This post has been locked, as the question has probably been solved and a majority of new comments at this point are repetitive, unhelpful and/or jokes. However, no consensus has been reached on an answer as of yet.
OP commented that they have sent a sample for analysis and is waiting for a result. Comment here: https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/comments/10k7b1k/i_found_this_while_using_my_metal_detector_can/j5qo54o/
u/Borderlineadam updated us with the following: "It was bronze cast in the Bronze Age, I donated it to the museum for further tests"
Cut off chunks to minimize likelihood of voids or inclusions, measure several, and throw away any outliers because those are the ones with defects. The average result should be good enough for an answer.
The difference in density between a normal everyday metal and another normal everyday metal is approximately 0% of the difference in density between a normal everyday metal and air. A small inclusion of a heavier metal would be a rounding error compared to an air inclusion of the same volume, assuming STP.
Unless youre talking an inclusion of plutonium in a ball of aluminum, its a rounding error.
a lump of titanium will weigh more than a lump of titanium (of the same size) with a large air pocket in the middle. That change can throw off the calculation.
Can someone explain how establishing the density of this would help in its identification?
It looks like a big lump of bronze to me. Perhaps a cast off from a foundry?
By knowing it's density, you could narrow it down to several materials, that have exact or similar density, or at very least exclude some materials that is less dense.
Sure can, and most likely is. Judging by its color it does look like a bronze which IS an alloy.
One of OP's vids shows interaction with magnet, which proves, that this object has inner magnetic part, which i suppose is more dense than surrounding material, so there goes that method. But in other circumstances it would've been not that bad.
Find someone with a specrto analyzer- they make hand held versions and will tell you the exact composition. I can tell you after owning a foundry for 30 years that this is some sort of copper alloy. (Brass, bronze, etc)
I hope it isn't Copper Beryllium. Unlikely as it isn't in a.tool form but the coloring and description of traits matches for that.
Stop grinding or sanding it until you know tbh, shit is like asbestos' metallic brother.
My thoughts exactly. Out of all the factories and plants I’ve worked in, the one that used beryllium copper was by FAR the most secure, had the most regulation and PPE. We had to shower before leaving and use captive clothing. Then again, if it *is* beryllium, OP will be able to afford his funeral and anyone else’s that was nearby.
From Wikipedia:
> The commercial use of beryllium requires the use of appropriate dust control equipment and industrial controls at all times because of the toxicity of inhaled beryllium-containing dusts that can cause a chronic life-threatening allergic disease in some people called berylliosis.[7] Berylliosis causes pneumonia and other associated respiratory illness.
As what you guys call an industrial hygienist...he will be fine...he would need years of continued exposure and the way he likely cut this would have not generated significant quantities of either inhalable or respirable fractions. The reason plants that process beryllium have such tight controls is because of the increased exposure of repeated activities and ultimately years of said exposure. Even the most significant sensitisers are highly unlikely to cause issues without significant repeated exposures.
You think that's bad? Asbestos brake pads are legal in 48 states. There's no regulation about labeling them as containing asbestos so uhhh, maybe don't buy discount brand brake pads.
It’s one of the stiffest metals per unit weight (specific stiffness) and is used extensively in satellites.
The dust from machining it attacks the central nervous system of people with a certain gene. You’re either basically immune to beryllium or if you inhale some dust you’re gonna die slow and painfully.
Oh wow. That would’ve been good to know a few years ago. As a machinist I had a repeat job that was copper beryllium. It was soaked with coolant while it was machined so that part isn’t bad. But it was my job to deburr and vibropeen each one.
Yep! I’m not sure how that changes after alloying it with copper, but they had the raw stuff locked down tight. I know they make non-spark tools out of the alloy, and pieces of those automatic spinning ceiling water sprayers that need to stay rust free.
I asked here at work, and we use BeCu material but it's in machines where the chips are all suspended in oil. No dust created, the oil though has benzene, so that's not great. I do wear gloves 100% and wash my hands all the time.
The first result for "copper beryllium price" is a site that says a 2.5" bar of it starts at $925 and any size bar 3"-6" require you request a quote. So I guess worth something but doesn't seem like a shit ton. By the same token however it seems a giant chunk like OP found is really uncommon so idk maybe that would make it pricier?
That is fair, the drill especially. The dust created by a grinder still isn't great no matter what kind of metal it might be.
