Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

tom hyle · 18th December 2005, 07:29 PM

generally, the production of mono steel as such is a fairly high tech procedure, and AFAIK dates to only the 18th C in Europe. There is a legend that African iron has been of especial purity (thus never going thru the permutations that led to discovering steel). However, I have seen numbers of central African/Bantu blades with forging flaws and other signs of what looks like simple lineal laminate (folding for homogeneity/alloying).

18th December 2005, 07:29 PM	#2
tom hyle Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Houston, TX, USA Posts: 1,254	generally, the production of mono steel as such is a fairly high tech procedure, and AFAIK dates to only the 18th C in Europe. There is a legend that African iron has been of especial purity (thus never going thru the permutations that led to discovering steel). However, I have seen numbers of central African/Bantu blades with forging flaws and other signs of what looks like simple lineal laminate (folding for homogeneity/alloying).