Sorry, can anyone advise (sorry it's way off topic here, but you're a helpful bunch of guys)
Anyone know an easy (means cheap) method of detecting the presence of Strontium in a pattern welded sword blade? This is an attempt to discover the authenticity of a migration period blade, heavily corroded. All I can think at the moment is that a modern replica (there are some clever people out there) would be made of modern steel, which is inevitably contaminated by the atmospheric nuclear tests in the middle of the last century (See, CENTURY, not that far off topic..)
Please feel free to delete this if inappropriate. Yes I know it is , I know I'm a moderator here, but I'm desperate for an answer!
Sorry about this
Way, way off topic...
Moderators: John@sos, charlesp, Charles uk, RickUK, Petergalileo
being fairly interesred in rusty old relics, i've become quite interested in you're sword.
very large scrap metal processors often have,or have access to spectorgraphs that are very good at analysing metals, however my uncle, a retiered environmental chemist says that during his working life he often had to deal with traces of radioactive materials for his work within 'Environmental Protection' a department of the council in Glasgow. They often sent their samples to the 'Public Analyst Lab' in Southhampton, who probably aren't listed in the yellow pages, but you could contact them through your local councils' Environmental Protection dept., Consumer Protection dept. or even through Trading Standards, which may or may not be costlydepending on who you get. Failing that contact Universities with renown history depts. best i can do.
How much rust can fall out of a forty plus cylinder block before i start to worry. about a tea spoon so far, in flakes big enough to be a bugger to get through the cooling hole (brass union removed)
very large scrap metal processors often have,or have access to spectorgraphs that are very good at analysing metals, however my uncle, a retiered environmental chemist says that during his working life he often had to deal with traces of radioactive materials for his work within 'Environmental Protection' a department of the council in Glasgow. They often sent their samples to the 'Public Analyst Lab' in Southhampton, who probably aren't listed in the yellow pages, but you could contact them through your local councils' Environmental Protection dept., Consumer Protection dept. or even through Trading Standards, which may or may not be costlydepending on who you get. Failing that contact Universities with renown history depts. best i can do.
How much rust can fall out of a forty plus cylinder block before i start to worry. about a tea spoon so far, in flakes big enough to be a bugger to get through the cooling hole (brass union removed)
the other thing my uncle said was that a spec. may not be able to discover the minute traces of strontium, which is why he went down the chemisty route with the lab, but it would pick up traces of nickel, cobalt chromium etc common in industrial age steel alloys, probably not present in the sword if pre blast furnace
It is not "off topic" at allsorry it's way off topic here
"You can talk about almost anything here" it says on the main index page.
Far too many of the posts in this section should be in the "help" section IMHO.
I do not really understand why you want to look for strontium. It is not a particularly rare element there being 8.1 ppm in seawater and 4.5 x 10² ppm in crustal rocks. Its chemistry is almost identical to that of calcium. In a flame it produces a characteristic bright crimson colouration, that being a method of identifying its compounds and is I think what is used in red flares and fireworks.
I doubt very much if there will be sufficient present in a metal alloy to measure with a "Metascope" which is the portable instrument sometimes used by scrap metal merchants for identifying metals. No doubt it can be measured with ease by more sophisticated spectrographic methods such as AA or ICP OES
However there is unlikely to be any significant difference in the strontium content of a genuine old relic and a modern replica (I suspect the concentration will be minute anyway.)
What I imagine you are thinking of is detecting traces of strontium 90 which is an radio isotope that does not occur naturally and if found can only be the results of the nuclear age. The most common natural isotope is strontium 88 which is not radioactive. As far as I know none of the naturally occurring isotopes is radioactive. Strontium 90 is a beta emitter with a half life of 28.1 years.
If that is the case you are into a totally different game and will require the services of a radio-chemical laboratory. For them determination of Sr90 is a very routine procedure. I do not know what they analyse these days, almost certainly milk but very possibly herbage as well. It was, and presumably still is, one of the routine measurements made around our nuclear power stations.
Whether you will detect Sr90 on metal alloys I have no idea. I guess you will if you look hard enough with sufficiently sensitive equipment. Is it a technique used by archaeologists? Ratios of strontium isotopes in tooth enamel are used to determine where individuals spent their childhood.
I am afraid it is over forty years since I did an analysis for Sr 90 and I am sure techniques will have changed. I know they have changed! I have also lost contact with with former, but more recent, colleagues in radio-chemistry.
