Bronze age living history in the Netherlands

Late bronze age knife

Original

Found: Drouwen
Age: 1100-750BC

This knife was found as part of a pot of scrap metal, which probably belonged to a bronze smith. It was completely worn due to continuous resharpening. After it's use it was folded and added to the other scrap. For the reproduction I tried to get the shape it would have had if it were still new.

Mould

Material: clay & sand
The mould was made of clay straight out of the ground, mixed with an equal amount of sand. The two halves were dried, and after the clay was sufficiently dry, the shape of the knife was carved in one side of the mould. For the carving I used an antler point and flint. Due to the sand the finish was rather rough. As pure clay seems to work fine as well, and gives a much smoother finish, I'll probably stick to that. The mould was further dried near the fire, with the inside slightly baken due to the fire.
Here is the mould after casting. As the mould is still in good condition, I might use it again to try to cast more knives.

Casting result

This knife I casted for someone in Archeon, who regularly cooks prehistoric meals. As he didn't have any bronze age knife, I promised to do my best to get him one. The first two casts failed, as there were large holes in the blade. The third attempt wasn't a complete success either, as the tang hadn't completely filled. Still, the blade itself is good, so it's still possible to make a knife out if it, so at least he'll have something to work with. But as I'd like to have a knife myself as well, I'll keep casting more and see if I'll get better results.

Fully finished knife

Here's a photo of the complete knife (not finished by me personally). As can be seen, the tin content is very low or non-existant. It's possible that when adding the tin, the tin didn't end up in the crucible.