Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

Rivkin · 17th November 2006, 08:47 PM

Well, my personal impression is somewhat mixed. The article in Nature starts bad - it talks a lot about crusaders, about mysterious blades their encountered, and then says oh, here we analyze such blade - from XVIIIth century. Then it continues to say that wootz (called damascus in the paper) have exhibited highly unusual super-qualities. As we discussed in this thread, this is somewhat questionable. There are some authors who liked it, some, like for example Tournie, whom Manoucher quotes on a different issue, believed that wootz weapons are simply very bad ones, and mechanical damascus is much better. Then it says that the secret of making wootz was "lost" in XVIIIth century, but yet somehow Kyrgyz and other smiths were able to work with Anosov in creating wootz blades in XIXth century. Geurk did make some wootz weaponry relatively late in XIXth century, albeit I think he did not make wootz.

Then we go into subject of carbon nanotubes. Ok, carbon nanotubes. It is obvious that carbon in wootz samples formed some sort of structure and it is obvious that this pattern would be formed on a nanoscale. I guess 50 year ago, before the word "nano" started to mean "grant money", no one would really care to specifically mention the nanoscale. What is new in this article is that it is formed a nanotube structure rather than diamond or graphite. This is what significant over here, and it is indeed an interesting discovery. Which again requires certain reiteration of the question "what is Wootz ?" For example Anosov, as fas as I remember, believed that wootz should consist chemically from carbon and iron, and all these stories about alloying are wrong. He is also quoted that every steel with a pattern would be called "bulat" (he did not use the word "wootz") by the people, even though some of it is mechanical, i.e. "artificial bulat", and some is "real bulat". So again we need to agree on what is wootz. For example Pendrey &Verhoeven & company believe that ".... The prior studies claiming to have either reproduced the genuine Damascus steel or explained the mechanism of pattern formation are reviewed. None of these studies have allowed modern blade smiths to reproduce the steel. The author and a blade smith, Alfred Pendray, has developed a process with which Pendray can produce blades that match the microstructures of the best museum quality genuine Damascus blades", meaning I guess that everyone else's wootz is fake. If they would mention which museums blades are "quality genuine Damascus blades", and which are definitely not, despite having visual pattern, this would make me more happy.

17th November 2006, 08:47 PM	#154
Rivkin Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 655	Well, my personal impression is somewhat mixed. The article in Nature starts bad - it talks a lot about crusaders, about mysterious blades their encountered, and then says oh, here we analyze such blade - from XVIIIth century. Then it continues to say that wootz (called damascus in the paper) have exhibited highly unusual super-qualities. As we discussed in this thread, this is somewhat questionable. There are some authors who liked it, some, like for example Tournie, whom Manoucher quotes on a different issue, believed that wootz weapons are simply very bad ones, and mechanical damascus is much better. Then it says that the secret of making wootz was "lost" in XVIIIth century, but yet somehow Kyrgyz and other smiths were able to work with Anosov in creating wootz blades in XIXth century. Geurk did make some wootz weaponry relatively late in XIXth century, albeit I think he did not make wootz. Then we go into subject of carbon nanotubes. Ok, carbon nanotubes. It is obvious that carbon in wootz samples formed some sort of structure and it is obvious that this pattern would be formed on a nanoscale. I guess 50 year ago, before the word "nano" started to mean "grant money", no one would really care to specifically mention the nanoscale. What is new in this article is that it is formed a nanotube structure rather than diamond or graphite. This is what significant over here, and it is indeed an interesting discovery. Which again requires certain reiteration of the question "what is Wootz ?" For example Anosov, as fas as I remember, believed that wootz should consist chemically from carbon and iron, and all these stories about alloying are wrong. He is also quoted that every steel with a pattern would be called "bulat" (he did not use the word "wootz") by the people, even though some of it is mechanical, i.e. "artificial bulat", and some is "real bulat". So again we need to agree on what is wootz. For example Pendrey &Verhoeven & company believe that ".... The prior studies claiming to have either reproduced the genuine Damascus steel or explained the mechanism of pattern formation are reviewed. None of these studies have allowed modern blade smiths to reproduce the steel. The author and a blade smith, Alfred Pendray, has developed a process with which Pendray can produce blades that match the microstructures of the best museum quality genuine Damascus blades", meaning I guess that everyone else's wootz is fake. If they would mention which museums blades are "quality genuine Damascus blades", and which are definitely not, despite having visual pattern, this would make me more happy.