Experimental Study of Abrasives for Non-Ferrous Metal Products

The article presents the results of experiments on abrasive processing of non-ferrous metal products. The purpose of the work is to characterize and specify the signs of wear on abrasive tools made of different raw materials in order to use the obtained data in the study of archaeological material of the Paleometal era. The study is based on a experimental-traceological method. A series of 30 experiments on the design and finishing of copper and bronze castings were conducted, the prototypes of which were objects from the sites of the Late Bronze Age of the Trans-Urals and the transitional period from the Bronze to Iron Age in the Ishim region. Unmodified fragments of different types of stone (sandstones, granites, argillites, quartz, siliceous rocks, etc.) were used as standards of abrasive tools. They eliminated casting and forging defects (seams, burrs, sprue residues), designed, sharpened the working parts of tools, adjusted them after use, finished and polished metal products. As a result, a collection of 16 standards of ancient tools with traces of wear was obtained. It was established that the nature of wear traces is affected, firstly, by the raw material of the abrasive tool, wear signs were formulated on different groups of rocks; secondly, by the operation performed and, in some cases, the type of casting. To verify the obtained data, a study of metal residues on ancient abrasives was carried out using scanning electron microscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX, SEM-EDS). As a result, metal particles were found, which confirms their use in metalworking

Abrasive · Bronze · Casting · Metal · Raw material · Scanning electron microscope · Diverse Industrial Engineering Technologies · Industrial Engineering and Technologies · X-ray Spectroscopy and Fluorescence Analysis