Damascus steel

[arctic hobo]

Now before I start I'd best warn you all that I'm no knife nut, and I don't know a huge amount about steels. I know about four and not very much about what makes them special I'm working on the assumption that Damascus steel is the same as Wootz steel. Correct me if I'm wrong!
I always thought that the method for making Damascus steel was lost, and although relatively similar things have been produced, they do not match the characteristics of the real thing well enough to be a version of it. Although as I'm writing this the thought is occuring to me that truths get bent in history... although looking around the net, Damascus does seem to have existed, and been something rather special.
I also understand that it's possible to buy "pattern welded steel" that looks like Damascus steel, but is it fact a bit rubbish. That is, it's only designed to look like the real thing, rather than actually have the physical characteristics of it.
But on Brisa, they list Wootz steel which they advertise as the real thing. They have a little paragraph of history and a very expensive block on sale. Is this real Damascus then? If so, why isn't it a big deal, and why does everybody say that the secret was lost...?

Cheers
Chris

 

[Wayland]

The interesting thing about "lost" techniques is that no one knows for certain if the "rediscovered" techniques are the same or not.

"Damascus" is a name often given to pattern welded steel rightly or wrongly. What I can tell you is that some of the finest blades I have ever handled have been produced using patternwelding techniques that pre-date the "Damascus" lable by centuries.

A recent example can be seen in a blade that Eric used to make a Knife with here

 

[Bardster]

OK this may not be eactly right but its what what i understand of the matter.

Damascus is the label given to steel that has been folded and layered - often with differing steels/iron in the layers. The surface is then etched to show up these layers. As Wayland points out often also called patternwelding. The viking were famous for it! The term Damascus came about due i think for the arabs being famous for this type of steel. Also called damascening.
Wootz steel is formed by a diferent process. Its a mixture of steel/iron and carbon. Heated to a high temperature in a crucible (hence its other name of crucible steel) untill it all melts together. Its a special form of high carbon steel that under special conditions forms dendrite crystals. which again the pattern of these can be revealed with etching.
If you have a search over on BB you will find a thread where at the recent hammerin we made what could possibly be wootz. It certainly had dendrite crystal patterns!

 

[G Obach]

wootz is a crucible steel....... around 1.5% carbon.... its a 2 phase steel.... has hard carbides in a steel matrix..... .... the steel is made by mixing enough carbon, steel, and a carbide former(such as vanadium) in a crucible and melted..... then the melt is allowed to slow cool to form the dendritic matrix..... the ingot or cake is then forged out to make a blade

Patternweld is a completely nuther animal.... layers of steel are forge welded together and manipulated to form patterns..

both methods make good steels for knives.......

wootz steel process was never lost...... there are many indian and arabic recipes that are recorded... ... those cultures were excellent at documenting...



Greg

 

[OldJimbo]

Bernard Levine has a neat article on his site:
http://pweb.netcom.com/~brlevine/p29-dama.txt

I seem to remember that Jean-Marc made a blade from a bar of wootz so maybe he'll chip in. Like him I have blades of pattern forged Pamor from Valiant. I never thought that I'd be taken by "prettier" blades, but that wasn't quite the case...

 

[JM]

Hi guys,

Well pattern welding is done since the event of steel, because steel was rare it was saved for the edges.

Vikings, european middle ages, japanese, indonesians, indians, at the same time all knew pattern welding, even in the first Christian millenium, possibly before for some. Pattern welded steel is now improperly called damascus.Damascus has always been there since it was invented, probably in multiple place of the planet arround two millenium ago. The Europeean , Indonesian, and Japanese traditions by example of laminating or pattern wielding have NEVER been lost (though from all times, indeed the price of the work has never made these products available to the non wealthy enough).

