thought: steel is such a common material for tools because, primarily, of the abundance of iron; it's the most abundant metal. As such, a lot of research has gone into making tools and structures out of iron and iron-based alloys.
But what materials would tools and structures be made of if given an unlimited amount of any ores you want? (you have to smelt, alloy, and forge them yourself though) If iron didn't have the advantage of abundance, what would tools have been made of instead?
@Felthry hmm.
Copper and bronze?
I’ll admit I like copper because it smells nice sometimes and makes good pots and pans + pretty colour
@Brainship copper is far too soft to make tools out of. Bronze is also soft but less so, you could make tools out of it but they would wear out quicker than iron ones.
@Brainship go for it! metallurgy is fascinating
@Brainship I was actually just talking to @pearshapes@snouts.online in depth about this
@Felthry ah fair enough, mostly thought of it bc of the Bronze Age.
And now we wanba jump down the hole of researching Bronze Age metal working :0