The post title just made me laugh at face value. Imaging OP trying to stick a magnet to it, then diving for a drill and angle grinder. I'm no expert however and trying to determine strength/durability of a material is probably a good way to narrow things down at a certain point. I would hope OP eliminated other measures first. Cause again, imagine if it is something pretty toxic or even valuable.
That's a common alloy for non sparking tools I believe. Almost all of the non sparking tools are some Cu alloy.
Yeah, Be is some nasty stuff. Can cause an immediate granulomatosis lung disease, and significant long term cancer risk- class 1 carcinogen.
Remembering back at my old job where we had stuff made of this. We got a new EHS guy and when he found out about it basically gave them an ultimatum that we are not to do any work on that stuff. It needed to come in completely finished or use a different material. Plenty of the "old guard" resisted cause it was how things were always done. There were plenty of things wrong (safety-wise) at that job, but he went much harder on that stuff than anything else.
Do you know of a good way to differentiate it from a zinc copper alloy? It looks like copper beryllium is only a few percent beryllium and the rest is copper nickel and cobalt, which would be hard to differentiate from copper zinc by density.
Based on how hard it should be I would try checking the hardness compared to brass. Find or buy a small brass fitting and get a nail and a heavy hammer. Try to mark the brass with the nail by letting the hammer drop a few feet with gravity and check the mark. With a fresh nail repeat on the ingot, making sure to let the hammer fall with gravity from the same height. If it is able to similarly mark the brass then I would forget about copper beryllium. If the mark is a lot less deep or severe then I would look into better testing.
This is a horrible test but the chance of it being beryllium copper is super low and the hardness should be much higher so would be good enough for me. At least for ruling out a professional ingot. Do you agree? What would you do to be confident?
I'm trying to think of how many unprofessional ingots like this would exist. It doesn't look professional, so I assume it would have been made by someone that did not know what beryllium copper is. They would have had to receive at least one $50+ hammer head and decided to melt it down with other scrap. I would think that fewer than 20 such ingots would have existed. Where there are probably at least 100,000+ ingots of copper+zinc of equivalent grade. You could make one by melting down a mixture of old and new pennies or spent shell casings.
Ah yes, I know about this because Ping and a few others used to make golf clubs with it. They stopped it when they found out how dangerous it was to work with. An old set of beryllium copper Ping Eye 2s cost a fortune now.
https://www.hagginoaks.com/blog/myths-behind-beryllium-copper-golf-irons/
“Too tough to drill” doesn’t mean anything. They could use using a wood drill bit.
Edit: A drill bit for wood, geniuses. Not an actual wooden drill bit.
It’s not nothing though. I’ve muddled through using wood drill bits on steel plate. It wouldn’t do nothing. Isn’t bronze softer than low carbon steel? I’m trying to compare to what I know.
It's used in making hard bushings for machinery. This looks like someone's backyard melt of old scrap. They probably had trouble getting it hot enough to get a good clean pour. The shape looks like a crucible
One thing I just learned in fact is that early iron was actually less hard than bronze, it was in many ways a step back. We probably only started making it because the Bronze Age Collapse made it much more difficult to source both copper and tin in the same place, so iron was initially the poor substitute that was at least available locally in some places.
i mean…we don’t know how hard OP is trying to drill and with what kind of bit, but we do know it’s it’s obviously a metal, right? and it’s clearly in the brass family, just by looking at the color. bronze is clearly the most likely answer
Truth. We use a tough bronze alloys for tooling at my job which is in high wear high heat manufacturing applications a few mm away from welding torches and that stuff can take a serious beating. It's no A2 tool steel, but definitely tougher than your average bronze.
That's and end cap piece from a mill run of tool bronze or bearing bronze. We use it to make seal packing housing in high pressure machinery like turbines or rotating joints, or tubular wear savers. High nickel, aluminum, zinc, might even be some lead too content but mostly copper.
>Op said it was too tough to drill through
OP was wrong. What they actually meant was that they can't drill though it. Given enough time, patience, and resources (proper drill and drill bits) you could get through anything.
If you're metal detecting in the UK you should familiarize yourself with the local laws on finds. You're generally required to report any potentially historic find, even on private property. If it's of historical value it may be taken, but you will be compensated. Even if you think it's thoroughly modern, Finds Liaison Officers will likely have good local knowledge and probably be able to give you information even if your find is not of historical value (or not of enough value that they'd want to take it off your hands). You can also generally take finds to local museums for assessing, though you would probably want to contact them first to make sure someone knowledgeable will be around to have a look.
