[TheForge] Interesting Article

[James Binnion]

Pete, that is a common misconception, there is great confusion between  
true  "damascus" steel and pattern welded and folded/ welded blade  
construction. It was called Damascus steel because the Europeans  
thought it originated there but that was only where the blades were  
made. It was a crucible steel made in India that was traded to the  
Middle East. It was forged at low temps to keep the microstructure  
intact. If you took and forge welded wootz you would loose the  
patterns that formed from the heating and cooling in the crucible.

Jim

For more info read some of  Verhoeven and Pendray's work on Demascus  
Steel:



# J.D. Verhoeven, A.H. Pendray and W.E. Dauksch, The Key Role of  
Impurities in Ancient Damascus Steel Blades, J of Met. 50, No. 9,  
58-64 (1998). ( http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/9809/Verhoeven-9809.html 
  )

# J.D. Verhoeven, Genuine Damascus Steel: A type of banded  
microstructure in hypereutectoid steels, Steels Research,73, 347-55  
(2002). (acrobat 6 required)
( http://www.mse.iastate.edu/fileadmin/www.mse.iastate.edu/static/files/verhoeven/steelresearchsize2.pdf 
  )

# John D. Verhoeven, The Mystery of Damascus Blades, Scientific  
American, Vol. 284, 74-79 (January 2001).
( http://www.sciamdigital.com/browse.cfm?sequencenameCHAR=item&methodnameCHAR=resource_getitembrowse&interfacenameCHAR=browsecfm&ISSUEID_CHAR=627CE543-39CD-491D-A102-209F8B6F281 
  )

# John Verhoeven and Alfred Pendray, The Mystery of the Damascus  
Sword, Muse, vol. 2, No. 2, 35-43 (1998). (acrobat 6 required)
( http://www.mse.iastate.edu/fileadmin/www.mse.iastate.edu/static/files/verhoeven/muse.pdf 
  )

# J.D. Verhoeven, A.H. Pendray and W.E. Dauksch, The Continuing Study  
of Damascus Steel: Bars from the Alwar Armory, J of Met. 56, No. 
9,17-21 (2004).

( http://doc.tms.org/servlet/ProductCatalog?container=JOM 
+2004+September )



On Oct 8, 2008, at 12:31 PM, Peter Fels & Phoebe Palmer wrote:

> Seemed wrong to me. I'd read that the Wootz came with big, low  
> carbon (?) grain structure on the outside surrounding a core of high  
> (?) carbon  that had to be forged out , folded and welded repeatedly  
> to produce the laminated structure.
> Carbon migration should have equalized in that time, so perhaps the  
> alloy content was segregated by the wootz process?...pf

James Binnion
jbin at well.com