Wootz - real damascus - we made it! Pics

A

AchimW

Joined
Oct 14, 1999
Messages
553
A friend of mine and me are working on making wootz steel since a while now. The difficulty in the process is that you not just need the knowledge and equipment of a foundry engineer/iron smelter or an experienced smith. You need both working together to get any results. My friend is a foundry engineer interested in smithing and i am a spare time bladesmith interested in metallurgy and foundry. So we decided to give it a try. The first results look promising. In the following pictures you can see:
1. a bar of wootz steel forged from a piece of an ingot. The picture is not very good, but you can clearly see the developping carbide lines in the highlighted sections:

http://albums.photopoint.com/j/ViewPhoto?u=575309&a=10773836&p=41672594

2. a finished blade taken from 2 different angles. The crystalline designs from the carbides are clearly visible.

http://albums.photopoint.com/j/ViewPhoto?u=575309&a=10773836&p=41672595
http://albums.photopoint.com/j/ViewPhoto?u=575309&a=10773836&p=41672669

This stuff is hard to make, hard to forge and difficult to etch. Still it was worth trying.

Achim


[This message has been edited by AchimW (edited 02-23-2001).]
 
Thanks AchimW,

That blade looks realy nice! Could you please tell us a bit about makeup of this steel?

Have you tested the cutting abilities of the knife? How where they.
 
:
Wow!!!!
I have read a little about the wootz and like most have been fascinated with it for years.

Achim you say it's difficult to etch and I am wondering about that.
It has been my understanding that wootz didn't need to be etched to show its pattern.
Can you tell us a bit more about that aspect of the wootz?

Thanks.

------------------

>>>>---Yvsa-G@WebTV.net---->®

"VEGETARIAN".............
Indin word for lousy hunter.
 
Abolutely wonderful looking material and blades. I, like other am curious about the temperment of the end product and the materials leading to it's creation. thanks for any hints you can provide. Terry
 
I'm with OZ. Are you going to be selling any or was this a "I wonder if we can make it." kinda thing? Wonderful looking stuff.
 
I'm not into that forging thing {got enough to handle trying to grind) but from what I have read over many years that has to be a REAL acomplishment !!! Congratulations you two are among the very few who have done that! Frank.
 
Thank you all for your positive comments.
It's been a lot of work, indeed, but a lot of fun, too.

Some of you asked about how we made this steel. I hope nobody minds if i mention another forum on the net, but i don't want to write the same story again. You can read about what we've done to take off here:

http://pub4.ezboard.com/ftheneotribalmetalsmithstribalnow.showMessage?topicID=937.topic

For now, our output of this stuff is still very low and we still need some for testing and such. But we will be selling some in the near future and i'll keep you informed on this forum if we do so. No prices yet.

Yvsa, wootz doesn't need to be relief etched like pattern welded steel to see the damascus structure, but you have to do a mild surface etching to get the colour contrast between the bright carbide lines and the darker soft steel zones. We are testing different etching solutions, like ferric chloride, ferrosulfate, alaun, vinegar, lemon, onion juice and so on. No hard acids for this stuff.

Thanks again!

Achim
 
SWEET!!!!! Finally gunna get some woohootz! Finally gunna get some woohootz!!!
Question, will you be performing forged VS stock removal evaluations? Do you think wootz will preform at different levels in these two mediums?
Finally gunna get some woohoots!!!!!!!
Happy happy
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Performing forged vs stock removal evaluations would be very interesting in my opinion. I forge (nearly) all my blades, but still think that the forging process has only one advantage above the stock removal. Thats the re-arrangement of the crystalline structure. As Wootz is a crystalline damascus it should perform better if its forged. Even in the first blade i made, which has a stick tang, you can clearly see the crystal structure running around the corners where i narrowed the material for the tang. It is somewhat visible on one of the pictures i posted.
On the other hand i think that the differences won't be very important if the heat treating is done the same way.

Achim
 
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