True Combat Value of Wootz

tsubame1 · 21st November 2006, 08:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Evans

Of course, Wootz was good steel to start out with, but the forging process could very easily ruin it and the end product was not necessarily any better than that made from primitive steel. I think, that by sheer chance, it was possible to make a sword out of primitive Martensitic steel that was every bit as good as those made from Wootz, for in the end, all that was required was a correctly heat treated blade of about 0.8% carbon (optimal) and largely free from slag inclusions; But given the then extant incomplete knowledge of metallurgy and on the balance of probabilities, the odds lay with Wootz to deliver a superior blade.

This gives me the possibility to highlight again that in order to evaluate
the "true combat value of wootz" as this thread is named, we should consider
the SMITH too.

Assuming (and i'm only saying ASSUMING) that the wootz is no better then
other western steels, we get only half of the equation's result. Might be the
great performances that the wootz is assumed to have are due to the
abilities the smiths achieved in working this material.
May be both were only slightly superior in front of western ones but adding
such slight superiorities we get a not-so-slight superiority.
The smith factor is overlooked in this thread making it a debate about
sheer composition of the steel, not the qualities he can achieve with
proper and skillfull smithing. "Nanostructures" of rough material can be
useless to a crappy smith.

Gt Obach · 21st November 2006, 11:30 PM

I'd completely agree with that.. ... very good points..

i will add... something here..

if you look at one factor in steel such as grain size... if you have a large grain size, the steel won't be as tough and can crack easier..... Now... the same steel with a very small grain size will be much tougher and resist cracking

now... if you look at the 2 processes... when you forge weld steel, the temperature is very very high (yellow to white heat) and tends to grow the size of grain in the steel...... if you do not take steps to Normalize the steel.... you will have a steel that is weakened due to large grain... ... an experienced smith should know how to make the grain small again..!

The wootz forging process must be done at a lower heat.... from red to orange.... because any heat higher than that and you are very close to melting some of the components of the ingot... .. it is strange... but some components of the ingot matrix start to fall apart and the whole cake will become mushy/crumbly....
-- so by the very nature of wootz... it will force you to keep the grain structure small......

its something i'm familiar with having forged a few blades.... but i never seen it written about in the old historical accounts..

don't worry though..........if you have a patternwelded blade.... with a small grain structure .... it will be very tough steel aswell......

So it does boil down to....... a well made patternwelded or wootz blade, involves many people... if all these people do their job very well...... you'll have a very tough and beautiful sword...

Greg

tsubame1 · 22nd November 2006, 12:06 AM

Exactly Greg.
Michael "Tinker" Pierce is of the same advise as per the attachment
hereunder. I add a table about the temperatures at which you should get the
several structures (showed at microscope) too :

Chris Evans · 22nd November 2006, 04:57 AM

Hi Folks,

1. What Carlo and GT Obach say about the input of the smith is absolutely correct and cannot be emphasized sufficiently. These days we concentrate a little too much on the potential of the basic steel and tend to disregard the process of forging and heat treatment, which in the old days was of equal or greater importance. We have to keep in mind that the ancients had no accurate means of measuring temperature and worse still, had little or no idea as to why things turned out (metallurgically) the way they did. Theirs was an entirely empirical process.

2. GT Obach: Did you ever do a metallographic examination of your quenched Wootz blades? If so, what was the carbide distribution like?

3. Carlo: Thank you for those illustrations of grain sizes and microstructures. For those who would like to read a little more, here is a good article, albeit a little heavy at times.

http://www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/...pb9/861397.PDF

Cheers
Chris

Chris Evans · 22nd November 2006, 05:48 AM

Hi,

Here is something that I picked up, written by Dr. John Verhoeven:

