Forged or not?

[Matthew Hargis]

I have an old quadrant but I don’t know the quality of it or if it was forged or not. It appears to be well made but I don’t know much about how it was made. There is no date or makers mark I can find. I use it to spear gar and buffalo at night from my boat. It’s got two gar over 4’ on its resume and several small Buffalo.

Here it is: what do you guys think?

I hope I put his in the right thread

[Daswulf]

Yup looks forged. 

[Matthew Hargis]

I hope I put his in the right thread

[Matthew Hargis]

Thanks I was told it was really old by the guy that gave it to me. There any way to tel how old ?

[Daswulf]

I would doubt it. 

[ThomasPowers]

There has been some work on trying to carbon date iron; but that's probably too young for that.

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

I would hope they are small buffalo, a big one could just get mad and trample you........

[4elements]

5 hours ago, BIGGUNDOCTOR said:

I would hope they are small buffalo, a big one could just get mad and trample you........

GARRRRRR!

[Frosty]

That's pretty darn cool. It'd be a quadent meaning 4 teeth, trident meaning 3 teeth. Definitely forged and probably pretty old though not ancient. Pre-arc welding would be my guess, the tines are wedged in. The barbs make me think giant frog gig. I don't know if I'd want to poke something I needed that to poke. Of course if I ran across one it'd be nice to have.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

[Daswulf]

Certainly looks like it would be a neat project to make one.  

[C-1ToolSteel]

23 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

There has been some work on trying to carbon date iron; but that's probably too young for that.

And this method would only date the age of the iron that the fork was made from rather than the fork itself, correct?

 

Very cool. Never seen that type of joinery before on a fork.

[ThomasPowers]

I believe you are Correct, but I've not kept track of the method; (might throw a few monkey wrenches in using it for archaeological finds what with the recycling...)

[anvil]

I just saw this. What a nice forging!.

Then the ole blacksmith critique jumped out.

It looks like the times are two pieces the inner and the outer. Since the tines are forged rectangular at the pass thru, the slit and drift must be the same size as the round parent stock, then forged down to a tight fit where the tines pass thru. This looks like a weakspot in the design.

I would start with either two pieces of square stock or one piece of rectangular stock for the tines 8nstead of starting with round stock.

Then I would slightly taper the tines and round them to the barb's. This would add a bit of strength at the pass thru, and make the whole tool more balanced.

One more "add" to my decades long "to do" list.

[Exo313]

What I've wondered is, why is a three cornered hat a tricorn, but I can't find any corners on a unicorn? 

English is silly.  

I like the tetradent though.

[ThomasPowers]

May I commend to your attention the word "cornute"; so you can find such on a unicorn--one of them at least!  As another example of going wrong in translations consider the depiction of Moses in the renaissance as having horns.