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From what I understand, meteoric iron is very difficult to forge, tending to crack. Being able to bring it up to welding temperature helps deal with that, but
by RobertMiller 5y ago
From what I understand, meteoric iron is very difficult to forge, tending to crack. Being able to bring it up to welding temperature helps deal with that, but according to the article this dagger was forged at a lower temperature.
- arbitrage 5y agoUnrefined meteoric iron is brittle, yes. When you remove the impurities, it works just like normal iron though. But it was the only source of iron available to some cultures for a long time. Humans originally used meteoric metal became they lacked the ability to mine and smelt the ore themselves. When humanity gained the technological ability to reliably and economically refine iron ore themselves, meteoric metal was discarded (rightfully) as inferior and more trouble than it was worth.