Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

B.I · 17th March 2005, 11:02 PM

hi ann,
i can only judge the end product, and the potential history. as for the manafucturing, i gladly bow down to your superior knowledge

when you say 'crucibles and furnaces used to create the crucible steel' do you mean from the whole of india? are there differences, as i had always assumed. surely the wootz cakes from the north may differ from the south, and the creation of the furnaces.
also, is the pattern created down to the the furnace, or the forger within?
if the wootz cakes were exported to persia and created into wonderful persian patterns, then surely it is down to the craftsmen and not the origianl furnace. the studies done in the eary 19thC could understand the process of creating the wootz cakes, but they seemed almost lost in the creation of the blades, claiming the 'secrets' to be lost or hidden from european eyes.
please excuse my ignorance, and let me down gently if i outragously blunder

i thought the main source of wootz was from salem and golconda in the south. the wootz here 'gave only a slight indication of a pattern, the crystals being small and the steel inferior in quality'. surely this is the tight chrystaline wootz that seems apparant on many indian blades, due to the amount of ore being mined from this area. in my collecting, i've noticed that wootz of this type is not as rare as we would actually think. most pieces of quality are indeed wootz, its just that the pattern is sometimes not easy to bring back.
however a wooz cake from cutch 'not only furnished excellent steel, capable of being hardened and tempered without much difficulty, but exhibited the damascus figure, both in the cake itself, and when drawn out by forging it into a bar.'

i hope that my sources are not outdated and laughable in comparison to modern research

the author watched the cakes being made, and also made an in depth study at the time, which also included giving the cakes to european smiths to attempt to replicate the maniputaion of these wootz cakes, as well as trying himself.

17th March 2005, 11:02 PM	#17
B.I Member Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 485	hi ann, i can only judge the end product, and the potential history. as for the manafucturing, i gladly bow down to your superior knowledge when you say 'crucibles and furnaces used to create the crucible steel' do you mean from the whole of india? are there differences, as i had always assumed. surely the wootz cakes from the north may differ from the south, and the creation of the furnaces. also, is the pattern created down to the the furnace, or the forger within? if the wootz cakes were exported to persia and created into wonderful persian patterns, then surely it is down to the craftsmen and not the origianl furnace. the studies done in the eary 19thC could understand the process of creating the wootz cakes, but they seemed almost lost in the creation of the blades, claiming the 'secrets' to be lost or hidden from european eyes. please excuse my ignorance, and let me down gently if i outragously blunder i thought the main source of wootz was from salem and golconda in the south. the wootz here 'gave only a slight indication of a pattern, the crystals being small and the steel inferior in quality'. surely this is the tight chrystaline wootz that seems apparant on many indian blades, due to the amount of ore being mined from this area. in my collecting, i've noticed that wootz of this type is not as rare as we would actually think. most pieces of quality are indeed wootz, its just that the pattern is sometimes not easy to bring back. however a wooz cake from cutch 'not only furnished excellent steel, capable of being hardened and tempered without much difficulty, but exhibited the damascus figure, both in the cake itself, and when drawn out by forging it into a bar.' i hope that my sources are not outdated and laughable in comparison to modern research the author watched the cakes being made, and also made an in depth study at the time, which also included giving the cakes to european smiths to attempt to replicate the maniputaion of these wootz cakes, as well as trying himself.