
Guy makes a knife from scratch.  He has to make a smelter first. - RickHull
http://www.arscives.com/bladesign/tamahagane/main.htm
======
jws
Bought his ore? Terry Pratchett dug his own ore from his estate when he
smelted the iron for his sword, though he used a blacksmith after getting to
the iron bar stage.

[http://www.news.com.au/technology/terry-pratchett-
creates-a-...](http://www.news.com.au/technology/terry-pratchett-creates-a-
sword-with-meteorites/story-e6frfro0-1225926584339)

(Being a knight no longer conveys the right to carry a sword, it is a
violation of the knife laws, so he keeps the sword hidden. Such days.)

~~~
dmm
> Being a knight no longer conveys the right to carry a sword

Come to America. Open/concealed carry is legal for every sane and non-
felonious adult in many areas, gentleman and commoner alike.

~~~
anamax
Be careful - some knives, such as switchblades and dirks/double-edged knives,
are illegal/restricted in a lot of places.

~~~
khafra
I think it's funny that in most of America, someone with a permit can carry a
brace of automatic pistols and enough extra magazines to mow through a dozen
preschool classes; but brass knuckles and spring-opening knives are still off-
limits.

~~~
dmm
Many laws in the US regarding weapons were motivated by racial and economics
tensions, as in people were worried about disenfranchised groups acquiring
weapons and revolting. Maybe that has something to do with it?

> automatic pistols

Automatic guns are extremely expensive and hard to get because none
manufactured after 1986 can be sold to civilians. They are rarely used in
crimes. Automatic weapons are not magic killing machines. They are excellent
ways to turn money into noise but have limited tactical use, suppression fire,
etc.

~~~
khafra
I think your first guess is correct. Machine guns are owned by rich
enthusiasts, brass knuckles are owned by poor thugs. It's implicitly
discriminatory, although any rich switchblade enthusiasts are simply out of
luck.

------
dfranke
"If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the
universe." --Carl Sagan

------
pixdamix
It reminds me of a Marcin Jakubowski talk at Ted about "Open-Source blueprints
for civilizations"[1]

From TED: _Using wikis and digital fabrication tools, TED Fellow Marcin
Jakubowski is open-sourcing the blueprints for 50 farm machines, allowing
anyone to build their own tractor or harvester from scratch. And that's only
the first step in a project to write an instruction set for an entire self-
sustaining village (starting cost: $10,000)._

[1]: <http://www.ted.com/talks/marcin_jakubowski.html>

~~~
tsuraan
The project's site is <http://openfarmtech.org> . I don't think they have
their full 50 machines, but what they do have looks pretty interesting.

------
WalterBright
I'd like to see someone make a knife without using any modern technology
precursors whatsoever. That means starting from using ones hands and what is
available from nature in its natural form.

I think it'd be quite an accomplishment.

~~~
gaustin
People already do this. Some only go so far as stone blades, or allow modern
tools for certain steps. Others bootstrap the whole process from stone-age to
steel.

I've never done it. It's incredibly time consuming but satisfying, from the
first hand accounts I've read. You can cut hours or days off of your work time
by using modern tools for some of the most seemingly trivial steps.

~~~
kragen
Who are these people? Do they stop at steel? What should I be Googling?

~~~
gaustin
What do you mean stop at steel?

Search for Tai Goo, Tim Lively and Wayne Goddard. Primitive knifemaking is
another good term to search.

<a
href="[http://www.aescustomknives.com/>Ariel](http://www.aescustomknives.com/>Ariel)
Salaverria</a> doesn't do primitive as far as I know, but he does have some
tutorials for making some things that most makers buy/outsource. Tutorials for
resin impermeated handle materials, like denim micarta.

This cool post showed up when I Googled "primitive knifemaking" <a
href="[http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/topic/40386#.TfYp7UfW5oE...](http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/topic/40386#.TfYp7UfW5oE>http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/topic/40386#.TfYp7UfW5oE</a>);

If you (or anyone else, for that matter) is interested in talking about this
stuff, shoot me an email (it's in my profile).

