Hand forging of nails in Kropa dates back to 15th century and has persevered until the 19th century when it had been replaced by machine forging. 127 types of nails and nail-like products are stored in Slovenian national museum. They differ in shape, dimensions and use: horseshoe, construction (general construction, furniture, ships) and railway nails. The best known form of so called levantine assortment was produced mainly for the Mediterranean market and is used in shipbuilding. These nails have the characteristic shape of two feathers, which are the basis for many other nails. In Slovenia, they were also made in Kamna Gorica and Železniki. The Levantine assortment was the main product until the middle of the 19th century, after which “kamelarji” (horseshoe nails for the Balkan market), large round-headed construction nails, railway rail nails and shoemaker's mountaineering nails also began to be forged.
In the diploma work, we metallographically examined nails that were forged in the middle of the 19th century. We obtained them from the National Museum of Slovenia, which originally obtained them as a gift from the Radovljica District Commissioner Franc pl. Poßanner in 1823. Nails were cut into appropriate prepared samples for analysis with a light or optical microscope, which was used to observe the size and shape of crystal grains, phase proportions and material flow. The chemical composition of the matrix and of the various non-metallic inclusions were determined by the use of scanning electron microscopy.
We found that the investigated nails
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