How many Kris's are made of Indian steel?

lemmythesmith · 21st January 2008, 10:26 PM

Hi Jens, Hi Alan, What I'm wondering about is how the steel for the core of a keris is constructed? Is it smelted as rough steel and then refined by washing to even out the carbon content through carbon migration (as a Japanese smith makes blade steel from tamahagane) or is it a mixture of say, wootz with wrought iron washed together to make damascus type material? I know from recent experience if you combine a small amount of wootz and cast iron with wrought iron and fold it you get a pretty hard steel when it's quenched. (LOTS of red short too!) I know today high carbon steel bar stock is often used, but how did they make steel for keris before bar stock was available? Wonder if wootz came in handy then?

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21st January 2008, 10:26 PM	#5
lemmythesmith Member Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 93	Hi Jens, Hi Alan, What I'm wondering about is how the steel for the core of a keris is constructed? Is it smelted as rough steel and then refined by washing to even out the carbon content through carbon migration (as a Japanese smith makes blade steel from tamahagane) or is it a mixture of say, wootz with wrought iron washed together to make damascus type material? I know from recent experience if you combine a small amount of wootz and cast iron with wrought iron and fold it you get a pretty hard steel when it's quenched. (LOTS of red short too!) I know today high carbon steel bar stock is often used, but how did they make steel for keris before bar stock was available? Wonder if wootz came in handy then?