There is a general myth in some of the popular literature that genuine Damascus steel blades possess outstanding mechanical properties, often thought superior to modern steels. This idea was shown to be incorrect as long ago as 1924. A famous Swiss collector, Henri Moser, donated 4 genuine Damascus steel swords, one with a non typical carbon content and microstructure, to B. Zschokke, who performed extensive careful experiments including metallographic and chemical analysis in addition to mechanical testing [15]. A series of bending tests compared samples from the swords to a pattern welded blade and a cast blade from the famous German knife center in Solingen. The 3 good Damascus blades showed significantly inferior bending deflection prior to breakage than the 2 Solingen blades in spite of the fact that the Brinell hardness of the 3 ranged from only 193 to 248, compared to 347 and 463 for the pattern welded and cast Solingen blade, respectively. This is not too surprising in view of the now well known fact that toughness of high carbon steels is inherently low; the Solingen blades had carbon levels of 0.5 to 0.6% compared to 1.3 to 1.9% for the 3 Damascus blades. The reputation of Damascus steel blades being superior to European blades was probably established prior to the 17th century when European blades were still being made by forge welding of carburized iron. It is hard to avoid embrittlement of such blades due to imperfect welding during the forging process as well as difficulty with the carburizing process.

The full article is here: http://bronksknifeworks.com/historical.htm

I don't know how representative the samples studied were, but the above observations further support the view that Wootz was only outstanding when compared to the primitive steels of olden days. However, here is another article that puts things into a somewhat different perspective:

http://www.llnl.gov/tid/lof/documents/pdf/237566.pdf

Cheers
Chris

Ann Feuerbach · 22nd November 2006, 01:35 PM

Here is my two cents, extract from my PhD...
"The ductility of Damascus blades was one feature that distinguished it from other types of steels. Damascus steel blades typically contain spheroidal/globular cementite in a ferrite/pearlite matrix. Metallurgical experiments conducted by Ebner and Maurer (1982) on steel concluded that toughness and ductility coincide with a spheroidization of carbides. They also noted that additional tempering decreases the strength whereas toughness and ductility vary only slightly (Ebner and Maurer, 1982). Thus, the microstructure of hypereutectoid Damascus steel is optimum for ductility."

I think trying to determine which is the "best quality" sword is like trying to determine what the "Best" car is...American made? Japanese? German? Italian? British? depends on your needs, even the most expensive ones can produce a "lemon", while a cheaper car may perform very well for a long time, plus personal experience, preference, and how much you can afford.

tsubame1 · 22nd November 2006, 06:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ann Feuerbach

I think trying to determine which is the "best quality" sword is like trying to determine what the "Best" car is...American made? Japanese? German? Italian? British? depends on your needs, even the most expensive ones can produce a "lemon", while a cheaper car may perform very well for a long time, plus personal experience, preference, and how much you can afford.

You're right Dr. Ann.
This thread switched from "True combat value of the wootz" to "in order to produce swords is crucible damascus better then european steels in later times ?".
Whether, after the info provided, we can answer at the original topic
"wootz had good and true combat value", at the second question which the
thread has switched to, due to the almost exclusively western info provided
we can only reply the way you made : "depends on...".

Gt Obach · 22nd November 2006, 02:16 PM

Hi

oddly... i do have abit that is suppose to be looked at.. and hopefully i'll get some good pic's from it...

but that is the problem right there... my steel is a modern crucible steel... and there is no way to make a connection a solid connection to the past.. .. i try to use the old recipes that are out there... .... ..it's like baking a cake with a list of ingredients and process... made by a person who is a casual observer..... ..... so there are alot of pieces missing to the puzzle..

i've read about the Zschokke swords and have real difficulty with some of the study..... such a narrow sample generalized to a whole sword population should be taken with a grain of salt.... it totally overlooks low carbon wootz... and other types of wootz...its not all made the same way..
-- also ... there are many ways wootz can be hardened... i'd like to hear about martensite... seemingly overlooked for some bizarre reason ?

actually what we really need is a series of studies.... from blades in crucible steel producing areas... and other regions... ... also the studies must be done by people who arent' going to benefit financially from the study..
( i know i'm asking alot... but i can dream )

onto my homebrew
I've said this in the past... that my steel functions much like a 1080 carbon steel... so i've never seen magic properties, just a very decent knife steel.....

oh by the way... if you want to read more about uhcs, det, detwad... theres tonnes of patents on the stuff... back in university i used to love to read it...

