Dear William,
Just to confirm everything that Peter has said. I have looked at
literally hundreds of Cu-As alloys; archaeological and experimental
replicas. The structure you describe is very common indeed. Typical in
fact. As Peter has indicated it is very useful. If you know the
composition, you can work out the annealing temperature really very
accurately. There is a mass of data on this in my thesis, but I don't
have it with me at the moment. If you can send me a picture and the
overall composition (careful of the technique however as they are very
heterogeneous of course), I could probably tell you the temperature.
Also as mentioned by Peter, I always found ammonia and hydrogen
peroxide the best etchant for this stuff. Ferric chloride is a bit all
or nothing.
Cheers,
Paul.
----------------------
Paul Budd
Department of Archaeological Sciences
University of Bradford
Bradford
BD7 1DP, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1274 233554
Fax: +44 (0)1274 235190
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Web: http://www.brad.ac.uk/~pdbudd/personal.html
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