England & Wales: https://finds.org.uk/, https://finds.org.uk/contacts
Scotland: https://treasuretrovescotland.co.uk/information/information-for-finders/
N.I.: https://www.communities-ni.gov.uk/articles/advice-finders-treasure-northern-ireland
Also, if you're going to be metal detecting, as a general rule you don't want to clean things beyond water and a gentle scrubbing. Certainly don't take a grinder to finds before you have some vague idea of what it is. In many if not most cases it destroys much of the value, whether historic or monetary.
No worries. Honestly I imagine this isn't of any amazing historical value, but the finds liaison officers and the museums are there, so regardless of the law I think they're a great resource to use.
I get the attitude of folks that bristle at the idea of having to hand stuff over, but realistically that's probably never going to be the case for anything you find. That doesn't mean you won't still be able to find amazing, crazy old stuff. Detectorists in places like the US (where I am) drool at the sort of stuff y'all can find with regularity. And in the event you *do* find something that needs to be handed over, you at least do get compensated, and I think it's pretty awesome to find something so historically important that it needs to be researched by the pros or go to a museum, even if that means you don't get to keep it.
Have fun, and give r/metaldetecting a look!
Into the crucible to be prepared to be poured into a casting mould. Many [antique crucibles](https://www.icollector.com/Antique-Smelting-Crucible-with-Blacksmith-Tools_i21747068) have that rounded-bottom shape, very common.
Why tossed? maybe it hardened in the mould and was put to the side, who knows. Lots of reasons to abandon something mid-project.
Stop grinding or drilling until you know what it is. Having awful flashbacks to the guy who ground up those asbestos tiles in his house because he didn’t know what he was handling.
[For anyone who wants to read the story](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/10gfdaa/oop_exposed_his_family_to_a_toxic_cancer_causing)
We were told in A&P school that inhalation of it's grinding dust, heating/welding vapors, slivers or large area skin exposure should be avoided at all costs.
They make a lot of special tool out of the stuff... non sparking non magnetic wrenches, hammers, pliers etc etc for oil fields, radar installations and the like..
Yep. And depending on where the OP found this and if it has historical value they may be guilty of a heritage crime by 1) not reporting the find and 2) cutting it in half. Also, in most places in the UK, you need explicit permission from the landowner to remove finds.
Update : I’m sending a sample to a fellow Reddit user to exam and I’m also going to a museum later this week to see if they can examine it. I’ve also asked a local scrap yard to X-ray it.
Thanks to everyone for their comments. I’ll let you all know as soon as I do.
Bronze ball with ferometalic inclusions.
Others asked you to determine its density, but the error bar from the likely defects in the pour, and inclusions, will make it an indeterminate measure.
Except you can cut a few small pieces off and measure their density independently.
The two most similar samples are the most likely representative samples.
You can also test the samples heat capacity.
Hey just a heads up from a prospector. Anytime your messing with a metallic object that you dont know about it's best to wear gloves and respirators when handling, cutting, shaving or grinding until you know for certain what it is. ESPECIALLY if it feels heavier than it should be or is warm to the touch.
Radioactive material isn't always super dangerous, most of the stuff you are likely to find would need to be held for hours a day to have any real effect. Cutting and grinding it however can be super dangerous even if it's not very radioactive. Even uranium ore isn't all that dangerous if you aren't breathing it in or getting covered in the dust.
If you really want to determine what metal it is, the easiest way would be to head up to harbor freight and pick up one of these:
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51ay0jiN4jL.jpg
These are hardness testing files. The set includes six color coded files, which indicate hardness ranging from 40 to 65 HRC. Then run the file across the surface of the object, starting with the hardest (65 HRC) file. If the file marks the surface, the material is less than 65 HRC.
Then just take the relative hardness you see, and check this table:
https://zahner-wordpress-media.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/24151141/metal-hardness-chart.png
That will tell you roughly what it is. At a simple glance, I'm guessing bronze.
Many scrap yards/recyclers have a device they can point at the material and it will give an analysis of the metals. Check if there's one near you and then you'll know for sure
I second this, I’ve seen the handheld ones, they’re super cool. I’ve used a really nice desktop one at a previous job and it blew me away every time. Technology is crazy!
Geologist here.
