys, but if you want to make proper/authentic axeheads and other historical weapons, you need to find high carbon steel, spring steel or some other better steel alloys, because you can't properly harden the low carbon stuff in normal quench methods.

There is not any hardwarestores in my community where I can find tool steels, so I use most of the time only some old broken hammerheads, springs, stone drilling rods and plow machine parts for my weapon projects, because that kind of old rusty scraps are usually free or at least very cheap, but they are still made from very good quality steel alloys.

For example that incomplete axehead on top of the rusty plow disc is forged from old mason's hammer very close to this model what i just googled. [link] and that mace head with groove patterns is grinded from old tractor lift arm ball. (There is also two other a little bit bigger lift arm balls close to that short brass axle..)

In the bottom picture you can see also some broken clocks and other scraps what i get from my clocksmith uncle. That kind of mechanical parts are always very good material for steampunk themed works. There is also huge variety of old teaspoons what i have get almost free from my relatives or some other very kind people.

I hope that you can also have some nice recycling ideas for your own works from these pictures..