Sorry a load of waffle but perhaps it explains something to you.
Hey, that's a very good response, with much food for thought.
This sword doesn't belong to me, but if I can borrow it I will, and maybe work from there.
The comments about Strontium 90 are of course, quite correct.
Rust in a 40 series block? That's a 'how long is a piece of string' question. But generally I'd keep using it until the flow becomes a little restricted. The waterways are quite generous.
This sword doesn't belong to me, but if I can borrow it I will, and maybe work from there.
The comments about Strontium 90 are of course, quite correct.
Rust in a 40 series block? That's a 'how long is a piece of string' question. But generally I'd keep using it until the flow becomes a little restricted. The waterways are quite generous.
Some further thoughts. When I later though a bit more about this I realised that the isotopes, radioactive or other wise, in an object like a sword will depend almost entirely on the isotopes present in the raw materials, in this case the iron ore and other minerals used to extract the iron. They will not have been affected by recent nuclear weapons or civil nuclear energy programmes.
The areas where the presence of non naturally occurring radioisotopes could be used as a guide are organic materials that are the remains of plants and animals. Those that predate the nuclear age will not contain such isotopes whereas the remains of plants and animals which lived since the start of that age will contain them. Whether it is used as a marker or not I do not know but I would think Sr90 in bones would be an example.
On reflection the answer to the original conundrum is probably elemental analysis which can then be compared with known analyses. The composition of steel must have changed over the years as extraction methods etc changed and as metallurgical science developed.
The areas where the presence of non naturally occurring radioisotopes could be used as a guide are organic materials that are the remains of plants and animals. Those that predate the nuclear age will not contain such isotopes whereas the remains of plants and animals which lived since the start of that age will contain them. Whether it is used as a marker or not I do not know but I would think Sr90 in bones would be an example.
On reflection the answer to the original conundrum is probably elemental analysis which can then be compared with known analyses. The composition of steel must have changed over the years as extraction methods etc changed and as metallurgical science developed.
The main reason I'd like to explore the Strontium 90 route is that if Strontium 90 is not present, then the blade must predate the atmospheric tests of about fifty years ago.
As far as I know there has been no real attempt until pretty recently to replicate the pattern welded blades of the era. This would indicate that the weapon is probably genuine, and other tests can bear this in mind.
I am given to understand that for critical steel components that must have no Strontium 90 contamination, the only reliable source is from steel ships sunk before (preferably) 1945. The airborne contamination did not affect these submarine relics, therefore the steel (and other metals) can be reused with confidence, provided only that manufacturing processes are designed to eliminate the chance of contamination.
The blade concerned has good provenance, it's the right shape, size, length, cross section etc, and once this particular issue is dealt with we can go on to more detailed analysis.
As far as I know there has been no real attempt until pretty recently to replicate the pattern welded blades of the era. This would indicate that the weapon is probably genuine, and other tests can bear this in mind.
I am given to understand that for critical steel components that must have no Strontium 90 contamination, the only reliable source is from steel ships sunk before (preferably) 1945. The airborne contamination did not affect these submarine relics, therefore the steel (and other metals) can be reused with confidence, provided only that manufacturing processes are designed to eliminate the chance of contamination.
The blade concerned has good provenance, it's the right shape, size, length, cross section etc, and once this particular issue is dealt with we can go on to more detailed analysis.
I would not have thought that the absence of Sr90 would have proved that the item predated nuclear tests etc but you seem to know more than me about such things. No doubt that if its present its recent.
I dont know how you will stand regarding testing without sacrificing or at least damaging the item. It'll rather defeat the object if it has to be dissolved in nitric acid to start with. The lab I worked in for a while did a lot of metal analysis by ICP OES and the usuall first step was to dissolve a gram of swarf in a nitric / hydrofluoric acid mix!
There was a radiochemical lab in the same building but I never went near that!
I dont know how you will stand regarding testing without sacrificing or at least damaging the item. It'll rather defeat the object if it has to be dissolved in nitric acid to start with. The lab I worked in for a while did a lot of metal analysis by ICP OES and the usuall first step was to dissolve a gram of swarf in a nitric / hydrofluoric acid mix!
There was a radiochemical lab in the same building but I never went near that!
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CatiGull
- Posts: 267
- Joined: Sun Mar 12, 2006 2:35 am
- Location: Delmar on Hudson NY USA.........3000 nm west of THe Black Country
Atomic Absorption analysis would still be the classic way to look for this - and in the States at least there are lots of labs who would run this for you.
