--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> > > I was watching on TV how to make Japanese swords. Tempering, by
> > > plunging the blade into water, is important.
........
> The semantic development I propose is:
> "tempered" ("dipped"), used of blades ->
> "of special quality, well-crafted", used of everything.
> Pokorny doesn't get beyond the last meaning.
>
>
> Torsten
******
But if Pokorny is right, *dabh- meant 'fitted' (or 'well-crafted')
in PIE (or something ancestral to Armenian, Germanic, Slavic, and
Italic), predating the forging of iron.
I believe tempering by chilling is only for iron.
By googling "bronze" "tempering" I find at:
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-159928.html
"Hardening brass is just the opposite of hardening steel. heat the
brass to dull red and allow to cool slowly. To soften, heat to dull
red and quench in water." That's brass, not bronze, but I think it's
the same.
The second Google hit is a JSTOR reference that I'm not going to pay
$10 for. The teaser is: "That is what we should say in English, but
the Greek says 'tempering bronze'. The process of tempering iron by
heating it in the fire and then plunging it ..." I'm guessing the
rest of the sentence is something like "which is going at things
ass-backwards" (or more academic language to the same effect).
Dan