[meteorite-list] Damascus Steel, meteoritic iron, and Widmanstatten patterns

From: Sterling K. Webb <kelly_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Mar 21 13:24:56 2005
Message-ID: <4234A083.4611E69B_at_bhil.com>

Hi, Darren, List

    The so-called Damascus steel is a laminate of thin sheets of very hard but brittle high carbon
steel interleaved with thin sheets of much more malleable iron. The hundreds (sometimes) of
interleaved sheets are forged by pounding and twisting while at a heat near but below the melting
point of either material.
    The result is a material that has the characteristics of both materials, flexibility on one
hand and extreme hardness on the other, which gives an extremely sharp but durable edge to a blade.

    The elaborate twisted pattern of the two forged materials, called "silking," is a random
outcome of the process used to make it and cannot be predicted with any reliability. Damascus
steel orginated in medieval metalurgical experiements and the patterns are just a bonus of beauty.

Sterling Webb
---------------------------------------
Darren Garrison wrote:

> All this talk of desert irons being used for making tools makes me wonder: think that there's a
> chance that the look of Damascus Steel was orignally an attempt to reproduce the appearance of
> Widmanstatten patterns in meteoritic iron?
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Received on Sun 13 Mar 2005 03:20:19 PM PST