Why Metal Arrowheads?

[Pickled Geek]

A cursory survey of history and survival literature reveals that it is rare to find metal arrowheads. Most primitive arrowheads not simply sharpened wood were from rock.
Perhaps the game would be a bit more realistic in some ways if you could make arrows that do not require a forge.

[Kain]

That's speculation on my part since I'm no expert, but I suppose it's much easier to make arrow heads from glass than it is from metal or stone.

Glass is much more fragile and easier to grind in shape. Actually with that beach and forge, it would be interesting to craft glass arrows.

[JiffyPopKids]

It's hard because 1, you have to chip them down with ANOTHER rock so they weigh enough to fly far, but not too much to sink the arrow. and one mistake could mess up the whole arrowhead. Yeah, native americans made them, but it's still hard. I'd like to try and see you make one. (Oh, BTW, they didn't make them out of rocks. :)

Chip off the tip and you have to scrap the whole thing. start over with a smaller one and keep going.

I've put countless hours researching primitive ways and survival tips. Probably more hours than all of my game time on steam combined. :)

I've actaully made a homemade crossbow, Handcrafted hedge longbow, and I just recently made a sling. :)

Edit: (just saw kain post this XD)

Kain の投稿を引用：

That's speculation on my part since I'm no expert, but I suppose it's much easier to make arrow heads from glass than it is from metal or stone.

Glass is much more fragile and easier to grind in shape. Actually with that beach and forge, it would be interesting to craft glass arrows.

This is correct. it is easier to make glass arrowheads than stone. again, chip one part off and it won't even go through the skin.

This is also why some didn't even use arowheads. they would sharpen the tip of the shaft enough to go through skin. if it goes through it, it's a succesful arrow.

[iwasa]

Knapping rock and flint into tools such as an ersatz knife or arrowheads in a way that the devs would consider balanced in game terms is probably more time and effort than they would be willing to expend on something that is probably already considered solved for game purposes. It would be an option later when they feel they have the extra time to think about other "nice to have" aspects of the game such as if they are successful in getting the game to have seasons rather than this perpetual winter.

[[DOLT]Braidedheadman]

[edit] First of all, let's dispel the myth that "stone tools" means that cavemen where chipping away at hard rocks like granite or basalt to make them. They weren't. They were made using flint, obsidian, or other forms of volcanic glass (still called stone in lay terms). [/edit]

Knapping stone is only as difficult as the amount of practice it takes to become proficient in it, like anything. It certainly is not and exclusive set of skills or primitive man would never have learned them in the first place. It is certainly a whole lot less complicated than forging steel and shaping it with a hammer and anvil. Metallurgy is a highly specialized field of material science and engineering. Conversely, the basic skills and the tools needed for knapping glass require no specialized higher education and can be learned in an afternoon. Any Boy Scout who had decent Scouting leaders, as mine certainly were, will tell you this. Practice, of course, makes perfect thereafter, which this game certainly emphasizes.

Obsidian, flint or other forms of chert; and other types "volcanic glass", are all essentially varieties glass, literally, ergo modern glass makes a great substitute for neolithic glass. That is, they have the same or similar properties as compared with the different kinds of modern, manufactured glass that we're all familiar with. The differences being primarily in their relative hardness between the types (on the Mohs scale of hardness) and the amount of impurities found in volcanic glass as opposed to modern, man made glass (yes, this does make knapping modern glass "easier"). In the end, however, they're all just one form or other of common, simple glass --- melted and recrystallized forms of rocks containing mostly silica (silicon dioxide; quartz, sand).

I brought up arrowheads made from glass bottles because, in the modern world, glass is literally everywhere, eliminating one of the only real obstacles to knapping good arrowheads: finding suitable materials to knap with. The fact is, there is plenty of material to practice and get good with and it's literally all around us, even in TLD. Plenty of material for a lifetime supply of readily available arrowheads if needs be.

Additionally, as an aside if anyone is interested, it turns out that knapped glass arrowheads perform very nearly as well as compared to modern steel broadheads (skip to 3:40 if you to get right to the test and skip the steps he took to craft the arrowhead and ballistic gelatin):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1xvCH6Lu6c

(Yes, the guy in this video is cheating somewhat in his methods and use of materials, but that's not the point being made in this video)

[JiffyPopKids]

Okay, sorry, I guess I'm wrong because I think it's hard to make an arrowhead out of stone? :( (as many others do aswell.)


Edit:

And BTW, you don't have to be a teacher. we all know how stone arrowheads are made and what they're made of.

Edit again: XD

Back on topic, The reason why we use metal arrowheads is also because they can get sharper and more durable than stone ones. I mean yeah, it'd make sence if that's all you have. but that's not all our survivor has. :)

[[DOLT]Braidedheadman]

Teaching only becomes necessary when people sew disinformation.

In fact, steel is softer than volcanic glass, if only slightly. Whereas steel has a hardnes of 4.5 on the Mohs scale, which I mentioned earlier, volcanic glass has a hardness of 5. Tempered glass is even harder still. Observe:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzJKfXIZw-Y

Steel's advantage over glass comes from its compressive and ductile strength, which allows steel to better resist fracturing when placed under four point loads. But as we are not building bridges in this game, it hardly matters.

