Made Damascus
Does anyone know how the original and current versions of Damascus Steel is made?I have always wondered how.?
Current versions of "Damascus" steels are sometimes called pattern-welded steel, to distinguish from true medieval-era Damascus steels. Pattern-welded steels are made of forge-welded layers of steel or iron (layers are fluxed and heated to near-molten temperatures, then hammered until they fuse together). The welded mass is folded over on itself, fluxed again, and forged-welded. The folding-and-welding process is repeated over and over, sometimes with twisting of layers, resulting in a complex laminated billet, which is then shaped and ground--often acid-etched to reveal patterns from layering. This is essentially the process used to make Japanese swords, "Damascus" shotgun barrels, modern "Damascus" blades, etc. If high and low carbon steels are laminated together, the result is a blade with the hardness and toughness of both alloys. If the layers are thin enough, sharpening a "Damascus" blade produces microscopic serrations, which make for a good cutting edge.
True Damascus steels, named after the Syrian city that Europeans believed was the source of the blades, are apparently a different thing all together. There's still a lot of question as to how the steel was made, but the structure (which somewhat resembles that of pattern-welded steels) seems to result when steel and iron are completely melted together, along with other ingredients, and cast into an ingot. That ingot is then forged into a blade, without any pattern-welding. Several years ago, the ABANA magazine "The Anvil's Ring" published an article co-authored by a university metallurgist and a bladesmith who figured they'd come close to the original Damascus steel--micrographs of their steel and samples of stuff from ancient weapons looked similar. As I remember, their process involved heating pieces of iron and steel with oyster shells and green grass in a sealed crucible, holding it above the molten point (apx. 3000F) for several hours. The shells acted as a flux, and the grass added silica. The ingot, when broken out of the crucible, sliced in half and etched, showed a distinct crystalline pattern.
Making Damascus Shop pics & Knives made in 08
[affmage source="ebay" results="10"]Made Damascus[/affmage]
