Ingots

[Mare Rosu]

Jeff you did a great job in answering the questions as well showing us where you got the mill balls.
As to question #4

Below is a extract from an article by Verhoeven, Pendray and W.E. Dauksch, "The Key Role of impurities in Ancient Damascus Steel Blades":

http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/jom...even-9809.html

Take a look at the whole article as it has the pictures and much more information on wootz testing.


The article showers the chemical composition of wootz from several old blades.
A most interesting point is that one of the wootz blades,( sword #8 ) long identified as wootz by the museum as well as others is in fact not wootz at all, according to Verhoeven. Indicating "eye ball" testing of the pattern is NOT the the way to tell wootz from non wootz.
Gene


"THE SWORDS
Figure 2. Macrophotographs of Zschokke sword blades.
A major problem in doing scientific experiments on wootz Damascus steel is the inability to obtain samples for study. Such study requires that the blades be cut into sections for microscopic examination, and small quantities must be sacrificed for destructive chemical analysis. A rare example where museum-quality wootz Damascus blades were donated to science for study is reported in the 1924 paper of Zschokke.13 A famous explorer and collector, Henri Moser, amassed a collection of some 2,000 Damascene blades and donated two daggers and four swords to Zschokke for study. The Moser collection is now displayed in the Berne Historical Museum in Switzerland, and the remaining pieces from the four swords of the Zschokke study remain there. Recently, Ernst J. Kläy of the Berne Museum donated a small sample of each sword for further study to be conducted.
This article presents the results of a study of these four samples. Also, four additional wootz Damascus blades, all thought to be a few hundred years old, have been acquired and are included. Hence, all of the blades studied here are more than two centuries old and were presumably made from wootz steel. These blades are referred to as genuine wootz Damascus blades to differentiate them from the reconstructed wootz Damascus blades made by the technique developed by the authors.


Zschokke Swords
Zschokke identified the four swords of his study as swords 7-10, and the same code is used here. The swords had an original width of around 30 mm. The samples provided were approximately 18 mm wide by 88 mm in length and contained the cutting edge. The surface of the samples were refinished by polishing with fine SiC papers and then etching in ferric chloride. The contrast on the sample's surface was enhanced by applying the ferric chloride with repeated rubbing from a cloth. Figure 2 presents macrographs of the four sword samples; sword 9 has the most distinct pattern.
Pieces were cut from one end of each of the samples with a thin diamond saw. A 2 cm length was cut for chemical-analysis studies, and an 8 mm length sample was used for microstructure analysis. The chemical analyses were done using emission spectroscopy on a calibrated machine at Nucor Steel Corporation. Table I presents the chemical analyses, along with the values reported by Zschokke. Agreement between the analyses done by Zschokke in 1924 and the present data is reasonably good.


Table I. A Comparison of the Current Chemical Analyses with Zschokke's Analyses13*
Sword 7 Sword 8 Sword 9 Sword 10
Material Current Zschokke Current Zschokke Current Zschokke Current Zschokke
C 1.71 1.87 0.65 0.60 1.41 1.34 1.79 1.73
Mn 150 50 1,600 1,590 <100 190 300 280
P 1,010 1,270 1,975 2,520 980 1,080 1,330 1,720
S 95 130 215 320 60 80 160 200
Si 350 490 1,150 1,190 500 620 500 620
* Analyses are given in parts per million by weight, except for C, which is in weight%.


Sword 8 is hypoeutectoid and, therefore, cannot be a true wootz Damascus steel, because such steels will not form Fe3C particles on cooling. Metallographic examination confirmed this expectation and revealed that the surface pattern seen on this sword (Figure 2) was due to ferrite bands in a pearlite matrix. Therefore, this sword will not be considered to be a genuine wootz Damascus sword in the following discussion.
Micrographs of surface and transverse sections of the remaining three swords are shown in Figure 3. The micrographs of the surfaces are, in effect, taper sections through the bands seen on the micrographs of the section views, and, as expected, the widths of the bands are expanded in the surface views."

[Gt Obach]

Mare don't ignore sword no. 8 ... it exists
-just cause it doesn't support someones patent does not invalidate it... ..

or maybe the ancient smiths ran it through their spectroscope and figured it out ?... wootz ?... or Nootz ?

[Mare Rosu]

Gt
You make a good point; I was trying to say the same thing.

"A most interesting point is that one of the wootz blades,( sword #8 ) long identified as wootz by the museum as well as others is in fact not wootz at all, according to Verhoeven. Indicating "eye ball" testing of the pattern is NOT the the way to tell wootz from non wootz.."

Explaining further;
Just because a blade has a wootz like pattern does not make it wootz, case in point a "mill ball" made into a blade by Jeff Pringle (above) looks good, with a wootz like pattern, but is it wootz? Jeff say it is not and he made it.
Oriental Arms also made a blade, from a round ball ingot, with a woots like pattern and Oriental Arms said it is wootz.

Blade #8 was wootz until Verhoeven tested it to HIS standard and declared it was not wootz. Until then most folks said it was wootz and some even today still do.

This all begs the question; what is wootz? Surely not just the pattern.
their is more to it than what the eye can see. That leaves only testing to make the case is it wootz? or non wootz?
In my opinion that was what Verhoeven, Pendray and others was trying to establish, a base line of testing to use to determine " true wootz" from all the look a likes.

Let's not forget the question, that Jens asked when he started this thread, basically where did all these round ingots, the round balls so called mill ball come from and are they woots or not?

There will always be a difference of opinion on most subjects, so a lively discussion here is a good way to establish at least some sort of base line for wootz, at least to most of the folks here on the forum satisfaction.

If one has a blade that he bought as woots and likes it, who is to say to him it is not wootz. He may be disillusioned about it but it is his and he is happy with it, who cares?

I have PM Dr Ann Feuerbach for her help.
Gene

[Jens Nordlunde]

I find the latest development very interesting, and would like to ask those of you who work with the metal, and who sometimes get it tested a question.

Is the way Verhoeven and Pendray tests the metal the same in every laboratory, or does each laboratory have their own tests?

[Jeff Pringle]

The interesting thing about sword 8 to me is that it looks like sham wootz, the banding seems similar in certain significant respects – my theory is that sham is a (comparatively) low carbon pattern, and if more sham blades were tested they would bear this out. But most of the tested blades are of the Persian or Indian ultra high carbon patterns.
Jens, there are several standard methods of determining alloy content, the Verhoeven paper mentions using emission spectroscopy, which is the commonest method, my lab does that as well. They call it OES for ‘optical emission spectroscopy’.
Another way to look at the info in Gene’s previous post is in terms of ranges, a later Verhoeven paper summarizes the previously published data on wootz thusly:
C 1.0-1.87%
Mn 0.005-0.014%
Si 0.005-0.11%
S 0.007-0.038%
P 0.026-0.206%
Cu 0.03-0.18%
Cr <0.01%
Ni 0.008-0.07%

So if one were to analyze some metal and find it far outside these ranges (especially if it was elements other than carbon which is fairly easy to move) there would have to be some other good reason (like solid provenance) to include it in the wootz pile, sword 8 not withstanding. The old steel was a very clean steel, not easy to replicate in modern industrial practice.

[Jens Nordlunde]

Jeff, thank you for your explanation.

It’s a heavy subject when you are not used to it. I also tried to Google on the subject ‘Mill balls’ and I got 46800 links – enough to satisfy everyone.