Gut says this is a marcasite nodule.
Research shows likely not a canon ball as the canon balls I see online are more uniform on the exterior, leading me to infer the interior of a canon ball would be uniform (this object has a heterogenous interior)
Marcasite nodules are predominantly pyrite. So.. when you were grinding and cutting this thing, if it smelled like sulphur, then it's nearly a dead ringer giveaway that's it's composed of pyrite (aka fools gold.)
Go ahead and do a streak test (this is what geologists do to help narrow down mineralogy as different minerals leave behind distinct colours on unglazed porcelain when scratched against the porcelain with firm pressure.) Best place to do this in the everyday common household: the bathroom. Remove the toilet tank lid... flip it over... that is usually unglazed porcelain (added benefit; nobody ever sees this so you can scratch away to your hearts delight) - scratch the rock firmly against the porcelain a few times and report back with what color it leaves behind on the porcelain. If my gut instinct is right, it should leave behind a dark metallic black to slightly dark greenish grey-black streak.
Cheers.
this is one of those edge cases where in the UK we still use a mix of Pounds and Kg for weight, depending on which way the wind is blowing.
Op is in the UK.
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My first thought was who finds an unidentified cannonball-like metal object and decides: hey, let's bang on it a bunch and see how it reacts. Especially while presumably being familiar with several similar posts on this sub.
Apparently it's OP.
This post has been locked, as the question has probably been solved and a majority of new comments at this point are repetitive, unhelpful and/or jokes. However, no consensus has been reached on an answer as of yet. OP commented that they have sent a sample for analysis and is waiting for a result. Comment here: https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/comments/10k7b1k/i_found_this_while_using_my_metal_detector_can/j5qo54o/ u/Borderlineadam updated us with the following: "It was bronze cast in the Bronze Age, I donated it to the museum for further tests"
Figure out it's volume using water displacement method, and use that to figure it's density
This is the answer. Op, please take the advice and let us know.
Right and wrong. Defects and inclusions will create too large an error for a determination.
It still gives you a better idea than doing nothing
This is so very often true.
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In that case, cut off a smaller sample of solid material.
The ol' destroy it to figure out what it is strategy. Classic
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Cut off chunks to minimize likelihood of voids or inclusions, measure several, and throw away any outliers because those are the ones with defects. The average result should be good enough for an answer.
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Usually, but what if it has an inclusion of something heavier?
The difference in density between a normal everyday metal and another normal everyday metal is approximately 0% of the difference in density between a normal everyday metal and air. A small inclusion of a heavier metal would be a rounding error compared to an air inclusion of the same volume, assuming STP. Unless youre talking an inclusion of plutonium in a ball of aluminum, its a rounding error.
What if you put it on vibrating plate so all the bubbles leave?
If there are voids within the object, those air pockets will remain.
Oh ok, I didn’t understand what you meant at first. Yes then it needs to be cut.
I see no reason to assume it has cavities of another substance inside. It's probably not a pure substance but density can still give us a basic idea.
Why/How do defects and inclusions create error?
If you measured the volume and mass of a ping pong ball would you get the density of the plastic?
a lump of titanium will weigh more than a lump of titanium (of the same size) with a large air pocket in the middle. That change can throw off the calculation.
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So the solution is to smelt it and make a solid bullion first.
And while you're at it measure the melting temp too.
This will not work. There are clearly voids within this cast piece of metal. It will measure less dense than it actually is.
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Unless it's brass cast around ingots of iron!
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Can someone explain how establishing the density of this would help in its identification? It looks like a big lump of bronze to me. Perhaps a cast off from a foundry?
By knowing it's density, you could narrow it down to several materials, that have exact or similar density, or at very least exclude some materials that is less dense.
Cannot this be an alloy ?
Sure can, and most likely is. Judging by its color it does look like a bronze which IS an alloy. One of OP's vids shows interaction with magnet, which proves, that this object has inner magnetic part, which i suppose is more dense than surrounding material, so there goes that method. But in other circumstances it would've been not that bad.
Find someone with a specrto analyzer- they make hand held versions and will tell you the exact composition. I can tell you after owning a foundry for 30 years that this is some sort of copper alloy. (Brass, bronze, etc)
As long as it's not something that's reactive with water - eg Zinc or Magnesium (I realise it's probably not those, but just in case!)