~~~
kragen
Thank you!

By "stop at steel", I meant to ask how far their bootstrapping went — did they
bootstrap from stone-age materials to just, say, pre-medieval steel
metallurgy? Or did they go on ahead to technologies like organic polymers,
machine tools, bicycles, internal-combustion engines, vacuum tubes,
semiconductors, digital computers, and heavier-than-air flying machines?

I wonder if Ariel Salaverria sells his work at handicrafts markets here
locally. Maybe I could go apprentice with him :)

In your second link, I think the fragment ID is broken; did you mean the whole
thread at <http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/topic/40386> ? Or a particular
post in it?

------
RomP
I sometimes wonder how long would it take for the civilization to re-create
the current level of technology, if all the material artifacts disappear one
day: books, computers, robots, factories, even hammers. If all that remains is
the current level of knowledge in the heads of 7bln people, how long would it
take from the stone age to Core i7, heart transplants and Boeing 787s? And how
much different the world would be if we had to re-create this from scratch
without the legacy of previous technological generations?

~~~
toddh
A question I've had about this is where are the ready supplies of materials
that could be used in the recreation? Could we spread across the hills and
still find iron and copper deposits? Aren't these all played out by now? We
would need to shift to another economic base from new materials I think rather
than recreate what we had before, because that's gone.

~~~
kragen
Well, if the artifacts actually _disappeared_ , yes. But if they just got
buried somewhere until they rusted into unusability, we could dig up the rust
and smelt it.

------
js2
Also, <http://www.thetoasterproject.org/>

~~~
wallflower
Also, the classic essay "I, Pencil"

> I am a lead pencil—the ordinary wooden pencil familiar to all boys and girls
> and adults who can read and write.*

Writing is both my vocation and my avocation; that's all I do.

You may wonder why I should write a genealogy.

<http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html>

------
dstein
It's reasons like this, that I really wonder if someone from today were to
time travel into the past if anything they know would be useful at all.
Medieval people would probably think we're all idiots.

~~~
InclinedPlane
An average person would not be overly useful, but a skilled and knowledgeable
individual would have much to offer. A chemist can make nylon, gunpowder,
matches, or plastic from relatively easily obtained chemicals even in ancient
times, for example. There are also lots of other little tricks that are just
as or more valuable. Things like germ theory, medicine, cooking, electricity,
etc. In roman times it would have been possible to build telegraphs, without
much difficulty, imagine how that would have changed the world.

~~~
thesteamboat
I'm curious as to what easy advances there were in cooking. Do you mean
something along the lines of better heat sources or do you mean recipes?

~~~
pyrhho
\- Better Bread? Historically bakers had extremely short lives because without
mixers they had to breathe in the flour dust all day. And the bread would have
been extremely unevenly cooked (no temperature-regulated ovens), as well as
being extremely salty (no preservatives).

\- Pasta? Pasta is absolutely amazing. It is an extremely dense source of
calories, which doesn't rot, is super-compact, and only requires water and
heat to cook. Great for armies on the march.

\- Coffee? Coffee's been around a long time, but high-pressure espresso is
relatively new.

Other fairly basic staples are newer than you might think, like Potatoes (16th
Cent.), Or Tomatoes (17th Cent.)

Edit: Also limes for sailors.

~~~
btilly
_Edit: Also limes for sailors._

Actually that's a terrible idea. You want lemons, not limes. Really.

See <http://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm> for a discussion of
where the myth to the contrary came from, and for the complex history of how
the proper prevention of scurvy was discovered, forgotten, proved false, and
only later rediscovered again. It also discusses why you really don't want to
use limes.

~~~
jholman
I apologize for this "+1" comment, but this scott-and-scurvy story is really
awesome, on all sorts of levels. Science is hard to do correctly!

------
jaz
This reminds me of the Heritage School [1], which teaches people skills such
as blacksmithing, knifemaking, working with Damascus steel, and woodworking. I
think it's great these skills haven't completely died out.

