Hi
making some assumptions here... - that the material is wrought iron... of high quality.
in my opinion it would be very desirable for blade making... a high quality wrought iron in a damascus mix... for example... a file steel will have a very high carbon level.. to cut it down abit for a sword blade, i'd mix in some wrought iron into the folding process. After so many welding heats, the carbon kinda evens out and you have a lovely folded pattern in the blade.
are the horse shoes and nails carburized ?
reason i ask is that maybe a good reason to add them if they are..
if you've used some very low quality wrought iron... and tried to make a nail out of it... you'd have a very hard time to hammer it through wood without predrilling a hole... .. it would be like hammering a copper nail into wood... it would buckle if too much resistance is there...
maybe the same is of horse shoes.. they maybe of a high quality wrought iron..... unlike some of the wagon wheels/tires ...those are usually low quality
I imagine that the horses feet would also test out the wrought for any weaknesses or large slag inclusions ... like a proof test
also for a sword steel ... you want a very high quality wrought iron/steel..... look at the japanese swords... very high quality bloom steels..... with many folds to make the steel as homogeneous as possible.
by folding the bloom over and over... you turn a low quality muck bar/wrought iron into a higher quality wrought.(very fine and numerous strands)
-- wrought iron chains are usually high quality
so by starting out with a decent quality wrought iron... you'd spare yourself alot of work folding muck bar into a better wrought iron
Wrought iron is a beautiful material to add to damascus... because it loves to forge weld ... it sticks like glue with very little flux..... due to the self fluxing nature of the siliceous slags in the metal..... with good welds... you increase your chance of a very good sword !
after the welding process is done... you'd have a hard time telling what materials were used... as long as the carbon level is decent for a sword... -you could etch the sword to look for pattern welds... but if it was folded many times, it may be very homogenous
-- I think the Polish sabers were very good ... so the smiths must have known what they were doing...
Recycling is also important... good iron and steels, it only makes sense to reuse them..
- i still to this day hunt for wrought iron... over the holidays i brought back a 2foot by 1"by1/4" bar of wrought on the plane ride back... (checked luggage ofcourse)
take care
Greg
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