Where's the Wootz?

[urbanspaceman]

I find this a deep and impenetrable issue which has perplexed me from the start, and continues to do so, despite reading everything I can find, and now watching all the postings on Youtube.
This question I ask here is focused and coherent:

"Was the 'Crucible Method' used to produce steel in the Middle-East; as opposed to the common and typical 'billet-welding'.
Plus, are there examples of sword blades made from such steel, and how do we tell.

Pertinently, I am not talking about blades made from Wootz produced in India and Sri Lanka then exported along the Silk Roads; I refer, specifically, to crucible steel made in the Middle East.
Perhaps someone has absorbed and assimilated all the - often contradictory - theses out there. I hope so.
It has taken me a long time to firmly grasp the production method, but the above remains elusive.
With thanks in anticipation.
ps
Hi Jim.

[Bryce]

I am not sure I fully understand what you are asking. There are plenty of wootz blades that were made in places like Iran. For example the famous "Assad Allah of Isfahan" blades. Are you asking were they made in Iran, from wootz steel that was produced in Iran or were they made in Iran from wootz steel that was produced in India?

I am not a wootz scholar, but my assumption was that the wootz steel was also produced in the middle-east, not just India.

Cheers,
Bryce

[urbanspaceman]

Pertinently, I am not talking about blades made from Wootz produced in India and Sri Lanka then exported along the Silk Roads; I refer, specifically, to crucible steel made in the Middle East.

[urbanspaceman]

It is a bit ambiguous, I agree.

[Jim McDougall]

I think the issue at hand is, as crucible steel is in essence produced in the same manner as the mysterious 'wootz' of Middle East, India but in the west. So the question, in my 'lay' perception is.....how are the smelted products of these versions of steel different?
If I understand correctly, the smelted steel becomes ingots, and these ingots of iron fashioned into carburized steel are then used to forge blades.

Then it becomes the manner in which the raw steel is forged, with proper tempering, temperatures, quenching etc.

As can be seen, my understanding of these important factors in the making of blades is hopelessly basic as my knowledge of edged weapons is more historic and of swords in finished product. The steel, its differences and characteristics is most important, and I admit its complexity has intimidated me to the point of avoidance.

If I have understood, the 'wootz' steel was produced in the Middle East, but the furnaces in India and Sri Lanka produced the ingots which were traded to many blade making centers in other regions and cultures.

In the same manner, steel produced in Sweden was a much traded and desired form which provided ingots to makers throughout Europe, England.
I am not sure if the Swedish steel was crucible or not......ingots seem like they were more blockish, like bars of precious metal.

How is crucible steel different from that produced in blast furnaces ?
Again focused on western methods.

[urbanspaceman]

It is believed that Wootz was produced as far back as 800bCe in Southern India and Sri Lanka.
It is a hypereutectoid 'Crucible' steel: i.e. its temperature rises to the point where it melts and the organic additives included in the crucible, which was a "clay" watermelon shaped vessel, become evenly distributed, as opposed to folding and hammering.
Those additives were rice husks, pomegranate peel, wood chips and leaves (?); also, it has been suggested that glass was added to homogenize impurities into a slag layer on top - but I remain uncertain as to the veracity of this suggestion.
The forges were on hillsides, and tent-like funnels directed wind into the furnace to achieve the necessary temperatures.
The resulting cakes of wootz could then be forged into blades given the appropriate knowledge and ability - which was not always a given.
So, was this method practiced in the Middle East?
That is my question.
Surely this is known and established.

[urbanspaceman]

The 'Crucible' method was lost until 1744 when Doncaster born clock and locksmith Benjamin Huntsman - in search of a perfect mainspring - moved to Sheffield and finally perfected the process.
Unfortunately, paranoid and guarded until the end, he never patented the method.
This method is the basis for modern steel making using the Bessemer converter.
There my knowledge ends.

[urbanspaceman]

Beware of typing Wootz into Youtube unless you are retired.

[urbanspaceman]

Sweden was primarily famous for its 'Oregrounds bar iron' which was very pure.
'Newcastle' steel, traded from the late 1600s into the 1700s, was produced by William Bertram in the Derwent Valley (Ca.Shotley Bridge) and recognized as the finest steel available anywhere.
He was known for using the 'German Method', which isn't surprising considering he was born and raised in Remscheid before moving to Wira Bruk, then Shotley Bridge after marrying a Swedish lass.
At its finest, it was almost too hard to work, and Sheffield tool-makers, when manufacturing shears for the fabric industry - 'Shear Steel' - complained... asking for a softer product.
The Bertram family descendants were producing "The World's Finest Cutlery" as late as the 1970s under the Hen and Rooster label.
Naturally, William was buying his bar-iron from Sweden and supplying the German smiths in Shotley Bridge with their steel; hence my knowledge of him.

[Interested Party]

There used to be some interesting videos of Al Pendray and John Verhoeven using ore from Damascus area and crucible technique assisted by local smiths to recreate crucible steel.

Has anyone mentioned the local variances in ores effecting the final outcome of the crystalline structure?

[urbanspaceman]

I remember seeing a lengthy documentary quite a few years back about Al and John making wootz: it was mesmerising; the more so because I had not yet begun my Shotley Bridge odyssey and knew nothing about arms, armour or metallurgy.
I have not yet found it on Youtube although there is a superb video featuring Al that is easy to come across if you type wootz and his name into the search engine; this will bring up an endless number of additional videos on wootz (and blade metallurgy)... as I said, take a week off work.
Equally, there are many of those videos regarding steel composition - and iron too.
Despite sending smiths over to the Middle East during the Christian Crusades, to steal the secrets, the Solingen blacksmiths have never used the Crucible method, which makes me suspicious about it ever being used in the Middle East, which is what prompted my question.
The local ore that was used in Remscheid is significantly responsible for the blade quality output from Solingen: breakdowns of ore content by location have been published extensively. The other important factor responsible for the high grade of blade output from Solingen, and Hounslow, Shotley Bridge, Klingenthal et al. is the specialisation system, where separate guilds (usually family based) performed only one process/stage in blade production; and considering it had been going-on for 2,000 years, they had definitely mastered the arts. Forging was, of course, the "Black Art"... worldwide actually, as I'm sure everyone is aware.

[urbanspaceman]

There has been much consideration over the years/decades regarding the ending of fine blade production in Damascus, with the predominant reasons considered being the loss of the blacksmith's secrets as families died out, but also the depleting of the necessary local ores.
I would be interested to learn what research has been done about this.

[Interested Party]

I think you have seen this or have processed the information from other sources https://youtu.be/OP8PCkcBZU4. Do minutes roughly 35-40 address some of your basic questions? While 38:44 https://youtu.be/OP8PCkcBZU4?t=2324 might be the heart of the issue? They are calling dendritic steel what many in the forum call crystalline wootz, and I believe other have called sham. Of course it could all be BS. I got sucked in by an English language summary of Anasoff that my grandfather gave me when I was 23 and have not forgotten the lesson of not believing everything that I read

Did you read Ann Feuerbach on Central Asian Crucible Steel, 2002? Rivkin has a nice summary in his Caucasian Arms book as well. I seem to remember lengthy debates in the forum archives as well.

Speaking about being retired I need to head off to work. Interesting topic.

[urbanspaceman]

Thank-you for those links, it is much appreciated.
I will continue this discussion tomorrow as I am needing my bed right now,