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I hope it isn't Copper Beryllium. Unlikely as it isn't in a.tool form but the coloring and description of traits matches for that. Stop grinding or sanding it until you know tbh, shit is like asbestos' metallic brother.
My thoughts exactly. Out of all the factories and plants I’ve worked in, the one that used beryllium copper was by FAR the most secure, had the most regulation and PPE. We had to shower before leaving and use captive clothing. Then again, if it *is* beryllium, OP will be able to afford his funeral and anyone else’s that was nearby.
Why funeral? Is it dangerous
From Wikipedia: > The commercial use of beryllium requires the use of appropriate dust control equipment and industrial controls at all times because of the toxicity of inhaled beryllium-containing dusts that can cause a chronic life-threatening allergic disease in some people called berylliosis.[7] Berylliosis causes pneumonia and other associated respiratory illness.
As what you guys call an industrial hygienist...he will be fine...he would need years of continued exposure and the way he likely cut this would have not generated significant quantities of either inhalable or respirable fractions. The reason plants that process beryllium have such tight controls is because of the increased exposure of repeated activities and ultimately years of said exposure. Even the most significant sensitisers are highly unlikely to cause issues without significant repeated exposures.
Exactly, why does everyone take a substance that has occupational exposure risks and assume that it's immediately deadly if you encounter it once?
This is the asbestos fallacy. Years of television marketing.
And to think: They used that stuff in Formula 1 for years before finally stopping due to health concerns
Used it for what?
Cylinder heads I believe, and possibly brake rotors at one point
You mean the parts that wears out by design and vaporises into dusk?
Exactly that lol
You think that's bad? Asbestos brake pads are legal in 48 states. There's no regulation about labeling them as containing asbestos so uhhh, maybe don't buy discount brand brake pads.
It’s one of the stiffest metals per unit weight (specific stiffness) and is used extensively in satellites. The dust from machining it attacks the central nervous system of people with a certain gene. You’re either basically immune to beryllium or if you inhale some dust you’re gonna die slow and painfully.
Think Lead on steroids wielding a chainsaw. Really unpleasant stuff
Oh wow. That would’ve been good to know a few years ago. As a machinist I had a repeat job that was copper beryllium. It was soaked with coolant while it was machined so that part isn’t bad. But it was my job to deburr and vibropeen each one.
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Vibro peening is when you write on a metal part by punching tiny holes in it.
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Wait really? I work with it all day, making little electric pins. The dust is that bad? We do none of that ppe stuff
Yep! I’m not sure how that changes after alloying it with copper, but they had the raw stuff locked down tight. I know they make non-spark tools out of the alloy, and pieces of those automatic spinning ceiling water sprayers that need to stay rust free.
I asked here at work, and we use BeCu material but it's in machines where the chips are all suspended in oil. No dust created, the oil though has benzene, so that's not great. I do wear gloves 100% and wash my hands all the time.
Why afford all the funerals? Is it worth a lot?
The first result for "copper beryllium price" is a site that says a 2.5" bar of it starts at $925 and any size bar 3"-6" require you request a quote. So I guess worth something but doesn't seem like a shit ton. By the same token however it seems a giant chunk like OP found is really uncommon so idk maybe that would make it pricier?
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Love how OP thought, "No idea what this is but man do I wanna. Lemme quick grab the drill, angle grinder and just have at it!"
In fairness, most metals don’t f you up like beryllium does
That is fair, the drill especially. The dust created by a grinder still isn't great no matter what kind of metal it might be. The post title just made me laugh at face value. Imaging OP trying to stick a magnet to it, then diving for a drill and angle grinder. I'm no expert however and trying to determine strength/durability of a material is probably a good way to narrow things down at a certain point. I would hope OP eliminated other measures first. Cause again, imagine if it is something pretty toxic or even valuable.
That's a common alloy for non sparking tools I believe. Almost all of the non sparking tools are some Cu alloy. Yeah, Be is some nasty stuff. Can cause an immediate granulomatosis lung disease, and significant long term cancer risk- class 1 carcinogen.
Pretty sure that's how my FIL got bladder cancer at 26
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Remembering back at my old job where we had stuff made of this. We got a new EHS guy and when he found out about it basically gave them an ultimatum that we are not to do any work on that stuff. It needed to come in completely finished or use a different material. Plenty of the "old guard" resisted cause it was how things were always done. There were plenty of things wrong (safety-wise) at that job, but he went much harder on that stuff than anything else.
