Namphi steel?

Never heard of it before, but googling tells me that it's steel mined in the village of Namphi in Thailand. Lot of claims about how awesome it is, but no data on composition.
 
Not, it's supposedly some mystical steel mined in thailand somewhere like AS said. It's (i think) some type of steel, not an industry grade like S90V or Hitachi or anything. I found all these mystical things about it, just no concrete info. This is the only somewhat concrete info as to what it might contain:

"Namphi Iron

I made a pair of BJDs out of Thai Namphi iron for collection and uniqueness. I don't believe it would be as durable as 440C or ATS-34. However, the iron is unique, rare and soon to become extinct. It has historical and spiritual value. Namphi swords were exclusively made for kings of Thailand. Namphi iron is smelted from an ore pit located in the Namphi district of Uttaradit province of Thailand. The ore contains iron, manganese, silicon, aluminum, titanium, cerchromium, boron, lead-tin, niobium, cobalt, arsen, and 20 other unknown materials. The Thais believe swords and objects made from Namphi ore possess magical power and sacredness that can repel evil spirits and spells. As part of the ritual, bladesmiths in Namphi engrave ancient religious scripts on their blades to empower them against evil spirits. "



Hardly a definitive analysis.
 
20 unkown materials? I dont know of them finding things that dont exist in the periodic table in iron from Thailand. That would be a serious scientific finding and makes me think the whole thing is a used car salesman line. It may be a good mixture of steel in nature for blades and thus was thought to be magical by people who didnt have labs to create an exacting steel to the standards of ATS-34 but beyond that I dont buy the hype. Im shure in the time it was first smelted it may have been a good knife steel but if it doesnt even hold up to 440c I wouldnt use it in a knife. Unless a customer wanted it for reasons relating to its use in your discription, but in that case it seems they would want it made by holy men.
 
Just another version of the old, "damascus-Japanese-wootz-namphi-whatever steel can slice a block of granite in half without a chip.And still be shaving sharp."
Claims (especially on the INTERNET) are easy. Results are harder.
Stacy
 
bladsmth said:
Just another version of the old, "damascus-Japanese-wootz-namphi-whatever steel can slice a block of granite in half without a chip.And still be shaving sharp."
Claims (especially on the INTERNET) are easy. Results are harder.
Stacy
Click to expand...

Yeah hehe hence why i asked here in the "House of Truth":). I know there are people who have done actual credible studies of true wootz(Ric Furrer) I was just wondering if anyone knew much more about this stuff.
 
Sam Salvati said:
The ore contains iron, manganese, silicon, aluminum, titanium, cerchromium, boron, lead-tin, niobium, cobalt, arsen, and 20 other unknown materials.
Click to expand...

I'm assuming some of these are present only in trace amounts, but doesn't aluminum "kill" the steel, making it practically worthless for blades if too much is there? And I thought lead did something similar...
 
Aluminum is used to deoxidize [kill] the steel . The list is a complete analysis and many of the elements are in 'trace' or insignificant amounts.
 
Thanks for the clarification on the "kill" term, mete. But still, I was under the impression that aluminum could significantly reduce things like impact resistance if it's too high, correct?
 
this should repel evil spirits


Colt-45.jpg
 
Sadly... but true. Nowaday, Namphi iron 's just a spiritual material, obtainable from a very spicific digging site(s). Nothing camparable to industrial grade steel.

Metallurgical analysis (XRD or EDX... just don't remember) of 4-5 historic Namphi blades showed low-mid carbon with minute of trace elements. Only one sample has 0.8% C.

The iron out-perform material from other source because those people knowed how to smelt, carburize, forge-fold and HT while the others (in the area) still making slagigsh bloomery. Its high ratio of magnetite/haematite and low Si might also make smelting easier.

There are also the stories about its magical spiritual properties... but those stories were recently developed (100 yo or less).

More info on &#3609;&#3657;&#3635;&#3614;&#3637;&#3657; <---(please enable Thai encoding on your browser)
http://images.google.co.th/images?hl=th&q=น้ำพี้&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top