Wootz? Damascus?

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bluerain

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I recently heard about carbon nano tubes in ancient Damascus steel ,making the steel flexible and strong. The nano tubes were said to exist partly due to impurities d in Indian steel that was used. They mentioned wootz steel but I'm not sure how it relates. Also mention a person who made a steel called gulag?this steel was thought to be linked to steel from Persia . The steel could have had the Indian steel. I read the process has been lost to time. Is the wootz another name for gulag or Damascus.Is the Damascus being sold today the the same as in ancient times. Has the formula been rediscovered. What is the difffference between old Damascus , today's damsascus and wootz. TyB
 
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Wootz is the original damascus steel. The Russians call it Bulat. What we have today is pattern welded damascus.

The process existed up until the 18th or 19th century, IIRC. It became unnecessary and was discarded for more modern processes.

Dr James Batson, again IIRC, researched it and rediscovered the process. He and several others make Wootz steel. You might Google Wootz and do some reading. It is an interesting subject.

Gene
 
Lots of people make wootz steel today ... the process is lengthy and expensive. Gregory Thomas Obach makes superb wootz, as do Oleg Krymlin and many others. There is a person who patented his process as techno-wootz. He will probably sue Spark for hosting this thread.

The pattern in wootz is carbide particles in a directional pattern. They grow as dendrites in very slow cooling over long periods at specific temperatures. Once formed and forged into shape, they are permanent as long as the steel isn't taken to a point where they go back into solution.

I have a project for a very large wootz dagger that is almost far enough along to start a WIP. In it I will explain Gregory's process and other wootz related info.
Gregory worked up a slug of wootz and drew it out into a dagger preform. I am taking it from there and when the blade is done, will start a long process to make the koshirae. The furniture will be complex and hopefully stunning.

Keep an eye out for this WIP in the near future.

Here is Gregory's undergraduate research project on the Replication of Wootz
http://users.unitz.ca/gthomas/myweb4/replication_of_wootz.htm
 
the dendrits structure exists in every ingots which had experienced long enough solification, and this can be find in many modern steel ingots depending on the smelting technique. the modern forge and roll progress is designed to destroyed the dendrits, breaking and streching the tree like carbides in to more deseprated form. but in many instance the forging are not done enough, and you can still obeserve the banding pattern streched from the original dendrit carbids. this is not uncommon on the modern steel surface.

back the days, smith or iron workers do not have the effective methods to purify the steel. junk elements like P, S can go as high as 0.1%. these junks will cause the steel embrittle at higher temperature. basically P and S will cluster arround grain boundry, and start melting at 800~ 900 something( i am too drunk to remember the excat number. go look up yourself). any hot work above this will cause the ingots to crack. thus you cannot really forge it at full austenized temperature. so here goes the time and labor consuming lower temperature forging. the hot work temperature is too low to effectivly solute the dendrit carbid, so they remain there, then are streched and twisted into different pattern by the blade smith while forged the blade into shape...

there is other ways which you can make steel with wootz patten, and do not have to worry about forge the steel at low temperature. smelt an ingot with carbon containt higher than 0.6%. the ingots need to be small. under 30kg should be fine. and with some strong carbid forming elements. v, nb, Mo, cr there are pappers and articals saying the amount of carbid forming elements has to be specific. really it doesn't matter much if you just go for the pattern... forge it into shape. then cycle it between a3 and below a1 many times until you get a $200 electricity bill in your mail box. grind out the oxid and decarb layers, polish it to 400 grits something, threw in some fecl3 or 5%HNO3. you will see the pattern easy. if you want to make it look prettier, cut some grove and drill some half way holes or twist it a little bit, then hammer it flat into blade before cycling. polish+ etch and you will get something like this easily.
IMG_8616.jpg


this picture is done with the 1.5c% one, however later i found almost any ingots small enough and has strong carbid forming elements will be able to make into wootz like stuff.
 
Here's another picture of some finished Wootz:

6990097904_6ac260deef_b.jpg


I forget who made the billet of Wootz,, but the knife was forged and finished by a different knifemaker. We were told that it couldn't be quenched in water as the blades would probably break in half.
 
i got 2 cracked blade while water quench as well. especially use the 1.5%C original chemstry. but if you temper it right after the quench you can avoid a lot of cracking. the crack i experienced mostly due to let blade stay over night before tempering.

quench the blade in viagra can also make the blade harder and stronger.
 
