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Reflection to the ancient steel.


Niko Hynninen
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  • 4 months later...

Hello! The patterns are great!

 

During all these years I have tryed to find info from industry, books and other modern steel making

journal´s...but all of them have that same " flaw" they will quide in wrong way all most in every turn.

Liked it. A lot of information but cannot find.

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Hello Niko,

Interesting how you manage to get such a perfect watering pattern, that would make envious even Assad Allah, ON RAW, UNPOLISHED BARS?! All the wootz pattern I know comes after fine polishing and etching and no way directly after hammering and filing a bar.

Moreover, it is interesting how you present these astonishing patterns, yet you did NOT FORGE A SINGLE NEW BLADE  WITH THEM?!

So I believe that you are merely posting some photos of old wootz to which you applied some hammer and file strikes and claim that you produced it.

 

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1 hour ago, Marius Mioc said:

Hello Niko,

Interesting how you manage to get such a perfect watering pattern, that would make envious even Assad Allah, ON RAW, UNPOLISHED BARS?! All the wootz pattern I know comes after fine polishing and etching and no way directly after hammering and filing a bar.

Moreover, it is interesting how you present these astonishing patterns, yet you did NOT FORGE A SINGLE NEW BLADE  WITH THEM?!

So I believe that you are merely posting some photos of old wootz to which you applied some hammer and file strikes and claim that you produced it.

 

Do you really think that's likely? Have you seen the shear number of posts and threads that Niko has showing different experiments with steel? Have you seen the pieces people have made with the material Niko has made for them? I have, and have no reason to believe Niko is fooling anyone. I don't understand why you feel the need to attack someone who is actively pursuing knowledge to better themselves and the craft of modern steel making, but as far as I'm concerned you have no place here in a community built on trust and honest work. 

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That is a bit harsh, Marius.  If you had made wootz yourself you'd know the pattern does indeed show up any time you get a smooth surface free of oxidation.  Etching does increase the contrast, but is not necessary to see the watering.  Plus, Niko is really that good.  Among the best in the modern world when it comes to crucible steels.

May I ask what brought this on?  Simple disbelief, or envy?  Either one is fine.

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Marius,  

I think you were joking and maybe we did not get it. I am not speaking for Niko ...if one has a bar under the bench which has never been shown  or etched until much later in time..I don't think that needs to be part of the description. I am happy with Niko's approach..it lets the mystery be...without that mystery it might get tedious.

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Marius, you clearly don't know wootz sufficiently to comment. A bar can easily show a very good pattern after filing, light sanding and etching, and one doesn't need to make a blade from steel in order to show that they have a good pattern or are legit.  Being able to forge out a bar into a blade doesn't reflect on the origin of the bar in any way, you can still take an old bar and forge it out into a new blade and it still isn't your material.  So your comments are baseless, illogical and show ignorance. Niko is one of the best as Alan said, he also has published his technique in an international journal and he has done the hard yards to get where he is today.  Why was your first comment an accusation of fraud instead of simply one of wonder at the quality of patterns which he was able to achieve?  Where are your steel patterns which qualify you to be able to criticise, where is your proof of experience in making wootz? 

Edited by Tim Mitchell
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Tim Mitchell
Buffalo River Forge
Great Lakes, Australia.

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Scientific studies show the composition and structure of steel - as it was made by ancient masters. I know for sure that making a pattern similar to the ancient steel is very difficult, but getting an analogue has become even more of a problem ...

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Actually we have to be very careful to not talk in generalizations concerning the old steel and patterns.  There are many different patterns which we have from old blades and some are very easy to replicate, others very difficult.  When making comments about difficulty or ability to reproduce crucible steel we must be specific about what pattern, what region, what method, what time.   Suzdalskiy could you please explain your comment about "getting an analogue". :)

 

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Tim Mitchell
Buffalo River Forge
Great Lakes, Australia.

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Not only the pattern on the plane of the blade determines which "steel grade", not one crucible technology .... Everything should be considered in the complex. I think that the main core for determining the original ancient steel is its composition and internal structure.

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There is research which shows both dendritic structures and cluster sheets and both of those are historical varieties of crucible steel.  JD Verhoeven and Al Pendray documented only one form of crucible steel, the Black Khorassan pattern from Persia which was actually called Pulad not Wootz.... just a technicality.  Scientific research has only shown us that carbide forming elements are needed, that in some cases there are carbon nanotubes, and that there are spherodized carbides in quite a bit of the ancient steel. Vanadium is not present in all watered pattered steel, but there is always a carbide forming element... usually many. 

The scientific research does not in any way show that crucible steel must have specific characteristics. It only has shown some of the characteristics that some very specific patterned steel from some regions contain. 

The only comparisons that we can draw outside of the shape of the carbides and the presence or absence of cluster sheets, is the pattern itself.  If the pattern matches and the carbides are spherodized, we can call it a reasonable reproduction of any specific pattern.  I am a researcher and have been making crucible steel for 15 years, and there are many on this forum who have been making it longer ;), and I can tell you after knowing the scientific researchers personally, that not all you read is actually the full and precise truth, especially not representative of even the majority of crucible steel blades.  Do not worship the research or the researchers, take what they have to say and realise that it is specific to a specific group of blades, and know that we have not even examined a needle in the haystack of all the existing crucible steel blades out there. 

The composition of blades varied so greatly that we cannot do anything except generalise about the total body of crucible steel examples.  They contained copper, silver, manganese, vanadium, chromium... all in different amounts (or none at all) in blades from different regions and different times.  Crucible steel was made in many different locations using just as many or more recipes, and was forged out in even more different ways by so many different smiths and over close to 2000 years.  So when anyone tries to make generalisations about crucible steel, bulat, pulad or wootz.... I just smile and shake my head.  Keep reading what others write and know that half of what they write is not correct, eventually you will start to get a clearer picture and shake your head too :).

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Tim Mitchell
Buffalo River Forge
Great Lakes, Australia.

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