[1] <http://www.bc3.edu/heritage-school/about-heritage-school.asp>

------
johtso
Here's a cached version of the page:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20081012031044/http://www.arscive...](http://web.archive.org/web/20081012031044/http://www.arscives.com/bladesign/tamahagane/main.htm)

------
polynomial
Well at least he didn't have to invent the universe.

~~~
mumrah
Relevant: <http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Cosmos_.281980.29>

~~~
s00pcan
"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the
universe."

~~~
peterquest
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc>

------
ramchip
I remember a cooperative online game, with a mostly text-only interface, in
which you could build smelters and tools and climb gradually the tech tree. It
was very detailed and interesting but I lost track of its name and URL. Does
it ring a bell for anybody?

~~~
lzm
Dwarf Fortress, perhaps?

~~~
teamonkey
That's probably what he means, but the same is true for the more-accessible
Minecraft.

------
eli
_"Charcoal has to be chopped to a specific size for the operation to run
smoothly. I chopped mine during the days before the run in little chunks about
a cubic inch or less."_

Chopped using what?

~~~
wisty
Later on, he uses a forge, anvil, grinder, flux, chemicals for polishing, etc.
He's not using cave-man technology. I think he built the smelter because you
can't really buy them.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I agree, and he got his ore from the Ceramic store, no pick and hammer
breaking down rocks from the quarry.

------
zeteo
A really interesting melange. This is a Spanish guy, using Japanese
metalworking techniques, and Imperial measurement units... (They use metric in
Japan and Spain, don't they?)

For the purists: using modern technologies is OK, as long as you're fully
aware of the alternative. There's no enlightenment in using a stone tool for
days to achieve what a powered tool does in minutes.

------
patrickod
Site was loading quite slowly for me and missing some of the pictures. The
Google cache of the first part is here for those who want it
<http://tinyurl.com/6k2mxue>

~~~
olalonde
Why did you shorten the URL?
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:5znUFwf...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:5znUFwfWS1sJ:www.arscives.com/bladesign/tamahagane/main.htm+http://www.arscives.com/bladesign/tamahagane/main.htm&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ie&source=www.google.ie)

------
jrussino
This reminds me of the "Metalworking Shop From Scrap" book series:
<http://www.lindsaybks.com/dgjp/djgbk/series/>

------
sixtofour
Some pictures are missing from the site and Google cache.

You can see the pictures if you "view image" on the blank pictures. Hard
reloading seems to pull some in too.

~~~
crocowhile
The link here has all the pictures:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2644988>

------
Simon_M
Wow, real-life Minecraft.

~~~
mcantor
For his next project, he will store a chest inside a chest!

------
dedward
I may have missed something - My one curiosity would be if his decision to not
fold, but just straight mash the bits of steel together was not skipping a
crucial step - folding to ensuring uniformity. Would that not make the sword
have weak spots here and there?

~~~
dandrews
He folded five times.

------
RomP
Also, this reaction by Seth Godin some time ago to this guy's project:
[http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/10/what-
youre-u...](http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/10/what-youre-
up-1.html)

------
rumblestrut
Man, I take a lot of things for granted.

------
flexd
This is amazing (still) but hasn't it been on here before? I remember reading
through it ages ago.

~~~
flexd
I might be wrong (search turns up nothing), I have seen this before though and
thought it came from here (since this is usually where I find my quality
reading material).

No need to get all downvotey, I wish I had the authors abilities.

~~~
daeken
I don't know if it's been here in the past, but it was linked in
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2644863> a couple days ago.

~~~
RickHull
Yep, that's where I found it. I figured it was worth its own submission.

------
chrisjsmith
Back in the past, we just made knives with what we had. Sticks, couple of
nettle stems and a few minutes flintknapping and you had a perfectly good
blade. I've actually done it myself.

Metal is way higher tech than is required to survive.

------
DeanCollinsLCC
wow!!! makes my weekend of doing stuff around the house look weak.

