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[Shinziril]

One of the weirder things I realized while thinking about adamantine is that it isn't nearly as absurdly unbreakable as we often assume.  Its tensile yield/fracture strength, taken from the raws, is 5 GPa.  That is quite a bit, but here in the real world, using no magic of any kind (besides lots of really complicated metallurgical tricks), it's possible to make bulk steel alloys with a yield/fracture strength of just about 2 GPa.  It gets a lot harder to get them them to go higher than that, but that's still 40% of the legendary adamantine's strength. 

The other thing to remember is that strength is always size-dependent.  A 1 mm x 1 mm square "wire" of adamantine could support a load of 5000 N, or the weight of about 510 kg in Earth-normal gravity.  That's quite a lot for such a small strand, but small enough that you can certainly imagine breaking the wire.  Bending forces are even worse, since they increase as you increase the length involved- take a meter-long length of the same wire, support it from the middle, and push down on the ends, and it'll only take a force of 1 N at each end to snap it like a strand of spaghetti.  This is, of course, an extreme case- bending strength increases drastically with increasing thickness.  Build an adamantine sword the same shape as you would a normal one, and it'll be vastly stronger, just as intended.  The edges just sharpen more effectively. 

[Blizzlord]

One of the weirder things I realized while thinking about adamantine is that it isn't nearly as absurdly unbreakable as we often assume.  Its tensile yield/fracture strength, taken from the raws, is 5 GPa.  That is quite a bit, but here in the real world, using no magic of any kind (besides lots of really complicated metallurgical tricks), it's possible to make bulk steel alloys with a yield/fracture strength of just about 2 GPa.  It gets a lot harder to get them them to go higher than that, but that's still 40% of the legendary adamantine's strength. 

That is for ordinary adamantite. If we gave the metal to human scientists; who focus their knowledge on making things better instead of weaponizing it, they could do the same thing. Make an adamantine alloy and it would have even more amazing properties for the dwarves to weaponize.

If you think that adamantine would not be mallable by human hands you should have a meeting with a dwarven smith who could instruct them in the fine arts of psionics, quantum entanglement and the like.

[Oliolli]

If you think that adamantine would not be mallable by human hands you should have a meeting with a dwarven smith who could instruct them in the fine arts of psionics, quantum entanglement and the like. face.

[Ivir_Baggins]

Since adamantine is forged using dawrven beards, can using different shampoos affect the product?

[Blizzlord]

Since adamantine is forged using dawrven beards, can using different shampoos affect the product?

Shaping adamantine with the beard might damage the creature. Therefore, the dwarves apply pressure with the face.

Edit: After that their face is diagnosed for suturing with the strands they just extracted.

[Oliolli]

Since adamantine is forged using dawrven beards, can using different shampoos affect the product?

What is this "shampoo" you speak of?

[bombzero]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'm not exactly sure how an adamantine firearm would handle.  On the one hand, it's got light weight and nice rigidity, you'd think it to be durable, and it would be for traditional fire.  But once you get into large bore and higher calibers, then you hit adamantine's shatter point and you deal with recoil.  Any force imparted on an adamantine object goes directly into anything it's touching.  It has no sway, so a crowbar would not flex at all and instead transfer all the force to the pivot.  Similar,y a space elevator demands that the stalk be able to flex slightly in orbit and accommodate small tidal shifts, while adamantine would simply gouge out whatever it's anchored in and float away, or else crash down, depending.

An adamantine firearm would transfer 100% recoil into whatever is catching the recoil.  In pistols that's your arm, flexing slightly as you fire to adjust for the force.  Adamantine's hilariously low weight and perfect rigidity means that any small arms fire would have ridiculous knockback.  It would prove good for a revolver, as it can field large rounds while being thin and lightweight, but for semi automatic or full auto, you'd have so much recoil as to make consecutive shots impossible, and any hefty rounds would risk damaging the user.  One reason a desert eagle can fire large rounds is that it's a heavy gun and helps to absorb and dissipate the force more fluidly.  An adamantine desert eagle would fly back so hard it'd probably break your wrist.

For a mounted cannon, it'd fair well if it had springs and a heavy casing.  An adamantine barrel wrapped in lead would have the weight to distribute recoil and would have the strength to endure heavy shells without warping.  The largest artillery ever fired would actually fire progressively larger shells, as the barrel would enlarge under the force and warp.  Adamantine would have no such issues.  The issue is that recoil would be a bitch.

For that matter, an adamantine jackhammer may perform exceedingly well, and a large adamantine rod being pneumatically driver would ensure a 100% force delivery to the point of impact.  It would make a great wedge for splitting lumber, or for cracking open bunkers by ramming tanks against a wedge.

well reading this brought this into mind.

MetalStorm

fastest firing weapon in the world at 1,000,000 rpm. only has a 180 bullet clip though.... but i did hear they successfully tested a 1800 round clip recently by stacking more smaller bullets, basically weaponized hockey pucks based on their description of the micro rounds.

now we just need dwarves to develop it and make adamantine rounds...

[Aviator CJ]

Since adamantine is forged using dawrven beards, can using different shampoos affect the product?

What is this "shampoo" you speak of?

He must mean soap. Given the wide variety of soaps available to dorfkind, there probably is some benefit to using one kind over another. This looks like a job for !!Science!!