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...S=PN/5,445,685

check the references..... and click on the blue links for more.... also look at the studies...
-- enough superplasticity to boggle the mind

oh and by the way... i just did a little tutorial on SFI about my forging process... . but be warned... I went picture crazy and the download might bore you to tears..

http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php?t=74040

take care
Greg

Ann Feuerbach · 22nd November 2006, 03:07 PM

From Greg: "actually what we really need is a series of studies.... from blades in crucible steel producing areas... and other regions... ... also the studies must be done by people who arent' going to benefit financially from the study..
( i know i'm asking alot... but i can dream )"

No dream, I have put in a grant for such a study (and have been gathering data on this for years) cross you fingers I get the grant! I do hope to gain financially from the study (in the form of a book) but have no hidden agenda's of what the outcome of the study should be. Just need: time, money, and samples!

tsubame1 · 22nd November 2006, 06:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Evans

3. Carlo: Thank you for those illustrations of grain sizes and microstructures. For those who would like to read a little more, here is a good article, albeit a little heavy at times.

http://www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/...pb9/861397.PDF

Chris, thanks for the link. This is another one that, even if referred to
japanese swords only, is of high interest to the ones that are interested in
metallurgy. Many information of general interest :

http://xoomer.alice.it/tsubame/ZZZZZZ_DOWNLOADS.htm

Click on Tatsuo Inoue Swordsmithing file.

You've to download it.
Sadly it is no more on line and I've stored it into my website to preserve
the info from oblivion.

22nd November 2006, 12:06 AM	#3
tsubame1 Member Join Date: May 2006 Location: Magenta, Northern Italy Posts: 123	Exactly Greg. Michael "Tinker" Pierce is of the same advise as per the attachment hereunder. I add a table about the temperatures at which you should get the several structures (showed at microscope) too : Attached Images

22nd November 2006, 05:48 AM	#5
Chris Evans Member Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Australia Posts: 685	Hi, Here is something that I picked up, written by Dr. John Verhoeven: There is a general myth in some of the popular literature that genuine Damascus steel blades possess outstanding mechanical properties, often thought superior to modern steels. This idea was shown to be incorrect as long ago as 1924. A famous Swiss collector, Henri Moser, donated 4 genuine Damascus steel swords, one with a non typical carbon content and microstructure, to B. Zschokke, who performed extensive careful experiments including metallographic and chemical analysis in addition to mechanical testing [15]. A series of bending tests compared samples from the swords to a pattern welded blade and a cast blade from the famous German knife center in Solingen. The 3 good Damascus blades showed significantly inferior bending deflection prior to breakage than the 2 Solingen blades in spite of the fact that the Brinell hardness of the 3 ranged from only 193 to 248, compared to 347 and 463 for the pattern welded and cast Solingen blade, respectively. This is not too surprising in view of the now well known fact that toughness of high carbon steels is inherently low; the Solingen blades had carbon levels of 0.5 to 0.6% compared to 1.3 to 1.9% for the 3 Damascus blades. The reputation of Damascus steel blades being superior to European blades was probably established prior to the 17th century when European blades were still being made by forge welding of carburized iron. It is hard to avoid embrittlement of such blades due to imperfect welding during the forging process as well as difficulty with the carburizing process. The full article is here: http://bronksknifeworks.com/historical.htm I don't know how representative the samples studied were, but the above observations further support the view that Wootz was only outstanding when compared to the primitive steels of olden days. However, here is another article that puts things into a somewhat different perspective: http://www.llnl.gov/tid/lof/documents/pdf/237566.pdf Cheers Chris Last edited by Chris Evans; 22nd November 2006 at 05:59 AM.

21st November 2006, 11:30 PM	#2
Gt Obach Member Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 116	I'd completely agree with that.. ... very good points.. i will add... something here.. if you look at one factor in steel such as grain size... if you have a large grain size, the steel won't be as tough and can crack easier..... Now... the same steel with a very small grain size will be much tougher and resist cracking now... if you look at the 2 processes... when you forge weld steel, the temperature is very very high (yellow to white heat) and tends to grow the size of grain in the steel...... if you do not take steps to Normalize the steel.... you will have a steel that is weakened due to large grain... ... an experienced smith should know how to make the grain small again..! The wootz forging process must be done at a lower heat.... from red to orange.... because any heat higher than that and you are very close to melting some of the components of the ingot... .. it is strange... but some components of the ingot matrix start to fall apart and the whole cake will become mushy/crumbly.... -- so by the very nature of wootz... it will force you to keep the grain structure small...... its something i'm familiar with having forged a few blades.... but i never seen it written about in the old historical accounts.. don't worry though..........if you have a patternwelded blade.... with a small grain structure .... it will be very tough steel aswell...... So it does boil down to....... a well made patternwelded or wootz blade, involves many people... if all these people do their job very well...... you'll have a very tough and beautiful sword... Greg

