[TheForge] Interesting Article

[Peter Hirst]

FRom National Geographic News, nov 16, 2006:

John Verhoeven, a metallurgist at Iowa State University at Ames who has 
worked on reproducing the Damascus sword-making techniques, is skeptical 
that Paufler and his colleagues have cracked the secret of Damascus blades.

"I don't think that [the nanowires] are anything unusual," Verhoeven said. 
"I think those structures would be found in normal steels."

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "steve Bloom" <smith at blacksmithing.org>
To: <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2008 5:06 PM
Subject: RE: [TheForge] Interesting Article


> At 04:18 PM 10/8/2008, Aubrey wrote:
>>Andy,
>>
>>You may well be correct about the wootz not being folded.  My main point 
>>was that it was a single billet of steel, whereas modern "pattern welded" 
>>blades are made from two or more different types of steel (which may or 
>>may not be folded).
>
> Exactly -- wootz was the first crucible steel - homogeneous high carbon 
> and it happened to have the other nice properties of damascene patterns 
> when treated just right. Clearly superior to the blister steels of Europe. 
> What most of us knife makers do is essentially the same as the 
> Anglo-Saxon/Viking tradition - and pretty much the same technique as the 
> Japanese (but for the pretty rather than manipulating the carbon content 
> into a hand-finishing/fully hardened sweet spot).  I've always suspected 
> that the reason we use the same term (Damascus) is because European smiths 
> in the Middle Ages didn't have wootz but did know how to make patterned 
> steel - and the clientele was asking for 'Damascus' .
>
> Steve Bloom (Ironflower Forge)
>
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