Melted sword's material

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Xeon

Active Member
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May 17, 2006
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Hi all,

Just a quick question. When a sword(made of steel, of course) is melted, the result will be a pool of sticky metallic material, if I'm not wrong.
Is there any good/accurate and official(or widely-accepted) term for this kind of "goo" that you get when you melt a sword?

I'm thinking of calling it "liquid" and "melted alloy", but it seems weird and totally....just unsuitable for me. Any ideas would be really nice.

Thanks all! :)
Xeon.
 
what if the swords metal is an alloy of metal and some form of non metal would the melted material then be refered to as amorphous

or when exactly is something refered to as amorphous
 
Asher: the word amorphous generally means "lacking definite form, having no specific shape; formless" but can also mean "of no particular kind or character, unorganized, lacking pattern", so it might work. However, usually the term for a melted metal instrument is "slag", which is not quite correct etymologically, but has become accepted usage by association -- slag actually being the melted vitrified substance obtained when separating a metal from its ore; but over time it has also come to mean any metal thing that has been melted back into a semi-liquid or liquid form. Molten is certainly acceptable in most cases, though again, this actually refers to the process of smelting metals in conjunction with pudling and casting, so before the actual production of the weapon. But it, too, has come to have the secondary meaning by association.
 
Hi all,

Thanks a lot! But errr......the word 'slag' sounds like some sticky solid metal substance, even though it's not.
And 'molten liquid' sounds too hot and boiling.

You see, in my story, there's a good sword which is going to be melted and one of the characters is going to drink the melted stuff. So, I need a wordd or words that sounds "liquidish" and "fluidish". :):)

Thanks for any ideas!
Xeon.
​
 
That's just it, though. If you melt down a sword, unless it's kept at a high temperature to keep it liquid, it quickly begins to solidify again. And how on earth are you going to explain someone drinking that stuff? Even with magic, that's going to be a tough pill for a reader to swallow. Do you have any idea of the temperatures needed to melt a worthwhile piece of steel?
 
From JD:
That's just it, though. If you melt down a sword, unless it's kept at a high temperature to keep it liquid, it quickly begins to solidify again. And how on earth are you going to explain someone drinking that stuff? Even with magic, that's going to be a tough pill for a reader to swallow. Do you have any idea of the temperatures needed to melt a worthwhile piece of steel?
Click to expand...
LOL, actually, it's more like the character's skin coming into contact with the melted stuff from the sword. Maybe I can mix magic honey with the melted alloy so that the melted substance always stays in liquid form?

Maybe then, I gotta come up with some new, unique name for this solution, but I'll try to avoid that, because it's not good for readers to have to memorize/remember arcane, "fantasy" names. :):)

Good day and thanks,
Xeon.
 
j. d. worthington said:
Do you have any idea of the temperatures needed to melt a worthwhile piece of steel?
Click to expand...

Iron, out of the ground, melts at around 1510 degrees C (2750°F). Steel often melts at around 1370 degrees C (2500°F).:D ;)

The only time I have heard of someone "drinking" melted metal was in an obscure book about medieval torture.

You want your character to become "one" with this sword. Maybe a "token" drinking of the metal. One very, very small drop on his tongue before the sword is re-forged.
 
Pretty much anything you do with melted metal, it's going to try to revert to a solid, at least semi-crystalline substance. If it's mixed with any adulterating material, it's going to do it in smaller gobbets, that's all (unless we're talking gallons and gallons of the honey to a very small sword -- even then you'd end up with something like largeish metal filings in your character's system -- not good). The melting point of steel, by the way, is about 1370 degrees C 2500 degrees F), and the furnaces used for manufacture usually run between 1540 and 1600 degrees C (2800 and 3000 F), so we're talking serious temperature here. No part of the human body can withstand that sort of heat for more than such an incredibly small fraction of a second as to be virtually immeasurable. So, while I'm not trying to rule out what you're talking about, you're going to have to work very, very hard for a reader to accept that image without balking.
 