Well, I think that Oleg Krymlin sent out some wootz that was just crap. I got a small preshaped blade of his that was of no value at all. It was about .098 thick ' It was as soft as a strip of gum out of the wrapper.Even his shaping of the blade was very poor. He made claims it would even cut steel and even showed a picture. Did it need to be heat treated? I was told no. A third party has taken it off my hands. Frank
 
Frank,
Thanks for the heads up. I have used a few pieces of Oleg's material, and it seemed OK to me. I don't know him, but the fellow who sells a lot of his stuff is a bit of a different sort. Perhaps that is where the problem came from. I agree that his material is a bit soft.
The stuff that Gregory just sent me seems really good. He is also very helpful with detailed info on processing his wootz.

Some folks will say that once processed and run through its heat treatment to develop the pattern, wootz will cut fairly well as is ( and most wootz blades today are show pieces). It isn't intended to be a Rc 60 material. The original swords and knives made from it were probably very soft by our standards. What I have heard claimed is that the hard carbide needles make for a micro-serrated edge.
 
Someone from Carter Cutlery posted a pic of these two knives back in 2012. He mentioned his boss had made them. I can't find the thread, but the posted picture completely showed both knives.

I was just looking at pics of wootz knives today & saw the knives again on this thread, but the photo was cropped to show the wootz blades. No one here knows seems to know the source of the steel or the knife maker. So like Paul Harvey used to say on his radio show, here's the rest of the story:

The steel for these two knives was made by Ric Furrer from Door County Forgeworks in Sturgeon Bay, WI.

I purchased the steel from Ric in March 2012 and Ric, in turn, sent it to Murray Carter whom I commissioned to make a wootz knife. He ended up making the two knives you see in the pic.

For some reason there is no maker's mark on either of the knives. I had expected to see the Carter mark on one side & MS on the other side just like another neck knife I commissioned him to make from tamahagane steel with mammoth ivory scales. I was told anyone would recognize who made these two neck knives. This thread sorta proves that's not the case.

I think a maker's mark is essential to ensure a smith gets credit for his work as stamping MS on a blade recognizes the maker for their years of skill, experience, and hard work.

Carter used a new design he named the "Perfect Neck Knife" for these knives. One knife has green giraffe bone scales and the other has ironwood scales.

I wasn't impressed with the green giraffe bone scales. So my sword polisher arranged for Jose DeBraga to carve a design on the giraffe scales. Jose did a super job. The ironwood scale knife remains as it was made.

IMG_0382_4.jpg
 
ABS Mastersmith Al Pendray makes Wootz blades. He worked with a metallurgist and a steel company guy to research and develop an alloy that closely resembles ancient blades.
 
Stacy, i'll be very interested in your WIP :thumbup: One reason why this forum is serious addicting...seriously, i think i need help!!! :)
 
What is the deal with all the necro posting lately?
 
I visit Alfred twice a year down in Williston, Florida. His shop burned down in 2012, I believe, just before the Blade Show. In the shop he lost everything except the Nazel power hammer, his anvil, & a vice. But by August, his shop was rebuilt as was his power hammer and if you visit today, you'd never know anything happened.

I have 3 Pendray Wootz knives in my collection. Dr. John Verhoeven, professor emeritus from Iowa State continues to work with Alfred. The steel company guy is Bill Dauksch. In almost anything you read about wootz that mentions Alfred, you'll often see Dr V's & Bill D's names as well. Wootz steel according to Dr. V is an inferior steel in comparison to modern day steels, but people like myself are still intrigued with it. Why? I honestly don't know. I guess one reason is it is a difficult steel to handle & has to thermocycled and treated carefully and it's different and just because.

Alfred was unable to go to the Blade Show this year due to a family emergency, but I am pretty sure he'll be back next year. He's still making knives which have his horseshoe P and a mokume pommel. Alfred has been around a long time. In Manfred Sachse's book, Damascus Steel, you'll see a pic of him and Daryl Meier on page 41 which also lists the names of a number of up & coming smiths in the US who are all getting closer to retiring or have retired.

For anyone interested in wootz, the book, "India's Legendary 'Wootz' Steel An Advanced Material of the Ancient World" has recently been reprinted in 2014 and is available once again to anyone wanting to buy it. There are also free PDF versions- one contains the writing & the other the pictures. The one with the figures is missing Figure 14. There are also mistakes in the original printing which have been corrected. This reprint has been updated and is relatively inexpensive from a number of sellers. Chapter one starts out with a quote from Muse- an article written by Verhoeven/Pendray. (ISBN 978 81 7371 721 5)
 
Hammerfall Do you remember what steel you made this blade with and perhaps what alloying elements would have been in it? The pattern is very nice and fine similar to Anosov's work. Regards,
Tim.

IMG_8616.jpg
 
See post #$14 and #15.

This thread started 3 years ago.

For those who want to know, I have the blade done up to the final finishing grits and am waiting for the time to do the handle and guard. Blade came out really good. I made several other wootz blades from smaller pieces. I may try to finish the wootz dagger up for Ashokan if my hand is cooperating.
 
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