Wootz ingots, where do they all come from?

[Rick]

Hi Ann , some of these Mill Balls are referenced as coming from the Mojave Desert in the SFI thread ; these then must have been artifacts from Spanish Colonial days , no ?

When did the use of Mill Balls cease in iron production ?

I wonder how much Iron production went on in the Mojave back then ?

[Jeff Pringle]

Hi, I'm jumping in from the SFI thread -

I found those balls at a mine which was in operation ~mid 20th century, and it was not an iron mine. They are just an example of a type of crushing technology which is used for many different mining and processing applications, not limited to ore type or a particular century.
I'm not sure how far back the use of ball mills for ore processing goes in the Mojave, probably to the mid 19th (when it all started there), but it continues to this day, and I think they are more commonly post-industrial tech.
Most of the early mining activity in the American SW was probably wiped out by later, more industrial efforts, there are some pretty huge iron mines from the early - mid 20th C. out there.
Edit - I checked Biringuccio's Pirotechnia to see what miners were using in the 16th C, and he's pretty vague, lots of mentions of milling things, but I didn't see much description of the mills - he mentions stamp mills & flour-type mills.
I recall some reference to the Spanish mines in California crushing ore or mixing with mercury using a stone wheel that rolls around in a circle, but can't find the specific book.

Jeff

[Jens Nordlunde]

Hi Jeff,

Welcome to the forum.
True, mining in the Mojave Desert has been going on for more than a thousand years, if one can trust the written word. Mining gems and a lot of other things.

Could your mill balls go for Indian wootz ingots, or should I ask, how much expert do you have to be, to see that they are not Indian ingots, remembering that most of us have only seen ingots on pictures?

Jens

[Rick]

Thanks very much for the further information Jeff .
I'd love to see a picture of the blade that you forged from one of these babys .
Can you get a picture of the pattern or is it too fine to show up ?

[Jeff Pringle]

Could your mill balls go for Indian wootz ingots

Well, they look sorta like wootz ingots, but not really - The shape is too variable (each one slightly different but not in a consistant way); and there is no definite liquid side/crucible side, which is very obvious on small batch crucible steel ingots. And about half the ones I got are regular steel, nothing wootzy about them.
If I had not seen a pile of them next to a giant barrel at a mine, though, I'd be hard pressed to come up with an explanation for the shape.

Can you get a picture of the pattern or is it too fine to show up?

I'll try to get a photo, my camera's got some macro capability. I'm prob'ly not going to ever forge one of these Mojave mill balls into a blade, though - I got my own crucible steel for that
Jeff

[Jens Nordlunde]

Jeff, you write: ‘I got my own crucible steel for that’. Meaning that you are quite sure, the ingot you have is wootz – am I right?

If this is so, why are so many fooled? Is it be course they trust the dealer, or is it be course they don’t look properly, or maybe they don’t know what to look for – so they trust the dealer after all?

Jens

[Jeff Pringle]

Meaning that you are quite sure, the ingot you have is wootz – am I right?

Meaning I make crucible steel (some of which is wootz) from iron ore, so I don’t need to use ‘found’ dendritic steel shot.

Some of the steel I’ve made has had professional lab work done, so I can be definite on the wootz, but I also get metal that is more ‘high carbon steel,’ and metal that is more ‘cast iron.’
There’s a slight problem that perhaps very few people care about, which is that until very recently, ‘wootz’ meant ‘that steel they used to make them swords out of’; but now, it’s changing as we begin to gain a practical understanding of the material and a better understanding of it’s history.
My definition of ‘wootz’ is: a simple carbon steel with over ~1.3% carbon, forged in such a way as to have banded carbide structures. (Others have slightly different definitions). This takes into account that we understand how to make wootz now, so the old definition is no longer sufficient. The classic ‘wootz’ pattern (how those old swords look) can be made from almost any dendritic steel, and perhaps in some cases from regular hi-carbon barstock, but with those materials the bands are not always saturated with iron carbides.
It is an artificial definition, though – they just made steel into swords back then, so even some period pieces don’t match that – everyone just uses the word wootz when referring to blades that look like this:

regardless of alloy content, and now also to items that have the precursor structure, dendrites. A contemporary definition of wootz for those of us who make it is just now starting to be possible, so there’s going to be a bunch of ‘yes it’s wootz’, ‘no it’s not’ going on, and random lumps of cast mystery steel may or may not be included when it all shakes out.
If I were to acquire (ethically, Ann!) a genuine old wootz cake, the last thing I would do is forge it, that’d be a terrible thing to do to such a wonderful artifact of pre-industrial technology!
And, of course, any misrepresentation of items as either old or new wootz, ingot or blade, confuses the situation and is BAD

If this is so, why are so many fooled?

Are so many fooled? I don’t know that that is the case, there can’t be all that many people interested in wootz ingots, can there?
But there are only a couple reference works with pictures of the original ingots out there, so unless you are melting steel in your back yard and becoming that familiar with the external morphology & metallography of steel ingots, all you really have to go on is the seller’s promise.
BTW: Nice cross section photo of an old Indian wootz ingot in “The History of Metallography” C.S. Smith, ISBN 0-262-69120-5, as well as a discussion of wootz’s importance to our understanding of the structure of metals.
The first contemporary ‘what is wootz’ article, from a technical perspective:
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM...even-9809.html
(note how one of the blades discussed is too low in carbon to count (to the authors) as wootz, but another has just 1% and is included – I’d think that one was just hi carbon crucible steel - but they all have some pattern I’d call wootzy)

[Jens Nordlunde]

Thank you Jeff for your interesting explanation. From a friend I did know that you are a skilled blade maker, but I did not know you also made your own ingots.
Nice blade you show.

Jens