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“True” Damascus steel is not a “lost art”
- throwaway81523 4y agoThis article doesn't address the 1998 discovery that the "lost" art was the presence of vanadium in the ores that real damascus blades were made from. The vanadium gave the steel its strength from the 13th to 17th centuries or something like that. It was present in iron ore mined in a particular region, and those mines eventually ran out, after which the "recipes" for damascus steel weren't lost, they simply stopped working and no one knew why. They had no way to tell the difference between iron ore from one place and ore from another. This is explained in the 1998 Verhoeven, Pendray, and Dauksch (VPD) article]1] that the reddit post cites without touching on this crucial aspect. Or anyway, I thought that VPD's explanation was now generally accepted. This isn't anywhere near my field though. [1] Verhoeven, John D. et al. “The key role of impurities in ancient damascus steel blades.” JOM 50 (1998): 58-64.
- throwaway81523 4y agoOk, I found a link to the VPD article: https://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/9809/Verhoeven-9809.html https://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/9809/Verhoeven-9809.ht...
- michaelscott 4y agoI didn't know this, that's really interesting. I, like I think many others, was under the impression that Damascus was a lost technique. I'm under the further impression though that our modern alloys have long since passed the standard of these ancient Damascus steels. Is that true?
- hef19898 4y agoNo historical steel beat modern day steel alloys, not when it comes to quality nor to predictablility. You heat treat a certain SAE spec stell in a certain way and you get tye same result, within accepted and specified tolerances, regardless if batch. No such thing in the past. Also, modern day steel is just dirt cheap, even the higher spec monosteels.
- _0w8t 4y agoSome modern steel alloys from Sweden with extreme strength costs more than silver.
- hef19898 4y agoIt depends on production quantities, for sure. And don't get me started with aerospace grade heat treated high tensile stuff. The high spec mass produced stuff is still extremely cheap, if you can get it in small volumes. And whether or not those more esoteric alloys actually improve blade quality, well, I'm not sure. But the again at the higher end we talk more art work than tool, and art os following its own rules.
- hef19898 4y agoI think one has to seperate the steel alloy, which covered, and the forging techniques used. The former ran out, at which point steel quality decreased. Lets call that steel from Damascus. And there is what is now commonly called Damast steel, basically folded and twisted steel of dofferent properties. That technique is as old as blacksmithing because it was, more or less, the only way to get rid of impurities. The Japanese developed this technique to the extreme by not just getting rid of impurities but by gettind specific steel properties to defined parts of a blade. European sword smiths stopped doing that, first European steel became better and more homogenous and didn't require anywhere near as much imourity removal. Secondly, spring steel is pretty sturdy monosteel, so need need to get specific steel in specific parts of a blade. And lastky, European bladed weapons from the Napoleonic era onwards were industrially mass produced (as compared to the manufacture mass production from earlier periods). And mass production means cost reductions, that didn't start with MBAs. Sonce those weapons were good enough to kill people by stabbing, cutting and slashing them Damast steel wasn't needed. The obvious exception are expensive master pieces forged individually. And the better quality "industrial" ones. Damast steel has renessaonce at the moment, mainly because it looks great. And it is a way for knife makers to upsell, otherwise not a singpe one of them could compete on price. The Japanese way of blade making has the benefit of having properties of the alloy at, e.g., the blade (hard and sharp) and the core and back of a blade (softer and stronger). Damast steels properties are all over the place, meaning it has no real value, IMHO, regarding a blades capabilities when it c;mes to cutting. Those blades so, as the Japanese ones, are falling into the region of art so, and there the optical properties matter a lot. And there Damast is just beautiful. From experience so, Damast steel bars are hard to get rigjt, I'll go out on a limb and say Japanese bar steel is easier (if you forgo the tradidional Tamahagane way that is). Finishing the blade is easier woth Damast so, a proper Japanese blade requires so much delicate heat treatment and polishing to get right, it is borderline rediculous.
