Thanks for that . Clear and very helpfull. My naive observations were based on practical experience of traditionally case hardening gun parts not on any real understanding of metallurgy. If I follow the description of wootz manufacture given by one 19 th century observer... That is chop the iron into very small bits and pack it in a crucible with finely chopped wood ; seal it with clay and heat it for some time , I know that what I am going to get is a lot of bits of soft iron with a very hard skin of higher carbon steel on the surface. The longer I keep it heated the thicker this coating will get but it is unlikely to affect the core of each lump which will remain as soft iron. I might reason if I got the temperature as high as I could all the lumps might fuse together but not actually become molten. If I then bashed it around to consolidate it my orriginal little lumps each now coated with a skin of high carbon steel are going to get distorted and broken up and , depending on how I manipulate the lump , could end up appearing as bands or layers of hard steel in a matrix of softer iron. Are things sometimes that simple ?
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