[TheForge] Re: Interesting Article

[Mike Spencer]

> The wootz was not folded?

Not to make the Wootz "biscuit", no.  And it wasn't heated very hot to
forge it, either, lest the unique microstructure simply vanish.

Here's more on the subject:

    http://dark.unitz.ca/~gthomas/myweb4/replication_of_wootz.htm

by Greg Obach.  Greg did a demo for us (Maritime Blacksmiths) in April
and made a nice little buiscuit of Wootz.  He didn't have magic Indian
ore or rocks with secret traces of vanadium and nickel, though.  As
far as I know, he hasn't had high-tech metallographs made of his
product but I may well be wrong on that.  

Google for "Greg Obach" to find more about his work.

If you're up for a good (and longish) read, Neal Stephenson's _The
Confusion_ (the middle volume of _The Baroque Cycle_), has a great
scene.  Our Crew of 17th c. European adventurers is (for reasons it
would be a spoiler to explain) in India and finds a sort of permanent
encampment/industrial site where haggerd laborers, sweaty boys and
wizened old sages (plus a wizard blacksmith) are turning certain
special river rocks into Wootz.  A "watered steel" sword is a salient
character through much of the book(s).


- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^