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Post by LG Martial Arts on Oct 29, 2015 23:00:30 GMT
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Post by gerrye on Oct 30, 2015 0:16:50 GMT
Great find! Thankyou for posting it.
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Post by aussie-rabbit on Oct 31, 2015 3:31:05 GMT
Great find! Thankyou for posting it. Certainly is a great post and one I will look at in detail, however it does miss one factor that we can't access, the raw material. The ore contained impurities that cannot be reproduced. In addition much has been written about the "sharpness" of Wootz blades, this has more to do with the blade design being wide and thin as well as the expertise involved in sharpening.
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Post by L Driggers (fallen) on Oct 31, 2015 7:55:02 GMT
Wonder what happened to the guy on here that had the Go Fund me page saying he was going to make wootz steel. He just disappeared after he reach his money goal.
A lot of people say they can make wootz steel none ever did.
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Post by Timo Nieminen on Oct 31, 2015 8:05:53 GMT
A lot of people have made crucible steel in the ancient style. Whether you would call it "wootz" depends on the exact definition of "wootz" you want to use. Narrow enough, and nobody modern makes it. Wide enough, and lots of people have made it.
Making it is the easy part. The hard part is figuring out how to forge it effectively, and how to heat treat it. Mostly done in the 1980s, so no longer a great mystery. People wanting to do it still need to learn the skills, but it isn't the mystery it was 100 years ago.
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Post by L Driggers (fallen) on Oct 31, 2015 9:45:53 GMT
I can make crucible or even bloomy steel if I wanted to. There no mystery to it, but like Aussie Rabbit said the ore to make wootz with the non carbons it had in it ran out a long time ago.
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Post by Timo Nieminen on Oct 31, 2015 10:13:53 GMT
If you define "wootz" as crucible steel made from some specific now exhausted Indian ore deposits, then you can't make wootz anymore. If you're willing to call modern-made steel with the same alloy "wootz", it can be done. The original ore might be gone, but we can add vanadium and whatever else you might want to make it "wootz". www.tms.org/pubs/journals/jom/9809/verhoeven-9809.html
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Post by L Driggers (fallen) on Oct 31, 2015 10:22:25 GMT
Just doesn't work that way, you can put all the links you want to saying it can be made. I could put up a bunch showing it can't be made. If it could be made we would have all kinds of high dollar art knives and swords being made of it. Just because you can get the pattern of the steel close doesn't make it wootz steel.
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Post by Timo Nieminen on Oct 31, 2015 10:29:50 GMT
We do have all kinds of high dollar art knives made from it. Kitchen knives, too. OK, not made from the original ores, but close enough to the same alloy, so that the carbon behaves in the same way. Very good edge retention for the rather modest HRC.
If you say those aren't "wootz" because they're not made from the original ore, that's OK. I'm willing to call them "wootz" if the alloy is essentially the same. Just an issue of semantics.
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Post by L Driggers (fallen) on Oct 31, 2015 10:34:28 GMT
Essentially the same doesn't make it wootz, it is only wootz pattern steel. You have to have the same alloy for it to be wootz.
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Post by Timo Nieminen on Oct 31, 2015 10:37:14 GMT
It is the same alloy. At least, it's in the range of historical wootz alloys. (They're not all the same; there is variation.)
It isn't made from the original Indian ores. Compare with what people are willing to call "tamahagane". Many people will only call Japanese iron sand bloomery steel "tamahagane", and won't call steels made elsewhere, even if made the same way, and the same alloy, "tamahagane".
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Post by gerrye on Oct 31, 2015 13:06:32 GMT
There is a philosophical principle at work here, in this argument. There are some people who see humanity's past as 'better' than it's present. Historians and people like us, anachronists if you like, are usually of this mindset. Others think that we have progressed, in all fields, far beyond our 'primitive' antecedents.
I'm firmly in the former camp. India, India. It's another item of Indian usage of possibly the same ore deposits, with a hugely different process. There is an Iron pillar... ooh where is it? Chennai or Lahoor?... at a temple that CANNOT be recreated by our culture. It is 100% pure iron and we have no idea how they purified any amount to that degree, let alone the 20 ton pillar which appears to have been cast in a single pour.
The same applies to a 9ton glass block at Baalbek in Lebanon from 1500BC.
Now given the present discussion, and the fact that both sides claim evidence, which ultimately comes down to a matter of definitions, this would seem to be the dividing line- whether Humanity is ahead of or behind the curve of our ancestors.
My own bias is obvious from the examples I cited. I don't believe that we have the cultural capacity to achieve some of the feats of antiquity because such a tiny portion of the culture accepts that it has anything to learn and is not automatically superior, simply by virtue of the fact we can do many things that have never been done.
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Post by MOK on Oct 31, 2015 15:00:54 GMT
There is an Iron pillar... ooh where is it? Chennai or Lahoor?... at a temple that CANNOT be recreated by our culture. It is 100% pure iron and we have no idea how they purified any amount to that degree, let alone the 20 ton pillar which appears to have been cast in a single pour. It's in Delhi, it's not pure iron, we know how it was made and why it's resistant (NOT immune!) to corrosion and could totally make one like it if someone wanted to. Von Däniken, who mostly made it famous in modern pop culture, got almost everything about it wrong (as usual). All this information is right there on wikipedia, complete with references for further research. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_pillar_of_Delhi(And no, historians do NOT as a rule romantisize the past. They tend to know better.)
