While the Acquisitions Dept was busy breaking his arm patting himself on the back about his Pancho Villa machete purchase (if you haven't been following the 'Vintage Knife' thread, begin
here), the Curator was on
the edge of his seat in anticipation of a reply from el estimado curador at The Museum of the Taking of Zacatecas in Zacatecas, Mexico to his inquiry about an nearly identical machete they have on exhibit, so he decided to keep himself busy by conducting a few experiments of his own to try to determine if the guard and pommel are silver or some other non-magnetic metal, such as aluminum or pewter, as had been suggested by a few of the Curator's esteemed devil's advocates.
The first test was a so-called 'ring' or 'ping' test. He dropped a silver dollar on its edge on the guard from a height of several inches, hoping to hear a sharp, crisp, high-pitched 'ping' on contact, which he did. He then dropped a silver dollar on its edge on the side of a pewter mug and on a sheet of aluminum in succession, and in each case he heard a much duller slightly clangy thud. Unfortunately, those tests don't lend themselves to visual presentation.
The Ice Test was next. And he has visuals. According to a bazillion metal thermal conductivity science projects, a paper at CalTech, and the geeks over at the ArsTechnica open forum linked
here, silver is a better heatsink than copper, and copper is a better heatsink than aluminum.
The Curator knows that any retired chemistry teacher worth his
substance produced by the reaction of an acid with a base (pssst, it's salt!) such as Shiftless will tell him that his set-up was slightly flawed, since the volume and densities of his control variables were not consistent, but he hopes Shiftless will confirm his suspicion that it wouldn't throw the test off all that much for amateur hour metal identification, and not dock him too many points. (He is secretly pulling for an A- here!)
The Curator's
Hypothesis is that the pommel and the guard are made of silver.
The Curator's
Experiment will place an ice cube on three copper pennies, the machete guard, and a stack of aluminum sheets. The ice cubes will melt equally at room temperature, but the metals will accelerate the melting in contact. If the guard is silver, it should melt the ice cube faster than the copper, and the copper should melt the ice cube faster than the aluminum.
The Curator's
Notes:
- The ice cube on the machete guard began melting so fast that he barely had time to retrieve his phone, hit the camera button, focus and take a photo before there was a small pool of water beneath the handle of the machete.
- The second visible signs of the machete guard melting the ice cube faster was the melting ice continuing to pool, while the ice cube on the copper pennies had barely melted, and there was no sign of any melt on the aluminum.
- When the larger pool of water from the machete guard's ice cube met the smaller pool of water from the copper pennies' ice cube, it became a little more difficult to know from the growing size of the pool which source was melting faster.
- After five minutes it became visually obvious that the machete guard ice cube was melting much, much faster.
- After ten minutes there was barely any ice remaining on the machete guard, and the others weren't much smaller at all.
- In thirteen minutes, the machete guard had completely melted the ice cube, while the ice cube on the pennies and the aluminum would've still served their purpose in a good stiff drink.
The Curator's
Conclusion is that the pommel and guard are made of silver!
The Curator's
Secondary Conclusion is that it's no wonder why nobody makes coozies or coolers or beer cans out of copper or silver!