The main interest in pattern welding has always been, before aesthetical considerations, to save the extremely precious steel for the edges, and make the swords more resilient by using lower carbon steel elsewhere. For the vikings which were extremely more advanced than most historians want to admit, steel was more precious than gold. The Merovingians in France (that's the first kings of France, 500 after C) already had pattern welded swords, and so it goes for a few other "tribes".

Indonesians make a damascus they call Pamor, made of nikel and steel, for their Keris, but also make vertical damascus and pattern welding in their parang and golok (check valiant).

Wootz (an english term, bulat for the russiants, Ulu for the Indians) is the steel that was used in the sabres of the sarasins and turks (and indians indeed), from early ages up to the time of napoleon. The steel is famous because it is very resilient, and cuts extremely well, even unhardened.The city Damacus was the middle east "importer" of the indian made ingots, this is the REAL damascus steel (if there is any, because you see the term is extremely inapropriate for both steels ) It was made in India, and only there. The making of wootz has disapeared since the advent of industrial steel. Many reasons to this, including the traditionally extremely low caste status and illiteracy of indian steel workers, which did not help to obtain accurate written recipies (not the same when the local poet describes the process), possible exaustion of the mines, cheaper good quality steel, etc... Recipies and descriptions existed, but we now know that the Indian ore, and only this one had everything to make Ulu using the existing recipies, thus it had to be rediscovered. It has been reinvented by the work of the russian and pendray and company...

It is a crucible steel, extremely high carbon content, and the pattern is due to cristalisation because of a slow cooling (days originally) and the presence of vanadium. I have a bar from brisa, that I made into a knife, and it is a great steel. It does offer very different caracteristics than normal steel, including a certain pasticity.

This is only my own interpretation and resume of what I read, and my own documentation work, take it at it comes. ;-)

This is the pattern on the blade I made from brisa's bar.

 

[G Obach]

i agree for the most part..... but recipes do exist... and they are accurate... most are arabic or persian..... some visitor accounts too of the indian process..

theres a couple recipes in "Persian steel the tanavoli collection" by Brian gilmour

here's my album

click twice on the pictures of the blades to enlarge the pictures..... they are all wootz and have a nice pattern..

take care
Greg

 

[JM]

Great, i'll have learnt something today, thanks ! ;-)

 

[OldJimbo]

Not too many secrets have been lost it seems! I do remember though that I have a video somewhere where a blade forger examines a lot of Goth blades. It seems that there are still some mysteries of just how some of those were forged.

 

[directdrive]

JM: Thank you sir. Gorgeous job on your Wootz bar. Did you forge it or did you use stock removal?

Best Luck, Bruce

 

[JM]

stock removal only, next one i'll forge

 

[Sickboy]

My only knowledge of damascus steel is in the use of old shot gun barrels, not sure if this is the same technique, but the best damasus barrels were built from the nails from old horse shoes as the battering they got on the roads caused the metal to change at the molecular level making them extra strong and giving the molecules a stronger polarity(?), when they were melted down the molecules rearranged themselves into there polarity and made the barrels a good deal stronger and harder wearing. Testament to this is that these old guns are still being used to this day!!!!
This may be totally different to what this posts about but there must be some similarities

 

[C_Claycomb]

Sickboy, please don't post rubbish!!

as the battering they got on the roads caused the metal to change at the molecular level making them extra strong and giving the molecules a stronger polarity(?), when they were melted down the molecules rearranged themselves into there polarity and made the barrels a good deal stronger and harder wearing.

I can't comment on whether old nails made better damascus barrels. However, what you are saying about molecular changes is so far off I don't even know where to start! It sounds like the same type of BS theory that used to have blade smiths talking about "thermal packing" the edges of a blade to "compress the metal" or "jiggle the molecules". Both of which are physical impossibilities and merely indicated that the smith didn't really understand what was going on.

I have heard that modern damascus made of L6 and O1 is very good. Care needs to be taken not to put too many layers into forge welded damascus otherwise the carbon will migrate from the higher carbon steel into the lower carbon areas and any advantage of hard/tough will be negated.