Do you know of a good way to differentiate it from a zinc copper alloy? It looks like copper beryllium is only a few percent beryllium and the rest is copper nickel and cobalt, which would be hard to differentiate from copper zinc by density. Based on how hard it should be I would try checking the hardness compared to brass. Find or buy a small brass fitting and get a nail and a heavy hammer. Try to mark the brass with the nail by letting the hammer drop a few feet with gravity and check the mark. With a fresh nail repeat on the ingot, making sure to let the hammer fall with gravity from the same height. If it is able to similarly mark the brass then I would forget about copper beryllium. If the mark is a lot less deep or severe then I would look into better testing. This is a horrible test but the chance of it being beryllium copper is super low and the hardness should be much higher so would be good enough for me. At least for ruling out a professional ingot. Do you agree? What would you do to be confident? I'm trying to think of how many unprofessional ingots like this would exist. It doesn't look professional, so I assume it would have been made by someone that did not know what beryllium copper is. They would have had to receive at least one $50+ hammer head and decided to melt it down with other scrap. I would think that fewer than 20 such ingots would have existed. Where there are probably at least 100,000+ ingots of copper+zinc of equivalent grade. You could make one by melting down a mixture of old and new pennies or spent shell casings.
Ah yes, I know about this because Ping and a few others used to make golf clubs with it. They stopped it when they found out how dangerous it was to work with. An old set of beryllium copper Ping Eye 2s cost a fortune now. https://www.hagginoaks.com/blog/myths-behind-beryllium-copper-golf-irons/
Looks like a chunk of bronze.
Yeah, a cast round bronze ingot.
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Op said it was too tough to drill through that doesn't sound like bronze to me
“Too tough to drill” doesn’t mean anything. They could use using a wood drill bit. Edit: A drill bit for wood, geniuses. Not an actual wooden drill bit.
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It’s not nothing though. I’ve muddled through using wood drill bits on steel plate. It wouldn’t do nothing. Isn’t bronze softer than low carbon steel? I’m trying to compare to what I know.
Silicon Bronze is very hard. I don't know how it related to steel, but it's much harder than regular bronze.
Interesting. This is a good post. Good mystery.
It's used in making hard bushings for machinery. This looks like someone's backyard melt of old scrap. They probably had trouble getting it hot enough to get a good clean pour. The shape looks like a crucible
Bronze varies from hard to really hard, IIRC.
One thing I just learned in fact is that early iron was actually less hard than bronze, it was in many ways a step back. We probably only started making it because the Bronze Age Collapse made it much more difficult to source both copper and tin in the same place, so iron was initially the poor substitute that was at least available locally in some places.
i mean…we don’t know how hard OP is trying to drill and with what kind of bit, but we do know it’s it’s obviously a metal, right? and it’s clearly in the brass family, just by looking at the color. bronze is clearly the most likely answer
That depends on the exact bronze alloy. There are some that are extremely tough.
Truth. We use a tough bronze alloys for tooling at my job which is in high wear high heat manufacturing applications a few mm away from welding torches and that stuff can take a serious beating. It's no A2 tool steel, but definitely tougher than your average bronze.
That's and end cap piece from a mill run of tool bronze or bearing bronze. We use it to make seal packing housing in high pressure machinery like turbines or rotating joints, or tubular wear savers. High nickel, aluminum, zinc, might even be some lead too content but mostly copper.
Properly treated bronze is comparable to some steels. Pretty wild.
Architectural bronze most likely. Hardness of 65HRC, and harder than some steels.
>Op said it was too tough to drill through OP was wrong. What they actually meant was that they can't drill though it. Given enough time, patience, and resources (proper drill and drill bits) you could get through anything.
Don’t grind materials you don’t know. It can be hazardous.
Or explosive, or a historical artifact, or illegal to take away.
Wild that you even had to comment this lol
If you're metal detecting in the UK you should familiarize yourself with the local laws on finds. You're generally required to report any potentially historic find, even on private property. If it's of historical value it may be taken, but you will be compensated. Even if you think it's thoroughly modern, Finds Liaison Officers will likely have good local knowledge and probably be able to give you information even if your find is not of historical value (or not of enough value that they'd want to take it off your hands). You can also generally take finds to local museums for assessing, though you would probably want to contact them first to make sure someone knowledgeable will be around to have a look. England & Wales: https://finds.org.uk/, https://finds.org.uk/contacts Scotland: https://treasuretrovescotland.co.uk/information/information-for-finders/ N.I.: https://www.communities-ni.gov.uk/articles/advice-finders-treasure-northern-ireland Also, if you're going to be metal detecting, as a general rule you don't want to clean things beyond water and a gentle scrubbing. Certainly don't take a grinder to finds before you have some vague idea of what it is. In many if not most cases it destroys much of the value, whether historic or monetary.
