Willing Suspension of Disbelief

[ThomasPowers]

I was reading a book of fantasy short stories at breakfast and had another "Willing suspension of disbelief" fail due to metalworking:  They had a strong box made from Cast Iron! with curious locks on it---why bother locking it when a good wallop with a hammer would have shattered the cast iron...(Previous fails involved cast iron hinges and the use of metal fencing in a pre industrial society. That story also had a lot of issues with socio-economic things---like tapestries in a place that could never had afforded them, hidden passageways in structures that would not have been able to "hide" them, etc.)

Made me wonder why the editor of the anthology didn't point out the issues and ask for a simple re-write.  Meanwhile another story had a excellent description of wet spinning of flax and use of a properly dressed distaff and how different fibers would be preferable in different weather conditions.

Ah well still not as egregious as that movie scene of a smith forging on a sword---with the hilt already finished!

 

[Daswulf]

Oh my favorite of them casting the sword in the beginning of the Conan movie. 

It's on yt if anyone needs a laugh.

In one scene they show what looks like some horrible bellows, Also the half heated blade quench in a snow mound. 

[ThomasPowers]

Yup Conan had several, like the scene where he was chiseling the guard---which was lost wax cast in reality.  I still enjoyed it.

[George N. M.]

Not a metal working fail but my favorite movie gripe is recoil free cannons.  Oddly enough, movies set on wind jammer ships often have the cannons recoil.  Sometimes not as violently as in real life but they do roll back when fired.

One of my favorite metal working fails is in the movie "Dragonslayer" where the hero chops the horn off the anvil with a pole arm, without the smith going ballistic.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."   

[Paul TIKI]

Do Ya'll mean to tell me I'm going to start twitching when watching some of my old fantasy favorites?  

[Daswulf]

Well they do say they are Fantasy.... 

[Paul TIKI]

True that 

 

[ThomasPowers]

How about the Robin Hood movie (PoT?) where they cast an arrowhead?

George; have you read any of the Patrick O'Brian Books?  They even mention having to do a "rolling broadside" as the old ships structure couldn't take a simultaneous firing broadside.  Also people getting caught and mangled by the recoil, cannons blowing up, etc.  One of the more realistic series; I lucked upon them by reading a review by, IIRC, the under secretary for the Navy; who mentioned having them couriered over to the USA from the UK when a new one came out as they published earlier in the UK.

So much of historical fiction reads like "modern folks stuck in historical times"  and not like the people actually were during those times, warts and all!

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

The ones my Dad laughed at were the nuclear disaster movies showing bolted flanges bursting. All connections on the primary side of a nuke system are welded, no mechanical joints. Dad worked on nuke subs, and taught nuke pipe prepping at Mare Island for the last 10 years he was there.

[JHCC]

Then there's the scene in Game of Thrones where Gendry does a bit of forging on the tip of a sword, quenches half the blade in the slack tub, and leaves it there to go wipe down another blade.

[Steve Sells]

Lord of the Rings, re forging a broken sword while assembled

[ThomasPowers]

Now reforging parts of a broken sword not still hilted makes a bit of sense; especially if you can add in enough to cover the forging and grinding losses.  Why did the blade break in the first place?  Good chance it was higher in carbon than the heat treat allowed for.  What does forge welding a billet generally do?  Lower/distribute the carbon content!

[Daswulf]

Good one Steve. Don't know how that silliness slipped my mind on the "it doesn't work that way" list.

[George N. M.]

Thomas:  Yes, I have read about half the Patrick O'Brian series and pick new ones up as I find them.  "Master and Commander" was one of the better done age of sail movies.  I can't recall any major anachronisms of the top of my head.  If you want to see the recoil from US Civil War artillery check out 

Once you see cannon firing projectiles with full military loads the blanks that are usually used in the movies look pretty wimpy.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

 

 

 

 

sivil War era 

BTW, how much recoil does your falconette have when firing projectiles?

GNM

[Frosty]

I liked the sword fight in Pirates of the Caribian in the blacksmith shop with fully dressed but glowing hot swords.  

