A rose by any other name ---

[A. G. Maisey]

It could be argued that this thread belongs in the European Forum, however, since I am posting my photos and comments to illustrate a topic which is of continuing interest to students of Eastern weaponry, I have chosen to post it here.

The photos are of table knives.

The blades of these knives have been made of shear steel. Shear steel is made from blister steel. Blister steel is made from wrought iron.Wrought iron is made from cast iron.Cast iron is turned into wrought iron by folding and welding:- it is "wrought", or worked.It is necessary to work cast iron because it is too brittle to be forged. It is the same process that is used to "wash" iron in the making of a keris. The difference between iron and steel is that steel contains carbon. Steel can be made hard. Iron cannot be made hard.

Blister steel was made from wrought iron. Iron rods were packed in charcoal dust in a tight stone box or furnace, the dust was fired and bellows blown. When the iron became white hot it absorbed carbon from the charcoal at a rate of 1/8 inch of absorption every 24 hours, thus small bars could be turned into steel in a day, however, typically the process extended over a week or more.

When the process was complete the box held an ingot of blister steel which was then forged out by hammering or rolling to produce shear steel. It could be cut and rewelded to itself two or more times , and this improved the quality.

Steel was expensive to produce, so steel was welded to a wrought iron stub which was used for the tang. It is easy to see the wrought iron tang stub, because iron does not contain carbon, thus when the blade is hardened, only the steel turns dark, the iron remains the same colour that it was before heat treatment.

Essentially, shear steel was not a whole lot different from mechanical damascus, in that it was a single large piece of steel produced from a number of smaller pieces of steel by the process of sticking these pieces together. With mechanical damascus we stick the materials together in a forge, so it is forged. With shear steel the cementation process is used to stick the steel together, this involves constant high heat over a long period of time.

In the blades shown it is possible to see the laminations that are the result of the manufacturing process.You cannot see a universally laminated surface, but you can see the occasional lamination line that indicates the nature of the material.Do not confuse the surface scratches with laminations.

You can also see the wrought iron that has been welded to the shear steel to provide a tang.

This same process of welding tang stubs to blades can be found in Indian weapons.

With the keris and other S.E.Asian weapons iron is welded to the outside of a steel core to provide economy of manufacture.

You see:- the world is ruled and always has been, by bean counters.Its the bottom line that matters.