- robinsoh 4y ago> Lets call that steel from Damascus. That's confusing to me, what exactly was from Damascus, the steel or the forging technique? Reading the article OP cited says: "This suggests the possibility that the low levels of vanadium found in the genuine wootz blades of Table III may have resulted from ore deposits in India where the wootz steels were produced. "
- usrusr 4y agoSeems surprising at first sight that they still bothered to do the fancy process thing, if a regular blade made from that ore would have been about just as good. But us who live in the 21st century should not have any difficulty at all understanding the power of brand. I imagine it going like this: first, blades from a certain region start making a name for themselves for superior quality (thanks to the ore). Then a few things happen side by side, augmenting each other: - higher prices allow smiths to spend more time per blade - blades from that region become a status product, giving them almost exclusive access to the market segment that is willing to spend extra on fancy craftsmanship, resulting in even more time per blade - export markets get flooded with fakes that only claim to be from the high reputation region, some of the fancy craftsmanship ends up serving as a sign of authenticity
- hoseja 4y agoThis sort of crucible steel was one of the only known ways to make steel before the modern processes were invented. It wasn't a "fancy process", it was the only process.
- bodhiandpysics1 4y agoThis isn't true. First the terminology is a bit weird. Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon. This fact was not known until the 19th century! Classial "wrought iron" (whih has a carbon content under 2%) has a similiar composition to what is now called mild steel (it has somewhat different physical properties because wrought iron has inclusions of slag because of how its made). Classical steel has a somewhat higher carbon content. Pig iron (or cast iron) has an even higher carbon content, and is the product of a blast furnace. Steel could be made in a number of ways. The process of creating wrought iron naturally produces some higher carbon steel, which could be removed. This is how japanese swordmaking works (they take higher carbon steel, and low carbon steel, and pound the together). The finery process, invented in china, but heavilly used in europe, involved taking pig iron, and slowly oxidizing it to remove carbon. For armor, case hardening involves baking wrought iron in carbon to cause the surface to become steel. The cementation process from early modern europe involved doing this, and then folding the steel to produce uniform metal. Indian steelmaking didn't involve pig iron, since india didn't use blast furnaces.
- monetus 4y agoR.I.P Alfred Pendray Here is a film of them making a wootz ingot and discussing vanadium. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OP8PCkcBZU4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OP8PCkcBZU4
- throwaway81523 4y agoThanks for that link. The vid is a 50 minute documentary about damascus steel, featuring Al Pendray and others. I've only watched a small part of it but it looks really good. I will try to take in the rest soon.
- monetus 4y agoPosted by mike loades, a personal hero of mine. The doc, you can tell, is kind of a celebratory recollection of how they worked through their research. Not the best editing and some awkward social moments but it is the only film like this I've ever seen.
- ClumsyPilot 4y agoAlso - actual mettalyrgist talking about knife myths https://youtu.be/swkZgWWJ8yA https://youtu.be/swkZgWWJ8yA
- captainmuon 4y agoIt's a bit odd that the article defines the "lost" art form as the crucible steel, and not folded steel, and then goes on to prove that it hasn't been lost. But the claim I've always heard is that the exact recipie for the folded steel has been lost. You can make identical looking folded steel, but it is apparently difficult to make folded steel that has the exact composition of the antiques.
- toolslive 4y agoIt depends on what you want: we don't know exactly what they did. However, we can produce better steel no matter what criterium you have for stiffness, strength, corrosion or oxidation resistance (sorry I'm just guessing the English terminology here, I'm not a native speaker)
- captainmuon 4y agoRight, it is like we 'lost' the exact recipe for certain paints. We can create much more vibrant, durable, repeatable paints with modern chemistry, but we don't know exactly how they did it. Of course neither ancient painters nor blacksmiths were great chemists, but they had certain heuristics they used to use to create their stuff. I think it is not a case of "we can't make steel / paint / buildings as good" but rather we don't know what their process was. It's more of historical interest.
- denton-scratch 4y agoThat was my reaction; the "Damascus" steel whose art has been lost isn't crucible steel, whose art was never lost; it's folded steel. [Edit] Incidentally, I supposed the name "Damascus" was related to the patterned silk fabric named "damask", rather than the origin of the material being the Damascus area.
- thereddaikon 4y agoFolding steel never went away and was independently invented in several different cultures around the world.
- stonemetal12 4y ago
- maeln 4y agoIt is a similar myth with Roman cement and, to some extent, Greek Fire. We know how it was made (with some assumptions when it come to greek fire), what was the main ingredient and composition and we know how to make it much much better than they did. But the legend continues even after many debunking because we love a good story of ancient arcane art that was lost in time.
- Nursie 4y agoI was under the impression with Roman concrete that we modern folks can reverse engineer it and understand it just fine, but that the art was lost for 1k+ years. Is this a myth I have fallen for?
- serverlessmom 4y agoThe myth that persists to this day is "the Romans made better concrete that not even we, with all our science, can match." It's perfectly true that medieval Europeans had no idea how to make roman concrete.