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Post by gerrye on Oct 31, 2015 15:27:38 GMT
Oh. There you go then. Von Daniken is kind of one extreme of the rosy past. The pillar titbit came from two authors other than VD to me... I never realised it came from such a polluted spring :0
I won't mention Puma Punku then. One shattered illusion per day is plenty.
Oh, and I'm finding out that nearly every Victorian and Edwardian historian I've ever read massively romanticised the past. It was like politician's honesty and judicial impartiality, an ideal always sought but seldom obtained.
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Post by MOK on Oct 31, 2015 16:15:18 GMT
Oh. There you go then. Von Daniken is kind of one extreme of the rosy past. Well, for values of "rosy" that equal "barmy", yes. The Nazca lines were not runways for flying saucers! Plato made up Atlantis and never pretended otherwise! The pyramids were constructed with brilliant (human) engineering and lots of skilled and well paid (human) labor! (Sorry. ) Pumapunku is an amazing showcase of the high level of sophistication in engineering, architecture and craftsmanship possessed by some cultures of Pre-Colonial Americas, but I guess you're referring to something more mysterious about it...? Yeah, and that's why we don't think much of their work anymore. Most of them produced little more than speculative fiction.
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Post by gerrye on Oct 31, 2015 17:03:51 GMT
Nothing mysterious, about Puma, just amazing human ingenuity that I doubt could be (best add 'easily') replicated today. Blocks weighing several tons with in excess of ten faces, in places, keying it to its neighbours. These have lasted through some powerful quakes that have levelled later structures and still have joints that you'd have trouble inserting a cigarette paper into. Add the fact that the stone came from a different mountain nearby and was hauled up a long way to get where it is, bearing in mind the thin air, and... well, I'm impressed.
As for 'we don't think much of their work anymore' includes most of my education. History at school for two years up to exams was Waterloo (nothing about the battle itself just the consequences) to the Great Exhibition. 1815-51, I kid you not.
Educating myself has been much more fun but the odd blind alley must be accepted and the info changes bloody fast. I've spent the last few years looking at the Royal Navy's history, which thanks to contemporary publications like the naval chronicle and the meticulous logs kept by every captain from the master and commander of the powder hoy to the post captain serving as the commodore of a squadron of frigates, is much less dependent on speculation than earlier periods.
Back to wootz, have all the impurities that L Driggers maintains consitute true wootz been identified, does anybody know? The process by which they got there may be another thing entirely. There are lots of naturally occuring substances that can't be recreated in a lab yet, like spermicetti oil or even mucous, but many of these are the rsult of living processes whereas the composition of ore depends on more simple, if not simple to simulate, well understood mechanisms.
Is what the Ulfbhert swords are made of the same as wootz?
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Post by MOK on Oct 31, 2015 18:27:35 GMT
Nothing mysterious, about Puma, just amazing human ingenuity that I doubt could be (best add 'easily') replicated today. Not easily, no! But it certainly could be replicated - the structure, at least, if not the process of building it; we have no definite knowledge of which of the various methods available to the builders were actually used - if anything, it would be far easier with modern technology than it was back then. Which really just makes the whole thing that much more impressive, if you ask me! (The reason you don't see many similar structures in modern times is that we don't use massive stone all that much, anymore, having simply come up with more efficient materials better suited to our purposes.) Heh. In my twelve years of public school (generally very good, here in Finland), one year of history classes was dedicated to everything from the stone age onward, all the rest were the 20th Century over and over and over... No, not at all. Different steels, different production processes, different raw materials.
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Post by Timo Nieminen on Oct 31, 2015 21:04:24 GMT
Is what the Ulfbhert swords are made of the same as wootz? No, not at all. Different steels, different production processes, different raw materials. Of the quarter (approximately) of Ulfberht swords with the spelling +VLFBERH+T, most are probably made from crucible steel. Probably Central Asian crucible steel, since the Central Asian steelmaking industry was well-connected to the Crimea/Black Sea end of the Viking trade routes by the Central Asian trade routes. I haven't seen any detailed analysis of the alloys, just carbon content (typically 1.2-1.6%), hardness, and mmicrostructure. Mechanically, they'll behave like wootz, if you distinguish between wootz and Central Asian crucible steel.
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Post by LG Martial Arts on Nov 1, 2015 13:01:34 GMT
wow... tons of discussion on this issue. I'll come back and add more thoughts on this topic later when I get a chance
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Post by gerrye on Nov 1, 2015 13:35:39 GMT
wow... tons of discussion on this issue. I'll come back and add more thoughts on this topic later when I get a chance The guy in the article you posted does make beautiful blades and it was a fascinating read. Really his methods can be relatively easily replicated at his scale. I would love to give Brother Banzai an ingot of that steel and get him to make me something.
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