Meteorite Dagger?

[Jeff Pringle]

When creating a mixture of “iron” and meteorite, what happens to the nickel in the process… does it “mix” or does it tend to separate and create “bands” of nickel in the iron (making its own pamor)?

The acid in the lime juice will etch the layers with nickel less than the ones without, and the arsenic/lime will darken them less; so the nickel-bearing layers will stand out and be lighter and more glossy (although the polish will depend on abrasives and method of their use, too). Phosphorus works the same way, the different alloys are effected by the acid differently. I have never done lime juice and arsenic to a differential phosphorus blade, but with regular etching solutions phosphorus iron etches less deeply and lighter in color, but does not retain its polish like steel with nickel or chrome.

How uniformly the nickel becomes mixed with the other metal depends on how it is worked, how many times the two metals get folded together. At eight folds, the narrowness of the layers and solid-state diffusion are starting to level out the appearance, at least to the naked eye (how uniform it will look also depends on how different the alloys are and how much those elements like to diffuse (Ni does not like to move very fast), and how hot the smith likes to work the metal). It takes ten to twelve folds to really get things smoothed out under magnification. The patterned panels on the knife I posted were folded four times, the base metal was folded eight before going into the mix. The base metal is much more uniform in between the nickel layers, where it got the extra folds. At four folds, the nickel layers are still really obvious, but the meteorite I used welded up so well I didn’t have to fold it many times to get clean metal, so the bright layers are undiluted 6% nickel meteorite.

If a smith were mixing meteorite & plain steel to make the bright layers in the pamor, he would fold it until it was visually uniform (from a foot or two away, at least - otherwise the patterning wouldn't stand out), but there would still be some amount of variation in the metal, quite a lot under the microscope.

Testing the brighter lines in pamor (or the brighter lines within the brighter layers) would get you higher percentage of meteorite material, if it was used.

To get a real big difference in color, I think you need at least 2-3 percent nickel (perhaps less if you’re mixing it with high P metal?), and the Prambanan meteorite has 10% Ni (28.3 ppm Ga, 190 ppm Ge, 4.2 ppm Ir) – I’ll take a wild guess and say the old timers would mix one part meteorite with four or five parts domestic metal, unless the keris was special, when they might bump it up to 33% -50% for the extra contrast that would impart. You’d probably see some degree of contrast all the way down to a one in ten ratio.