[Steppes] Damascus Steel Rediscovered!!!

[William Duty]

Yes, the article does discuss all of that, but apparently they have never been able to reproduce
the steel everytime. They say that until recently it was a hit or miss kind of thing and they
never could figure it out. What they recently discovered is that it needs a trace(0.003 percent)
of vanadium. The article does say that they have been working with it for about 10 years, but now
the completed formula they can actually start looking into mass producing the metal.

Wm Duty

--- Ron Hardy <rhemail at swbell.net> wrote:
> This is not new info. I meet the blacksmith in question (Al Pendray) some 8-9 years ago at a
> blacksmith school in Arkansas. Got to handle the steel and all. It does have a rather
> interesting
> pattern to it. It was made by melting iron with oyster shells and other things in a sealed
> crucible.
> The Blacksmiths magazines have been writing about this for 10 years. I have an article from 10
> years
> ago in my bookshelf.
> I guess the paper thought they had just found something new???
>
> Fritz
>
>
>
> William Duty wrote:
>
> > Greetings All,
> >
> > I found a link to this article on Slashdot of all places. Interesting that it shows up on a
> > computer geek website but the article is very interesting. It describes how a 'country
> blacksmith'
> > and a PhD worked together to recreate Damascus Steel by hand using Period methods. My favorite
> > quote, "Sometimes I'd have to tell him, `I don't care if you've got a PhD, you don't
> understand
> > what the hell's going on here,'". Wonder how long it will be until they start getting orders
> from
> > SCAdian smiths for bars of the stuff?
> >
> > Anyway, here is the link,
> > http://chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0108130162aug13.story?coll=chi%2Dnews%2Dhed
> >
> > William Duty
> >
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