FYI The production of crucible Damascus steel

[Gt Obach]

I've also got the "persian steel" book and it's a good read !

Ann: that would be fantastic to see ! I've searched quite abit to find some details on the roasting of ingots and especially the forging.. and only found a small amount

it seems there are tonnes of crucible steel recipes written but it is quite hard to find accounts on forging. Especially the types of hammers, tools, anvils,hammering techniques, etc are almost absent from record ??
- i'm sure it is there but i was only limited to what my univ library could get on loan

Greg

[Ann Feuerbach]

I have not found any information on things like hammers, forging techniques etc (apart from the mention of forging at red heat and the time of day). Smiths were not usually literate and no one really cared about their tools. In the archaeological record, craftsmen would have passed down their tools and/or took them with them so we have none. In many parts of Central Asia they did not bury the dead with goods, so we have none from their either. I will keep looking.

[Jens Nordlunde]

Hi Ann,

When and how will 'crucible' steel end up as cast steel?
At one point you wrote something about this subject, but I think it should be explained more in detail.

Jens

[Ann Feuerbach]

Ah, yes. this is a particular problem in Russian, as I believe bulat means both cast steel and crucible steel. Primarily it is semantics: by definition cast steel is cast, ie: poured into a mold. In cast steel, usually premade steel is remelted in a crucible, rather than made in it.
Crucible steel is steel made in a crucible. Traditionally it is not cast (poured). However, what happens if the craftsmen put too much carbon into his crucible? The product can be cast iron. There is really no reason why a tradtional craftsmen could not have "cast" crucible steel or "cast iron". Just lack of evidence. Casting crucible steel would cause quick solidification, small dendrites and probably no pattern. But it could be done.

[tom hyle]

Fascinating and so much thanks to everyone!
Ann, "cast steel" is not steel which has been cast. It is a specific early industrial product (patented in England in 1749, I think) called "acero fino" ie. "fine steel" in Spainish (a freind has a Spainish language degree, and she said "fino" has all the same shadings of meaning in Spainish as does "fine" in English.) I've never made either. From my readings it seems to me that the big distinguishment of cast steel (also cast-steel, etc.) from "Eastern"/Tartaric crucible steel, or at least from blister steel, etc. was that it fully melted in the alloying process, while the European blister steel, sheer steel, etc. were alloyed at welding heat, some types in a crucible, which sort of "pudding"ed together, and had to then be hammered down to further join it and folded for homogeneity; don't know enough about Tartar steel to know how much this crosses over to it, or to what specific type of traditional European steel it most closely relates; shear steel I think.
Modern steel production is a full-melt process often and even usually involving (thankfully for my part, except when someone melts an old blade) recycled steel (different percents of different scrap items are allowed for different classes of industrial product), but its product is not "cast steel". Last I heard cast steel may still be produced in Sweden, but the last I heard was some sort of bad news involving this..... Wrought iron still comes out of Sweden, I read, too.
What of Japanese "blue steel"; anyone know what that is? High carbon, obviously; at a guess, real high, like cast steel.

[Ann Feuerbach]

Thanks Tom for the info on cast steel. All this terminology can be such a problem. What would you call ancient Chinese cast iron which has been decarborized while liquid to make it steel, and then it is cast? Is this not cast steel too? (hence my working definition). We really should go back to the term in the original language in which these processes were undertaken so we are certain what is meant. Steel production and nomenclature is such a grey area, where does one stop and the other begin?

[tom hyle]

Yeah, I agree; the problem is that W European overculture industry, as is its way, made its own efficient working definition of a phrase that has a seperable, and perhaps even older/foreign traditional or simply linguistic/logical meaning. Thus "cast steel" (you could quote it, "per se" it, "caststeel" or "cast-steel" or "acero fino", which I was questioning my friend is it fine grained or fine quality and she said you can't tell because "fino" exactly equals "fine".....) is a type of cast steel, if you will. Doubled shear steel (or any double/doubled steel) is steel that has been doubled; ie folded; triple steel AFAIK has no tightly defineable meaning, though it may imply many foldings or folding together of three different bars to form a billet; speculating. I think my brother has etched marked shear steel to a wootz-like crystally pattern. I also think he may have a spring-tempered wootz kard, though I don't remember that for sure. (If you think I'm fascinated with spring temper you don't know my brother! ) I'll attempt to question him or get him to read this.
There came to be something in the legalistic/industrial definition of "cast-steel" that included the crucible had to be below a certain size, and the ingredients were famously balanced by intuitive art as much as by any precise or scientific analysis, which was levelled as a criticism by the early large-batch full-melt industrial steel proponants, of course.