- Nursie 4y agoAh right, thanks for the clarification there :)
- Jun8 4y agoAgreed on Roman cement but AFAIK there is no definitive explanation of ingredients for Greek fire, e.g. to explain how contact with water actually fed the flames. The Wikipedia article has an extensive section in the manufacture but it’s all very speculative.
- pilsetnieks 4y agoI think it stems simply from a (possibly willful) misinterpretation in pop culture. Instead of reporting that "we don't know how they made this amazing (for its time) material" they reported that "we don't know how to make it" and it gives rise to further fantastical hypotheses, culminating with ancient aliens or something along those lines.
- fmajid 4y agoThe history of lost techniques is fascinating. One example is Coade Stone, an artifical stone of which the lion sculptures in London's Trafalgar Square are made: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coade_stone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coade_stone
- arethuza 4y agoMy favourite ancient example are the vitrified forts found in Scotland and a few other places - large amounts of stone walls partially melted - nobody knows how this was done or indeed whether it was intentional: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitrified_fort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitrified_fort
- 988747 4y agoDuh, stone was melted when the Targaryen family used their dragons to conquer Scotland and make it one of the Seven Kingdoms.
- arethuza 4y agoOne of the larger vitrified forts, Tap O' Noth, provided me with imagery that I used to visualise Weathertop from LotR - this was well before the movies. I did even check to see if Tolkien had ever visited the area to see if there was any connection but no luck - unlike, for example, Lauterbrunnen in Switzerland being the real world Rivendell.
- Andrew_nenakhov 4y agoHm, I thought that Scotland pledged fealty without a fight, the last king of Scotland just bent the knee.
- arethuza 4y agoYou've got it the wrong way round - the last King of Scotland actually also became the King of England, the countries were united by a political process some years later - largely to pay off debts following one of the most ill conceived colonisation attempts in history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darien_scheme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darien_scheme
- theknocker 4y ago
- Prcmaker 4y agoI spent a week in a workshop a few years ago helping make damascus style steel and titanium. Hot and hard work and had a brilliant time. One of my more favourite memories from vacations.
- justinclift 4y agoSounds interesting, where was the workshop? :)
- Prcmaker 4y agoRural Mississippi.
- anothernewdude 4y agoActually, if it's not made in the steel making regions of Syria, then it's only Sparkling steel.
- joshu 4y agounderrated comment
- noworld 4y agoCan they reproduce this effect: https://www.nature.com/articles/444286a https://www.nature.com/articles/444286a
- sva_ 4y agoHave you actually read the article? The last few paragraphs address this: > N.B: A brief note on the claim carbon nanotubes exist in crucible steel: > The only articles that "found" carbon nanotubes was published as a brief communication to Nature, i.e not a peer reviewed article, not a full article. This was in 2006, and was only a few pages in length. > It later found its away into a conference paper by the same authors, still not a peer reviewed article. This was 2 pages in length. These findings should be considered preliminary. > The method used (dissolving crucible steel in acid and seeing what remains) revealed stands of carbon, but carbon dissolves VERY readily into steel. Crucible steel is typified by cementite spheroids, which often stretch into rods during forging as they are deformed. If you dissolve cementite in acid, removing the iron component, you are left with carbon. > This does not mean there was an intact carbon nanotube in the core of the cementite rod - and even if it DID mean that, it would have negligible impact on performance because it is *encased* in cementite, which itself is in a soft matrix of pearlite or sorbite. > But don't take my word for it. Other academics, including those who have been instrumental in understanding crucible steel (namely John Verhoeven) doubt the findings. > " John Verhoeven, of Iowa State University in Ames, suggests Paufler is seeing something else. Cementite can itself exist as rods, he notes, so there might not be any carbon nanotubes in the rod-like structure." > "Another potential problem is that TEM equipment sometimes contains nanotubes, says physicist Alex Zettl of the University of California" > https://www.nature.com/news/2006/061113/full/news061113-11.html https://www.nature.com/news/2006/061113/full/news061113-11.h...
- dixego 4y agoGotta love a several-hundred word essay about swords posted on reddit by user "IPostSwords".
- kragen 4y agoReasonable link: https://old.reddit.com/r/history/comments/vdvtrh/a_widely_believed_history_myth_no_true_damascus/ https://old.reddit.com/r/history/comments/vdvtrh/a_widely_be...