LOL......got it! Thanks for waking me up, guys! No wonder I keep having a gross feeling when I try to write my character drinking the metallic stuff. I personally would choke and vomit my intestines out if I'm the one drinking. :)

Thanks all!
Xeon. ;)
 
Oh, yeah. And one more thing(a separate issue).

What kind of landscape is the best at absorbing water and distributing the water down into the soil further down and deeper in?

A dry grassland? (like the African Savannah)
A barren wasteland with cracks in the ground?(due to no rain for years)
Or some other types of land forms?

Thanks all! :)
Xeon.
 
Maybe dissolving it in some kind of Alchemist solution and drinking that?
(Although that may poison him)

Maybe consuming the "spirit " that possesses the sword might work.

Maybe using magic to shrink it to pendant size and swallowing it ( but could cause toilet problems later)

You could imagine a Dragon finding no problem taking in molten steel, but its a trick most humanoids would find difficult to pull off.
 
Landscape that absorbs water quickly?

Maybe Peat. It absorbs so much though, that it retains it up until saturation point and forms peat bogs. When there is dry spells however, rainfalls soon get absorbs quickly.
Just think of soil density. Clay is so compact, water finds it hard to be penertrate. Sand, however is loose and full of air pockets, allowing water to to absorbed quickly. Therefore shale or pebbled beaches would be good, going by the density law.
 
The trick is you have to root your writing into what is possible in the world you are creating. That world needs enough common reference points with the real world to make a reader accept your make-believe one.

Research, imagination and learning the writing craft, is what I beleive you need to do this. And continued writing is the only way you get them all to work together.

As for your other question you need a good natural Science book.
 
Limestone's pretty good at absorbing water; on the Jura here there are no streams, even after heavy rain, it just soaks right in, to come out of springs at the base. Such pools as you find are normally loaded with enough rotting vegetation and sludge that the water never contacts the underlying rock. Limestone is of course associated with caves, pot holes and subterranean rivers. Some volcanic tufa is very porous, and certain sandstone (though less so) and glacial moraine, the bit that a glacier's melted back from, is usually gravel that the stream is running through, rather than in its channel as it appears. (That's not very clear. If you dig a hole in the gravel several meters off to the side of the visible stream, it will fill with water;no surprise there. But the water will have a current in it, not as strong as the main stream, but quite clear)
 
I know that aquifer is the term used to describe land that stores alot of water, mostly limestone landscapes.
And what about your sword being made from mercury :p
Otherwise your guys gunna be some sort of superbeing.
Maybe chuck Norris?
http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com/
 
Thanks a lot, all! :cool:
But what about a prairie? Is such kind of landscape capable of absorbing water spilled onto it and disperse it about 1.5 - 2 feet below the ground surface?

Thanks all,
Xeon.
;)
 
I think you can calculate that any landscape where there is enough rainfall to maintain vegetation, but doesn't have any visible watercourses (and isn't a swamp or lake, evidently) is pretty good at absorbing water; the American praries are basically compacted dust, so the water has only the topsoil to ooze through before before being able to sink extremely rapidly. However, two feet? That's really shallow for a water table (more likely to be ten times this, or more) One good thunderstorm, and the grass would be swimming; not that you've had twelve inches of rain, but the spaces between particles where the water can gather are a small percentage of the total volume.

In fact, anywhere the water is standardly that close to the surface is probably a swamp for a significant portion of the year.
 
Wow.......thanks a lot, Chris! By the way, you seem to know a lot about geography and stuff.....are you a geologist in the past? Or maybe a seasoned farmer for 40 years?

See you! :)
Xeon.
 
Try the sword thing the other way around. It has a magical field around it or through it which keeps it at glacial temperature. When the field stops working and it reaches room temp then it liquifies. Obviously I'm thinking of mercury here. But if you're gonna have magic then you can surely introduce a low temperature solid that isn't poisonous, but that all can semi-identify.

Landscapes in general will absorb moisture until they reach the water table, at whatever level that is. As to speed crispeny and others answered that.
 
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