[Girlinhat]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'm not exactly sure how an adamantine firearm would handle.  On the one hand, it's got light weight and nice rigidity, you'd think it to be durable, and it would be for traditional fire.  But once you get into large bore and higher calibers, then you hit adamantine's shatter point and you deal with recoil.  Any force imparted on an adamantine object goes directly into anything it's touching.  It has no sway, so a crowbar would not flex at all and instead transfer all the force to the pivot.  Similar,y a space elevator demands that the stalk be able to flex slightly in orbit and accommodate small tidal shifts, while adamantine would simply gouge out whatever it's anchored in and float away, or else crash down, depending.

An adamantine firearm would transfer 100% recoil into whatever is catching the recoil.  In pistols that's your arm, flexing slightly as you fire to adjust for the force.  Adamantine's hilariously low weight and perfect rigidity means that any small arms fire would have ridiculous knockback.  It would prove good for a revolver, as it can field large rounds while being thin and lightweight, but for semi automatic or full auto, you'd have so much recoil as to make consecutive shots impossible, and any hefty rounds would risk damaging the user.  One reason a desert eagle can fire large rounds is that it's a heavy gun and helps to absorb and dissipate the force more fluidly.  An adamantine desert eagle would fly back so hard it'd probably break your wrist.

For a mounted cannon, it'd fair well if it had springs and a heavy casing.  An adamantine barrel wrapped in lead would have the weight to distribute recoil and would have the strength to endure heavy shells without warping.  The largest artillery ever fired would actually fire progressively larger shells, as the barrel would enlarge under the force and warp.  Adamantine would have no such issues.  The issue is that recoil would be a bitch.

For that matter, an adamantine jackhammer may perform exceedingly well, and a large adamantine rod being pneumatically driver would ensure a 100% force delivery to the point of impact.  It would make a great wedge for splitting lumber, or for cracking open bunkers by ramming tanks against a wedge.

well reading this brought this into mind.

MetalStorm

fastest firing weapon in the world at 1,000,000 rpm. only has a 180 bullet clip though.... but i did hear they successfully tested a 1800 round clip recently by stacking more smaller bullets, basically weaponized hockey pucks based on their description of the micro rounds.

now we just need dwarves to develop it and make adamantine rounds...

That shit is terrifying, but I hesitate to call that a legit 1mil rounds per minute.  After all, it's stacking barrels.  36 barrels are firing, so you're getting more like 28,000 rpm per barrel, which is still significant but not quite a whopping 1mil.  That's sort of like saying "I'm going 70 down the highway, and my friend passes me going 80, so we're going 150 miles an hour!"  It doesn't stack that way.

It's also firing shrapnel at that speed.  Proper minigun will fire off full, solid rounds of armor piercing or explosive shells.  Even if it's "merely .6% the rate" it's gonna get penetration and damage.  As one youtube comment said, the metal storm would be a great missile defense system, especially if the rounds could be fitted with flak explosives, it'd tear about anything out of the sky, but it's probably not going to do much damage against a jeep's door.

Also: Dwarves don't use soap on their beards.  Much like a well-used frying pan, it collects the flavor of every dish that's been prepared on it.  If you wash it, you wipe off all the collected spices and flavors and you ruin the pan.

This does, of course, mean that dwarves don't learn skills.  It's just an aggregation of debris caught in the beard that ends up making a difference when used next time.  Your stone detailer isn't smoothing floors with more skill, he's just got more pebbles lodged in his beard that make the grinding easier.  This does, coincidentally, mean that your carpenter has several spare saws stuck in his beard, and the shield user skill describes have sheets of metal lodged in the hairs.  If a dwarf were to clean his beard, he would lose all skills.  I have no idea how the soap maker raises his skill...

[Ivir_Baggins]

Since adamantine is forged using dawrven beards, can using different shampoos affect the product?

What is this "shampoo" you speak of?

He must mean soap. Given the wide variety of soaps available to dorfkind, there probably is some benefit to using one kind over another. This looks like a job for !!Science!!

We need to make different types of soap, including liquid soap for the beard. Because Dwarfs are worth it.

[flieroflight]

vermin and sponges

Both of these are trivial to weaponize.  Vermin create negative thoughts, which can drive a dwarf to insanity.  Sponges are basically unstoppable killing machines, and can be turned on your enemies with only a little bit of planning.

If your not above modding
[DRAGONFIREBREATH]

[Oliolli]

MetalStorm

...has also created a cartridge that has no casing and no primer.

"In addition, we fire the WHOLE bullet. That's 65% more bullet per bullet."

[Maxmurder]

I was thinking of this senario over the weekend...

Lets say we have a reaaaaally long rod of adamantine, lets say 9.5*10^15m long (thats about a light year). You are at one end of the rod and your friend is at the other. Since adamantine is perfectly rigid and will not flex when force is applied, if you spin the rod clockwise the entire rod will spin as one. Your friend, one light year away, would see the rod begin to spin at the exact moment that you spun the rod. Your friend would know that you spun the rod long before the light allowing him to see you spinning the rod arrived. If this is correct, the perfect rigidity of adamantine would allow the trasfer of energy and information much faster that the speed of light.

[Sadrice]

That's one of the reasons why perfect rigidity is a violation of (real world) physics.  Also, adamamantine isn't so low density that a sufficiently strong light year long rod would be easy to move, or stop moving, and the extreme leverage means it will have to be very thick (keep in mind that any flex will break it).

I seem to remember reading about the metal storm in popular mechanics a few years ago, and it mentioned an interesting possible application: use bullets made out of a fire suppressing compound and shoot it at fires way up in skyscrapers.

[SmileyMan]

So, outside of weaponry, what uses could adamantine have?

Wait, OUTSIDE of weaponry? What, you mean, like... something that has to be weaponized post-creation?

Oh yes, you make a space elevator/fountain out of adamantine, then drop slade Rods From God onto your enemies......