from war to peace, from bombshells to kitchen knives
As @dazeddreamer98 and @ace108 asked me about the places in my previous shared photos, I dig through my archive and the memory of my Kinmen island trip years ago surfaced again. So, I pick some from the trip that narrates a very special industry/product in this little island - knives that are made from the remains of artillery shells! You may check it out here. This is of course the historical product of the cross-strait wars long time ago. Recently the cross-strait issue has become a global news again, don't want to talk about it here just hope that peace and joy will remain forever in this once war-torn island and between the two sides of this beautiful blue strait.
See how this focused master of knife-casting melted the bombshells - yes, you can see those materials clearly in the second photo!
this is Shan - you may learn more about me here. :)
I take it you're melting it all down to fashion it into these knives? How good have they turned out? Not all of them will be made out of steel so you have to sift through them right? I'm just wondering if you refine the metal at all or simply find the ones that are made from proper steel to melt them down into something new.
I find this sort of thing interesting because I actually make silver Jewellery and I have successfully melted down my failures and leftover bits I can't re-use into small silver bars using an ingot mould. I really like the idea of experimenting with different metal mixtures and so on but so far I have only been messing with silver because that's what I've been learning with.
oops lethn, you got me! I was just a curious traveler then. I even have to google to make sure my memory serves me right. so, cannot answer your questions. I do know that these knives are famous for their sharpness because bombs are made of good quality steel? if you are still interested, you can google 'kinmen knife'. I don't even know where to look for answers.
I have never heard anyone I know to have a hobby in 'melting' metals... is this something to do with your job? just curious! :)
I'm technically unemployed/student but I'm very close now hopefully to becoming self-employed, explaining what I do is quite complicated, but long story short I'm aiming to be a games developer ( I actually am posting blogs here on my profile so people can see what I do ) but I've also been learning Jewellery on the side, I'm probably going to be posting up my pieces so people can see what I can do.
I just find the whole process of how people make things out of metal interesting from it's absolute raw form and one thing I learned how do recently was to smelt my own silver bars out of scrap, they're only sterling but I've also been looking at how to chemically refine silver and so on so maybe I'll be able to make my own fine silver bars and even go onto gold later.
Gem setting is another thing I'm into but I suspect that games is probably going to be how I make my money simply because it's far easier to distribute and sell. I just tend to like looking at how things are made from scratch and civilisation in general is started.
My education has been very unorthodox, I didn't go to university but stayed home because it would be far cheaper for my parents and I'm learning proper skills from private tutors.
Found a video of what you were on about pretty quickly actually, looks interesting: He seems to be hacking the artillery shells to bits rather than smelting them to their raw form which can work either way if the materials are good quality so the metal most be pure enough to work with just like that.
dear lethn, thank you for such a serious feedback! It's true we can learn so much from here! :) the video is so cool and I enjoyed it. I like your view "how things are made from scratch and civilisation in general is started". The world needs more people like you. hopefully me too. :)
I saw a documentary once showing an old man picking up the ammunition shells and sell them for money to earn a living. And it was supposed to be a dangerous place to do that.
this kind of story is not uncommon in many Asian countries who were involved in world wars. tragedy of history. :(