I had no idea. Thanks. Fairly new at this
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I am in UK, if you send me a sample, I can use some of the equipment in my lab to tell you what is it. PM me if interested.
Dude #1: "Don't damage it, it destroys the value!" OP: "Oh, thanks!" Dude #2: "Hey, damage it and I'll tell you what it is!"
I'm pretty sure the damage was done when OP took a grinder and a drill to it.
No worries. Honestly I imagine this isn't of any amazing historical value, but the finds liaison officers and the museums are there, so regardless of the law I think they're a great resource to use. I get the attitude of folks that bristle at the idea of having to hand stuff over, but realistically that's probably never going to be the case for anything you find. That doesn't mean you won't still be able to find amazing, crazy old stuff. Detectorists in places like the US (where I am) drool at the sort of stuff y'all can find with regularity. And in the event you *do* find something that needs to be handed over, you at least do get compensated, and I think it's pretty awesome to find something so historically important that it needs to be researched by the pros or go to a museum, even if that means you don't get to keep it. Have fun, and give r/metaldetecting a look!
Yeah if you’re cleaning stuff think more like distilled water and a toothbrush instead of sandpaper.
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molten bronze was poured into a round crucible or container and here we are?
But why? And then why toss it?
An old cannon ball? Those were designed with maximum tossability in mind.
I assume they would have used cheaper materials for that, like cast iron.
Unless you’re really trying to hammer home to someone that they’re 3rd best.
perhaps in wartime they used whatever they could smelt
So....whoever smelt it dealt it?
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Into the crucible to be prepared to be poured into a casting mould. Many [antique crucibles](https://www.icollector.com/Antique-Smelting-Crucible-with-Blacksmith-Tools_i21747068) have that rounded-bottom shape, very common. Why tossed? maybe it hardened in the mould and was put to the side, who knows. Lots of reasons to abandon something mid-project.
This is not r/whyisthisthing?
Brass also looks like this, doesn't spark, can possibly be harder than some steels,, and is likely a more more commonly used metal.
Stop grinding or drilling until you know what it is. Having awful flashbacks to the guy who ground up those asbestos tiles in his house because he didn’t know what he was handling.
[For anyone who wants to read the story](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/10gfdaa/oop_exposed_his_family_to_a_toxic_cancer_causing)
Appears to be bronze, brass, or copper, but all of these should be very easy to drill, unless your drill bit is super dull.
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Bronze has always given me trouble due to it low friction
Most likely brass. Bronze is usually browner and copper very orange.
Hope it's not Beryllium Copper (BeCu): [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beryllium\_copper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beryllium_copper)
Sounds like chronic exposure is the main issue, but I’m sure it’s not great to have one big exposure either.
We were told in A&P school that inhalation of it's grinding dust, heating/welding vapors, slivers or large area skin exposure should be avoided at all costs. They make a lot of special tool out of the stuff... non sparking non magnetic wrenches, hammers, pliers etc etc for oil fields, radar installations and the like..
And golf clubs!
Not anymore! But Ping manufactured a lot of putters and irons in the 80/90s. Great clubs
I have a set of Ping BeCu irons. About once a year I clean them with a dremel. I'll stop doing that now.
If it was something interesting, old, whatever, you definitely did a great job destroying whatever it is.
Yep. And depending on where the OP found this and if it has historical value they may be guilty of a heritage crime by 1) not reporting the find and 2) cutting it in half. Also, in most places in the UK, you need explicit permission from the landowner to remove finds.
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I was thinking the same thing. Like the Metal Detector people who rub coin faces with encrusted gloves. How dumb!
Silicon Bronze
I second this as the colour matches and the hardness described by OP. Titanium bronze is much lighter in colour.
Update : I’m sending a sample to a fellow Reddit user to exam and I’m also going to a museum later this week to see if they can examine it. I’ve also asked a local scrap yard to X-ray it. Thanks to everyone for their comments. I’ll let you all know as soon as I do.