There are excellent discussions on this stuff on Bladeforums, Swordforums, British blades, and knifenetworks forums.

 

[Wayland]

My only knowledge of damascus steel is in the use of old shot gun barrels, not sure if this is the same technique, but the best damasus barrels were built from the nails from old horse shoes as the battering they got on the roads caused the metal to change at the molecular level making them extra strong and giving the molecules a stronger polarity(?), when they were melted down the molecules rearranged themselves into there polarity and made the barrels a good deal stronger and harder wearing. Testament to this is that these old guns are still being used to this day!!!!
This may be totally different to what this posts about but there must be some similarities

I think someone's been pulling your leg old chap.

 

[jason01]

My only knowledge of damascus steel is in the use of old shot gun barrels, not sure if this is the same technique, but the best damasus barrels were built from the nails from old horse shoes as the battering they got on the roads caused the metal to change at the molecular level making them extra strong and giving the molecules a stronger polarity(?), when they were melted down the molecules rearranged themselves into there polarity and made the barrels a good deal stronger and harder wearing. Testament to this is that these old guns are still being used to this day!!!!
This may be totally different to what this posts about but there must be some similarities

While the description of the science behind the pocess is clearly wrong in sickboys defence it appears to be true that horse shoe nails and indeed horseshoes were commonly incorporated into Dammascus gun barrels by forge welding, chiefly because of the high price of new steel, which in principle is indeed exactly the same process as used to make a modern pattern welded blade.

Heres a quote from a page I just googled on the manufacturing process in the Birminghan gun quarter...

"The sheets for barrels are made from scraps of steel and iron, such as old coach-springs, knives, steel
chains, horse shoes and horseshoe nails, and sheets of waste steel from steel pen manufactories"

When the science behind the metal smithing wasnt well understood it seems possible to me that all kinds of myths grew up around the processes involved, so maybe we shouldnt be too hard on him Im sure he was writing in good faith

Personally, I align my forge with magnetic North and I quench my blades with a similar alignment, does it really help??? I think so but who knows, part myth perhaps but I can back it up with science too if need be The original relationship with the earths magnetic field can be clearly identified in igneous extrusions, this is just basic Geology, it works for rocks so why not my steel?

Ive heard of people doing all sorts of bizarre things when theyre forging, some of which are definately not backed up by science, accepted practice or common sense

 

[JM]

It sounds like the same type of BS theory that used to have blade smiths talking about "thermal packing" the edges of a blade to "compress the metal" or "jiggle the molecules".

Yes BUT, cold (I mean no heat) hammering is a way of sharpening and locally (very marginally) hardening iron, soft steel, and other metals like copper. Sicles were traditionally sharpened with a hammer. I doubt however that it jiggles anything except the mind of man holding the hammer.

 

[Marts]

Personally, I align my forge with magnetic North and I quench my blades with a similar alignment

Sounds like you're going to have to keep moving the forge then if this magnetic wandering keeps up!

 

[scruff]

I heard that the urine of red heads makes steel harder when used for quenching. I've got a plentiful supply if your interested jason01

i do remember writing on wootz & damascus (for the 2nd time) the other day....seems like a sticky will need to be created in the future....when we find a definitive answer that is

oh how this thread has tickled me this monday morning

 

[C_Claycomb]

Work hardening of metals is well know. Edge packing was something that smiths did before final heat treat, so any work hardening was undone by the final trip past non-magnetic. The process worked, but not because of the hammering.

Jason, very funny, but be careful, some novice might not realise you are pulling their leg and might think that they really should align their quench with a compass, or by the stars or something

 

[JM]

Work hardening of metals is well know. Edge packing was something that smiths did before final heat treat, so any work hardening was undone by the final trip past non-magnetic. The process worked, but not because of the hammering.

Ah, I understand the context now. Work hardening... indeed... my French brain cells could not find the right term.