Couple interesting links.

L6steel · Jan 19, 2001

This one is about damascus and wootz, even has instructions and some historical info.

http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/9809/Verhoeven-9809

This one is the web page where the cyber cast of the Guadalupe Forge Winter Hammer-In & Knifemakers Rendezvous, January 20 - 21, 2001can be seen.

http://www.stoutknives.com/hammerin.htm

This one has some good knowledge on hydraulics.

http://www.tpub.com/fluid/

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Take care!! Michael

Always think of your fellow knife makers as partners in the search for the perfect blade, not as people trying to compete with you and your work!
http://www.nebsnow.com/L6steel
Buzzards gotta eat, same as worms!!!

[This message has been edited by L6STEEL (edited 01-19-2001).]

L6steel · Jan 19, 2001

The cyber cast starts ar 8:30 am on the 20th. Since it's coming from Texas, I guess it's central time.

GrantP · Jan 21, 2001

L6,

A more layman-friendly write up of Verhoeven and Pendray's work on Wootz Damascus is in the Jan. '01 issue of Scientific American.

Just so folks know, they have patented some of their work (#5,185,044 you can get it online at the USPTO database http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html).

My advisor here at OSU was a student of Oleg Sherby at Stanford and did work on ultrahigh carbon steel around 1980 which at the time was claimed as having been a rediscovery of the wootz damascus. I let him know about the article and he was floored. "We've made this stuff! We got patterns!" Their technique involved precipitating the pro-eutectoid cementite along the prior austenite boundaries before hot rolling.

Hand forging of UHCS given this treatment might be pretty dicey. Verhoeven comissioned Moran to make a blade in this fashion back in 1990 or so; there was a distinct surface pattern, but it was not the same and metallography revealed extensive microcracking about the coarse cementite particles.

An intriging possibility to me is that different schools of smiths may have developed different properties from their handling of wootz. Verhoeven has concentrated on replicating the clearly banded damask pattern of museum swords that were intentionally given the Mohammed's ladder and rose markings. These represent a minority of period blades. I'm wondering who developed the best combination of toughness, strength, and edge holding from wootz and then what surface pattern it displayed rather than the other way around.

Grant

[This message has been edited by GrantP (edited 01-21-2001).]