Additionally, glass, in particular obsidian, can be reduced to a much sharper edge than steel can be, giving it a much sharper blade.

It is possible to reduce certain types of glass (especially obsidian) to such a degree as to give it a nearly mono-molecular edge. That is, the cutting surface of an obsidian blade can be made so sharp as to be measurable in width by single molecules:

Archaeologists have shown that ancient man developed the ability to produce cutting blades of an extreme degree of sharpness from volcanic glass. The finest of these prismatic blades were produced in Mesoamerica about 2,500 years ago. The technique of production of these blades was rediscovered 12 years ago by Dr. Don Crabtree, who suggested possible uses for the blades in modern surgery. Blades produced by Dr. Crabtree have been used in experimental microsurgery with excellent results. Animal experiments have shown the tensile strength of obsidian produced wounds to be equal to or greater than that of wounds produced by steel scalpels after 14 days of healing. We have been able to demonstrate neither flaking of glass blades into the wounds nor any foreign body reaction in healed wounds. Skin incisions in human patients have likewise healed well without complications.

The prismatic glass blade is infinitely sharper than a honed steel edge, and these blades can be produced in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. It is therefore suggested that this type of blade may find an appropriate use in special areas of modern surgery.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1273673/

Well-crafted obsidian blades, as with any glass knife, can have a cutting edge many times sharper than high-quality steel surgical scalpels, the cutting edge of the blade being only about 3 nanometers thick.[39] Even the sharpest metal knife has a jagged, irregular blade when viewed under a strong enough microscope; when examined even under an electron microscope an obsidian blade is still smooth and even.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsidian#Current_use

Do note that the articles quoted above stipulate that examples of obsidian blades of this quality have been found as far back as ~2500 years ago in "Mesoamerica" (or South-Central America and the southernmost parts of North America). This further refutes your earlier claim that Native Americans were not using sharpened stone tools before 300 BC or whatever it was you said. They would have seen familiar use among the Aztec and Incan peoples prior to Spanish colonization of the region.

[Kain]

Ah the internet, creating 15 minutes experts. And I don't mean it in a mocking manner.

[JiffyPopKids]

Kain の投稿を引用：

Ah the internet, creating 15 minutes experts. And I don't mean it in a mocking manner.

Yup, always someone trying to prove another wrong.

Listen kid, this is my last post on this thread before unsubbing. But I really don't like when people preach to someone (a whole thread, capable of almost the whole world seeing it) who dosen't even want to listen to you. I am sticking to my original point and again stating: It's hard to make a stone arrowhead.

Edit:

Oh and yes, glass is sharper. that's why they didn't make glass swords or arrows in the midevil ages? :)

[canis39]

LOL calling someone "kid", the last gasp of the loser of an internet argument. :)

[[DOLT]Braidedheadman]

JiffyPopKids の投稿を引用：

Oh and yes, glass is sharper. that's why they didn't make glass swords or arrows in the midevil ages? :)

As you clearly didn't read the article, here it is again, from US National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1273673/

The article in question was published in 1982. These are not controversial claims being made here.

I mean, you can keep inferring that it's not true. But you'd be arguing with people much smarter and better educated than I am regarding the topic who say it is. You do you, bro.

[Edit] I just realized that you might be confusing sharpness for the compressive and ductile strength of steel. Yes, steel makes for better things like swords and armor. It does not necessarily make for a better arrowheads or even spear heads, however (video evidence above).

[JiffyPopKids]

"I mean, you can keep inferring that it's not true. But you'd be arguing with people much smarter and better educated than I am regarding the topic who say it is. You do you, bro."

Not saying it isn't true. but asking why they didn't use glass swords? :)

Also, if I'm uneducated, why did you F*** up a quote? lmao,

[[DOLT]Braidedheadman]

I could have pointed out your numerous spelling errors (medieval, not "midevil"). But that would have been pedantic and childish of me. Congratulations on taking the discussion down a further notch.

[JiffyPopKids]

Guess you didn't get the refrence? :((( (A meme where a kid spelled everything wrong in his essay)

Edit:

But yeah, you're right. I suck.

Edit again:

oh and yeah, you did point them out. :)

[iwasa]

Making arrowheads with scrap metal at a work bench was before my time, at least, before I found out how useful a bow and arrow can be.

I have thought that once arrowheads had to be made at a forge that there should have been a less satisfactory version that took more scrap metal, needed a work bench, and maybe this "improvised" arrowhead as oposed to a "forged" one would have a certain number of times it could be used before it was ruined (or ala fishing tacklet and snares, it would be useable at 100% until it suddenly, w/o warning, became ruined at 0%) and couldn't be use for another arrow.

I would have no issue with a stone arrowhead though I could foresee the devs wanting to keep some control over the manufacture of such items. Scarcity is one of the nominal aspects of the survival sandbox.

[Bosgnoom]

The dicciculty of knapping a flint arrowhead totally depends of the kind of arrowhead you want to make and, ofcourse, how experienced you are.

When it goes about flint arrowheads many imagine the all fancy and extensively worked Neolithic arrowheads, like these: Neolithic arrowheads [assets.catawiki.nl]

However, many prehistoric arrowheads are much simpler, for example the transverse arrowheads[journals.ed.ac.uk]. These were made by just breaking flakes into smaller parts and are therefore much easier to make.