You could probably get a better answer on your kit from an appraiser though - the absence of presence of Strontium might not be a definitive answer to its provenance.
You could probably get a better answer on your kit from an appraiser though - the absence of presence of Strontium might not be a definitive answer to its provenance.
Stephen
Awenke Yacht Club
New Baltimore NY
S/V Catigale
Macgregor 26X
Island 17 Sloop
Awenke Yacht Club
New Baltimore NY
S/V Catigale
Macgregor 26X
Island 17 Sloop
Appraiser, hmm, yes.
In a previous life I was a cataloguer at an auction house dealing primarily in antique arms and armour. Effectively that's being an appraiser; we used to be expected to know about everything, and if we didn't know about it we were expected to know where to look it up or who to ask. We really were quite good at it, and people would come to us to ask our opinions. I don't remember a time when we were wrong, but I suppose that nowadays with recent research and all that some of the details we 'knew' have been supplanted.
This whole subject came up ove a cup of tea with a colleague from those days (this was early seventies) and the blade was an interesting diversion. There's no real worry about it, but the challenge of proof of age is intriguing. The radioactivity is a possible line.
The provenance is known as far as it can be - the original owner has sadly passed away ( the recent owner I mean, not the guy who had it 1300 hundred years ago!) I'm fairly happy with that.
But with these things there are people out there in Eastern Europe who are making pattern welded blades by hand and are doing it quite well. How exactly such an artefact could then be carefully aged is a different question, but as I say there are some clever folk out there.
In a previous life I was a cataloguer at an auction house dealing primarily in antique arms and armour. Effectively that's being an appraiser; we used to be expected to know about everything, and if we didn't know about it we were expected to know where to look it up or who to ask. We really were quite good at it, and people would come to us to ask our opinions. I don't remember a time when we were wrong, but I suppose that nowadays with recent research and all that some of the details we 'knew' have been supplanted.
This whole subject came up ove a cup of tea with a colleague from those days (this was early seventies) and the blade was an interesting diversion. There's no real worry about it, but the challenge of proof of age is intriguing. The radioactivity is a possible line.
The provenance is known as far as it can be - the original owner has sadly passed away ( the recent owner I mean, not the guy who had it 1300 hundred years ago!) I'm fairly happy with that.
But with these things there are people out there in Eastern Europe who are making pattern welded blades by hand and are doing it quite well. How exactly such an artefact could then be carefully aged is a different question, but as I say there are some clever folk out there.
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CatiGull
- Posts: 267
- Joined: Sun Mar 12, 2006 2:35 am
- Location: Delmar on Hudson NY USA.........3000 nm west of THe Black Country
I dont think you can date a non-living thing with a nuclear method.
Carbon dating (not a method of meeting people) works since the 'natural balance' of isotopes is maintained until the organism dies, then the ratio of active to non-active Carbon begins to change, thus fixing the 'death date'
I dont see how measuring Sr ratios will give you date iof the sword, it will rather give you the date of the minerals from which it was made...unless its the living sword of Excalibur.....
Carbon dating (not a method of meeting people) works since the 'natural balance' of isotopes is maintained until the organism dies, then the ratio of active to non-active Carbon begins to change, thus fixing the 'death date'
I dont see how measuring Sr ratios will give you date iof the sword, it will rather give you the date of the minerals from which it was made...unless its the living sword of Excalibur.....
Stephen
Awenke Yacht Club
New Baltimore NY
S/V Catigale
Macgregor 26X
Island 17 Sloop
Awenke Yacht Club
New Baltimore NY
S/V Catigale
Macgregor 26X
Island 17 Sloop
Not trying to date it, merely trying to establish the possibility of it being a cunningly made modern copy.
If the products of nuclear testing in the fifties leaves traces in modern steel, my reasoning is that any such traces present in this blade make it suspect.
Everything else looks and feels fine, and I must say if I'd seen it in an auction I would have laid proper money out on it. This is largely an academic exercise.
Apart from this question I would date the blade from dimensions, shape, pommel, etc, and that's not too difficult.
If the products of nuclear testing in the fifties leaves traces in modern steel, my reasoning is that any such traces present in this blade make it suspect.
Everything else looks and feels fine, and I must say if I'd seen it in an auction I would have laid proper money out on it. This is largely an academic exercise.
Apart from this question I would date the blade from dimensions, shape, pommel, etc, and that's not too difficult.