Deb picked up a freeby on Kindle, "Dies The Fire," By S. M. Stirling. There are some blacksmithing errors but considering the characters in the novel, forgivable. I can suspend my disbelief that far. It's turning out to be a pretty good listen. IF you like post apocalyptic stories. No zombies thank goodness.

Frosty The Lucky.

[George N. M.]

Frosty:  S.M. Stirling has done some good things in the general genre of "military science fiction."  Some of it is darker than I like but he generally gets the military aspects correct.  I see from wiki that he currently lives in New Mexico.  So, he may have encountered one of Thomas' compatriots. 

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[JHCC]

1 hour ago, Frosty said:

No zombies thank goodness.

I'm thankful for the zombie genre if only because it led my cousin to commission me to make a "lobo" from World War Z:

(Which is startlingly well-balanced and not a totally unreasonable weapon.)

[Shabumi]

A recent whopper would be in GoT where they riveted an obsidian axe to steel.

[George N. M.]

Shabumi:  That is so wrong in so many ways and on so many levels.  We could spend a LOT of band width listing all the problems with that.

" By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[Frosty]

I'm uh, speechless. Perhaps it was designed by a 10 yro city kid? I'm thinking the only shield it would last more than one blow against would be an inflated sheep's bladder.  .  . MAYBE. 

Oh OH! I know! it's THE weapon to defeat the evil Uber-jelly fish!

I haven't read S. M. Stirling in I don't know how many years and don't remember the stories, maybe short stories, I don't know. So far I'm really enjoying this one and Deb downloaded the next 3 in the series. She's pretty burnt out on the war and battles but I'm a military sci fi kind of guy. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[George N. M.]

I have read all the Song of Fire and Ice books and eagerly await future volumes but (I'm going to be pretty P.O.ed if George R.R. Martin does not finish the series off) I have only seen clips of Game of Thrones on you tube.  I'm thinking that maybe the axe in question is made of dragon glass which is a material we don't have in this universe and don't know the physical properties of.  That said, it appears to be brittle since it has been formed by knapping which means, to me, that it would be very fragile.  I won't get into how you would drill or knap rivet holes.  Of course, that kind of practical consideration is pretty low on the radar of prop designers in Hollywood and TVland.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand." 

[Frosty]

I haven't read those I might have to give them a try. Drilling glass isn't difficult you use diamond and water, it's the feed speed you have to watch. 

Dad was a rock hound and we had a basement full of stone tools: saws, lapidary wheels and tables, and tumblers out the ying yang. He had them stacked 4 on the bottom layer then 3 then 2 then one for a 10 drum tumbler. He drilled semi precious and gem stones making jewelry. Were I going to give it a try I'd use a Dremel with a diamond bur and let it's own weight advance it. 

Dragon glass must be pretty tough stuff, anything dragon is nearly indestructible, probably need a baby dragon's tooth to punch the rivet holes. From there hot forging the rest is a piece of cake. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Shabumi]

I have read them all too, and am in the same boat as you about him finishing, but I waited for the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, so I won't lose sleep if he doesn't. 

I also watched the show. Its entertaining, just don't expect it to be the same as the books. The first season was word for word the first book, but after that they slowly took their own direction. By the end it's not even the same story.

In the show they have one line, where a character was reading an old book and says something to the effect of "the ancients used to call dragonglass obsidian", though in the books there isn't that clarification. 

They were also casting dragonglass into short swords in the show. Maybe thats how they got the holes and the perfect channels for the steel bars. Pre cast blanks, just knap on an edge. If you screw up and break it, just melt it down and make another.

[George N. M.]

I did the same thing with the Wheel of Time series and while I greatly enjoyed it while it was progressing I thought the final book was kind of weak and did not tie things up satisfactorily for all the major characters and story lines.  It needed another volume or be about twice as long.

"by hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[Shabumi]

I got as far as the one where Robert Jordan died and Brandon Sanderson finished. I think there were a couple after that, but I didn't read them. I do enjoy Sandersons work though. His Mistborn series was a good one, with a magic system based on consuming metals and a magic system based on wearing metals, and the rare few who can do both. Though it does show the heroes drink vials of lead pellets to lend them strength, so its another one to suspend belief to read.