22nd November 2006, 04:57 AM	#4
Chris Evans Member Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Australia Posts: 685	Hi Folks, 1. What Carlo and GT Obach say about the input of the smith is absolutely correct and cannot be emphasized sufficiently. These days we concentrate a little too much on the potential of the basic steel and tend to disregard the process of forging and heat treatment, which in the old days was of equal or greater importance. We have to keep in mind that the ancients had no accurate means of measuring temperature and worse still, had little or no idea as to why things turned out (metallurgically) the way they did. Theirs was an entirely empirical process. 2. GT Obach: Did you ever do a metallographic examination of your quenched Wootz blades? If so, what was the carbide distribution like? 3. Carlo: Thank you for those illustrations of grain sizes and microstructures. For those who would like to read a little more, here is a good article, albeit a little heavy at times. http://www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/...pb9/861397.PDF Cheers Chris

22nd November 2006, 01:35 PM	#6
Ann Feuerbach Member Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 133	Here is my two cents, extract from my PhD... "The ductility of Damascus blades was one feature that distinguished it from other types of steels. Damascus steel blades typically contain spheroidal/globular cementite in a ferrite/pearlite matrix. Metallurgical experiments conducted by Ebner and Maurer (1982) on steel concluded that toughness and ductility coincide with a spheroidization of carbides. They also noted that additional tempering decreases the strength whereas toughness and ductility vary only slightly (Ebner and Maurer, 1982). Thus, the microstructure of hypereutectoid Damascus steel is optimum for ductility." I think trying to determine which is the "best quality" sword is like trying to determine what the "Best" car is...American made? Japanese? German? Italian? British? depends on your needs, even the most expensive ones can produce a "lemon", while a cheaper car may perform very well for a long time, plus personal experience, preference, and how much you can afford.

22nd November 2006, 02:16 PM	#8
Gt Obach Member Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 116	Hi oddly... i do have abit that is suppose to be looked at.. and hopefully i'll get some good pic's from it... but that is the problem right there... my steel is a modern crucible steel... and there is no way to make a connection a solid connection to the past.. .. i try to use the old recipes that are out there... .... ..it's like baking a cake with a list of ingredients and process... made by a person who is a casual observer..... ..... so there are alot of pieces missing to the puzzle.. i've read about the Zschokke swords and have real difficulty with some of the study..... such a narrow sample generalized to a whole sword population should be taken with a grain of salt.... it totally overlooks low carbon wootz... and other types of wootz...its not all made the same way.. -- also ... there are many ways wootz can be hardened... i'd like to hear about martensite... seemingly overlooked for some bizarre reason ? actually what we really need is a series of studies.... from blades in crucible steel producing areas... and other regions... ... also the studies must be done by people who arent' going to benefit financially from the study.. ( i know i'm asking alot... but i can dream ) onto my homebrew I've said this in the past... that my steel functions much like a 1080 carbon steel... so i've never seen magic properties, just a very decent knife steel..... oh by the way... if you want to read more about uhcs, det, detwad... theres tonnes of patents on the stuff... back in university i used to love to read it... http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...S=PN/5,445,685 check the references..... and click on the blue links for more.... also look at the studies... -- enough superplasticity to boggle the mind oh and by the way... i just did a little tutorial on SFI about my forging process... . but be warned... I went picture crazy and the download might bore you to tears.. http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php?t=74040 take care Greg

22nd November 2006, 03:07 PM	#9
Ann Feuerbach Member Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 133	From Greg: "actually what we really need is a series of studies.... from blades in crucible steel producing areas... and other regions... ... also the studies must be done by people who arent' going to benefit financially from the study.. ( i know i'm asking alot... but i can dream )" No dream, I have put in a grant for such a study (and have been gathering data on this for years) cross you fingers I get the grant! I do hope to gain financially from the study (in the form of a book) but have no hidden agenda's of what the outcome of the study should be. Just need: time, money, and samples!