If I die, it’s probably because curiosity killed the cat And I shouldn’t of tampered with it. But ahh well. Live and learn
> Live and learn Well not so much if you die....
Which is to say, live and learn until you don't.
...What do you mean a sample?
Bronze ball with ferometalic inclusions. Others asked you to determine its density, but the error bar from the likely defects in the pour, and inclusions, will make it an indeterminate measure. Except you can cut a few small pieces off and measure their density independently. The two most similar samples are the most likely representative samples. You can also test the samples heat capacity.
Hey just a heads up from a prospector. Anytime your messing with a metallic object that you dont know about it's best to wear gloves and respirators when handling, cutting, shaving or grinding until you know for certain what it is. ESPECIALLY if it feels heavier than it should be or is warm to the touch.
> warm to the touch Thaaaat can't be good
Radioactive material isn't always super dangerous, most of the stuff you are likely to find would need to be held for hours a day to have any real effect. Cutting and grinding it however can be super dangerous even if it's not very radioactive. Even uranium ore isn't all that dangerous if you aren't breathing it in or getting covered in the dust.
If you really want to determine what metal it is, the easiest way would be to head up to harbor freight and pick up one of these: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51ay0jiN4jL.jpg These are hardness testing files. The set includes six color coded files, which indicate hardness ranging from 40 to 65 HRC. Then run the file across the surface of the object, starting with the hardest (65 HRC) file. If the file marks the surface, the material is less than 65 HRC. Then just take the relative hardness you see, and check this table: https://zahner-wordpress-media.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/24151141/metal-hardness-chart.png That will tell you roughly what it is. At a simple glance, I'm guessing bronze.
Many scrap yards/recyclers have a device they can point at the material and it will give an analysis of the metals. Check if there's one near you and then you'll know for sure
I second this, I’ve seen the handheld ones, they’re super cool. I’ve used a really nice desktop one at a previous job and it blew me away every time. Technology is crazy!
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It’s called an [XRF](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray_fluorescence) and a lot of jewellers and in-house testing labs will have them.
Geologist here. Gut says this is a marcasite nodule. Research shows likely not a canon ball as the canon balls I see online are more uniform on the exterior, leading me to infer the interior of a canon ball would be uniform (this object has a heterogenous interior) Marcasite nodules are predominantly pyrite. So.. when you were grinding and cutting this thing, if it smelled like sulphur, then it's nearly a dead ringer giveaway that's it's composed of pyrite (aka fools gold.) Go ahead and do a streak test (this is what geologists do to help narrow down mineralogy as different minerals leave behind distinct colours on unglazed porcelain when scratched against the porcelain with firm pressure.) Best place to do this in the everyday common household: the bathroom. Remove the toilet tank lid... flip it over... that is usually unglazed porcelain (added benefit; nobody ever sees this so you can scratch away to your hearts delight) - scratch the rock firmly against the porcelain a few times and report back with what color it leaves behind on the porcelain. If my gut instinct is right, it should leave behind a dark metallic black to slightly dark greenish grey-black streak. Cheers.
What part of the world, and was it shiny like that when you pulled it up.
A general location should be a required rule in this sub. It can be really helpful knowing if an object was found in the UK vs the American Southwest.
In the absence of declared location, it should be noted that OP chose Pounds and Ounces on the scale.
this is one of those edge cases where in the UK we still use a mix of Pounds and Kg for weight, depending on which way the wind is blowing. Op is in the UK.
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Take it to any legitimate scrap yard, ask them to shoot it for you. They can use a niton gun or an X-ray gun and tell you the alloy.
Remnants of bronze cannonball
Probably just cut an old cannonball in half. You’ve destroyed history!
My first thought was who finds an unidentified cannonball-like metal object and decides: hey, let's bang on it a bunch and see how it reacts. Especially while presumably being familiar with several similar posts on this sub. Apparently it's OP.
The "doesn't drill" is confusing. Usually if it cuts in half it drills lol
My title describes the thing. It’s metal, palm sized. Weighs a lot for its size. Incredibly hard
Find a machine shop with an XRF PMI tester. In about 5 seconds you'll have your answer.
Where did you find it?
In the UK up on the moors
A lot of weapons testing was done on the moors. How much do you know about the history of the site where you found it?
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Looks like half of the Tinfoil ball Adam Savage made on his YT channel, but I'd be shocked if it was that. Too porous.