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Originally Posted by ariel
Not every steel obtained by crucible technology is equivalent to wootz.
For example, steel from Sheffild "pots" was poured off immediately after melting; slow cooling was not practiced. Forging of Sheffield steel was done at high temperature.
I was told that old Sheffield blades may show very faint, simple and patchy damaskus pattern if etched severely , but nobody ever managed to elicit real wootz-y pattern.
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english crucible steel was good,but it wasn't quite carling. (local uk joke)
i suspect the best true indian wootz may have had a crucial alloying element like vanadium that the UK didn't discover was usefull till much later.
i also suspect that, as i mentioned earlier, the secrets were NOT past down and were lost because a generation went to the city and got easier and better paid jobs in industry, offices, factories etc. where they could hide their low caste and rise above it. we do not realise in the west how limiting the indian caste system was (and is in places) and how attractive breaking out of it into a western meritocracy system that did not force them to pound iron for pennies all their lives would be. in the uneducated and illiterate environment, there was no way to 'store' the knowledge if your son did not want to learn it and ran off.