Klaas remmen

Hi all, it has been a while, but i have been busy. I kept on trying everything that comes to mind, and kept running to the microdcope to see what happened when. Finally something went the way it should and i got a nice pattern and good structure! I cannot describe the feeling i got when i finally had this, but it was good... Now back to the forge, this needs to be practiced!

I keep coming up with these sham patterns... interestingly enough, this pattern pops out when etched but if you twist in light, the cementite is in the 'black' area's.

Hi Everyone The class was held, ow yes it did! It was a great experience... in the end a 45kg Kera was made and 22kg Wootz, some of it forged. Jan and Julien, get in touch if you are in the area! cheers Klaas pictures by Michael Simonini

Dear all After meeting on this forum, Niko and i had a lot of conversation. we ended up with the crazy idea to organise a masterclass with both tatara and curcible steel making at my workshop in Hoboken, Antwerp, Belgium. So here it is, the masterclass will be organised in september 2015. Anyone who is interested in coming over please contact me at klaasremmen(@)gmail.com. We plan to work with 10 participants, more information in the flyer as attachment. Kind regards Klaas Historical metallurgy masterclass.pdf

Hi Jan Looks very promising. I can't wait to see what this will become! keep it up!! Klaas

Dear Niko You should get an oscar for this film.

Hi Jan OK. I still think that the weird grey ingot looks neat. As I said, the one I forged was easy, it stayed easy till the end. IF i'm not mistaken it was the ingot which made this bar: keep it up!

Oh yes and Jan, what do you mean by glazing? doe you glaze the inside of your crucicbles.???

Hi Jan What do you mean with viscosity? I never care too much about these holes on the side.. in my experience they do not indicate that an ingot is easy to forge or not. so what are your conclusions? Less heat is better for your crucibles? what about carbon on top of the layer? Works better for your crucibles? How about re-using glass? not so agressive or the same?

Oh yes, ingot 3 looks interesting... I had one of these once and it really forged easy.

Hi Jan Nice collection of dinosaur eggs you have there I always collect the glass/slag from the crucible and re-use it. It seems it is less agressive then! Also I believe to have notices that a little bit of charcoal on top of the glass helps. Make sure you have enough glass/sand than, you don't want it to go with the iron/cast of coarse. Good luck with the forging! Klaas

Hi Jan Looks good, what charge did you use for this crucibles? Zaqro's technique? or did you use cast? Good luck with the forging!

So I started making bulat again.. For starters I used the Georgian method, but didn't add enough charcoal in the crucible, or maybe it did not get hot enough. Got a small cace out of it with small dendrites in each direction. This one was a dream to forge, and did not have a lot of carbon in it (because the fusion was not completed). However I just forged it out to get the feeling going again. After about 100 cycles I managed to make it in a rough knife. The rest I sanded of. Way too much sanding. With the hardening something weird happened. There are three temperlines, I don't know how I did that. Also, there is a 'cloud' of what seems to be very small cementite pattern. The big pattern dissapered with tempering, some of it still remains in the untempered parts and in some parts of the hardened steel. There is a crack somewhere, the steel sounds crooked. Also, I should learn not to use white glue with such a beatifull snakewood. Anyway, it was a great exercise, and really got me up for the next one.

Hi everyone It has been a while for me to get on this forum, but it fills my heart with joy that it's so lively :-) Good to read that so much people I learned a lot from are still here. I was wondering if there are people from my region of Europe (or other places in the world) who would be interested in a get- togheter to do a weekend or so smelting and forging Wootz/bulat? I live in Belgium (antwerp area) and have a nice workshop in which it could take place... we could plan a smelting and forging day (days) and some discussion moments and metallographical study of results? would anyone be interested? all the best Klaas

Hey Niko Thanks for your email! I was getting sooo curious to see your Wootz that I decided to come and take a look here, after 2 or 3 years:-) Nice patterns... Stunning! And hello to you to Jan, nice to see you are still around :-) I think I'll come back more often ;-) cheers Klaas