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[kisame12794]

Yeah it was Powning. Oops. It is pattern welding but most of us call it damascus. I am interested aboud where you heard of wootz steel though, not many have.

[OddTheTall]

I ran into various references to it in some of the fiction books I have read and in the quick Wikipedia search I did just before my previous post to check that my (vague) memories were correct.

I have now dug up the copy of the Chronicle (the magazine that my reenactment group sends to its members) with the article about recreating Damascus and Wootz steel and I think that's were I first ran into it in an intellectual context.

The article is chock full of references which I can copy out if you are interested.

[kisame12794]

How much is a subscription?

[OddTheTall]

As far as I'm aware, it's a society-only circular - no distribution outside of Regia Anglorum.

I've included some of the sources given in the article below. (Harvard notation)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Possibly the easiest to find:
Sherby, O.D. and Wadsworth, J., 1983. Damascus Steels, Scientific American, Volume 252, pp.112-115
This references:
Smith, C.S., 1965. A History of Metallography, University of Chicago Press
Sherby, O.D. and Wadsworth, J., 1980. On the Bulat - Damascus Steels Revisited, Progress in Mineral Science, 25, pp.35-68
Sherby, O.D. and Wadsworth, J., 1983. Damascus Steelmaking, Science, 218(4570) pp.328-329

Shelby and Wadsworth were investigating superplastic steels for making stronger gears etc.
Their discoveries are again written up in:
Trefil, J., 1983. Rediscovered Supersteel of the Ancients, Science Digest - February pp.38-40 and 108

Other attempts are recorded in:
August 1992. Breakthrough - How the Ancients Made Real Damascus, Blade Magazine pp.52-55, 96-97 and 100
Articles in Blade Magazine July-August 1987 (Wizard of Wootz), Sep-Oct 1982 (Damascus Steel - Wootz Revisited) and July-August 1982 (Damascus Steel - A Definition)
Riaskowski, J., 1964. The Manufacture of Mediaeval Damascened Knives, Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute 202 pp.561-8

There are a couple more but I can't be bothered copying them at the moment and they deal more with pattern-welding anyway - if you want me to put them up, just ask.

[Reudh]

Wootz steel was steel imported from India- the reason why it was considered so strong was because (recently) it was discovered to contain carbon nanotubes embedded in the steel, vastly increasing the strength of the blade.

[kisame12794]

I am currently freezing my ass offyo bring you a christmas themed project. I will post pictures after I am done forging it.

[Projeck37]

You make me want to be a blacksmith .-.

[Anvilfolk]

This topic has been dead for far too long. Where's that promised Christmas present you promised?!

I am finally starting to get back into the loop. My bestest of all in-laws found a nice anvil! It still needs a stand, and I need a worktable, but other than that things are looking up. Hopefully I'll get the table, weld the supporting structure and the anvil stand this weekend.

Anyway, I was welding a mobile chicken coop, and then needed 19mm holes for the wheel shaft, but only had drill bits going up to 12mm. I drilled as much as I could, and then used the tube as a drift to widen the hole to the desired width. Unfortunately, using 1.5mm thick tube to drift is REALLY DUMB, but that's all I had. Here it is. It wasn't much for sure, but I was all teary eyed at the end when I realised I'm getting real close to having a proper workshop and forging again after 7 years.

After getting the worktable and anvil stand, I'll be doing about 4 or 5 sets of tongs to offer to budding portuguese (hobbyist) blacksmiths. There ain't many of us, and the small market makes tongs cost about 70€ (around $100), which is way too much for what we portuguese can afford. This way they'll have one of the basic tools for free. Hooray!

[kisame12794]

Right really sorry about the long absence, I got hit by some real life. The Christmas present was ready to go, but I lost the photos. For an anvil stand, just use a stump.

[Anvilfolk]

Unfortunately I'll be working on either an uneven concrete floor or an uneven hard dirt floor, on neither of which I'll be able to make a hole... which means there's no way a stump would be stable.

Besides, I like anvil stands. It's what I trained with, and they're easy to pull around, or to put a step in so you can jump up on when upsetting and all that

[Anvilfolk]

So I finally managed to spend 5-6 hours forging yesterday, after setting up the workshop during the weekend. I pulled off a slightly crappy set of vee-bit tongs for 16mm square. They'll work... They'll be given a home soon too, as there's at least one person who's become interested in them!

Here's the pics!

Spoiler: Full tongs (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: One side of the jaws (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: The crappier side of the jaws... (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: I think it's trying to kiss me... (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Open wide, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah (click to show/hide)

They're fairly low quality. I could've used a rasp and a vise to remove kinks, neither of which I have at this point. I used to be able to do them much quicker and much better, but it'll take time to get back to that level. Still, I'm really happy that they are functional and that I was able to forge for 6 hours pretty much non-stop with  a hand cranked blower. I'll do a few more sets and then move on to some project that I still have to decide on

[Toxicshadow]

So I finally managed to spend 5-6 hours forging yesterday, after setting up the workshop during the weekend. I pulled off a slightly crappy set of vee-bit tongs for 16mm square. They'll work... They'll be given a home soon too, as there's at least one person who's become interested in them!

Here's the pics!

Spoiler: Full tongs (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: One side of the jaws (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: The crappier side of the jaws... (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: I think it's trying to kiss me... (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Open wide, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah (click to show/hide)

They're fairly low quality. I could've used a rasp and a vise to remove kinks, neither of which I have at this point. I used to be able to do them much quicker and much better, but it'll take time to get back to that level. Still, I'm really happy that they are functional and that I was able to forge for 6 hours pretty much non-stop with  a hand cranked blower. I'll do a few more sets and then move on to some project that I still have to decide on

They look really nice

And, posting to follow

[Anvilfolk]

Here's some pics from the tong forging. Sorry about the bad quality!


Welding the anvil stand:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

After forging the bits, cut off excess for reins:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Forging the reins:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Punching the rivet hole:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Finally, forging the rivet itself. It was getting late

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Unfortunately, the person who was taking photos came in helpful for the rivetting part, so there's no photos of that process specifically.

Hope you guys enjoy it

[Anvilfolk]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand, another set of tongs, that actually turned out worse I'm really sad about that, but I've identified what went wrong, and I think I might be able to fix it.

Full tongs:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The bits and hinge plate:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The other side:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The bits seen from the front. You can see one hinge plate is thinner, and there's spacing between the two:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

At least the rounding finish on the reins is a lot better than on the first set... something's gotta be better!:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'll probably do a couple more sets and then try to do an actual project! Practice, practice, practice

[Anvilfolk]

AAAAAAAAAAAAND besides another set of tongs this weekend, I did a fire-rake. The previous one was mangling my fingers...

Spoiler: Stupid old fire-rake... (click to show/hide)

Here's the new fire-rake, made out of 20x6mm bar.

Spoiler: Fire-rake (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: It works nicely... (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: ... and fits the hand just so! (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: The handle's fishtail scroll (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: And the little twist my wife helped me do :) (click to show/hide)

For the tongs I used longer bar. It's still 16mm square, but now I used 21cm for each side. That made them a whole lot more robust. I'm also using a 2.75 pound hammer now. It has a shorter handle, making it much easier to lift than I expected, compared to my usual 1.5 pound hammer. It moves metal faster, and having more material means I don't need to move as much metal. Either way, here are the usual pics...

Spoiler: Full set of tongs (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: ... NOW WITH HANDS INCLUDED (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: A very thin rivet... you could almost call it a thin wafer rivet... (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: The tong bits, in need of a dentist's appointment! (click to show/hide)

Hope y'all enjoyed this, especially since it's not all tongs this time around...