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Recreating The Lost Art Of Damascus Steel
YouAreFatMan writes "The Chicago Tribune has an article about two researchers -- a metallurgist and a blacksmith -- who have apparently been able to reproduce the legendary Damascus steel. 'Islamic artisans used it for centuries to make swords that spurred envy and myths among Europeans--including the legend that a Damascus blade could slice a falling silk scarf in midair.'"
it should be part of the public domain.
Yes it should be part of the public domain just like the method the egyptians used to levitate 300 ton blocks using telekinesis.
Eh?
Typical japanese blades were not made with a soft core and harder shell, they were made with a harder edge and a springier spine. The entire blade is tempered so long as your definition of tempering is quenching in liquid to rapidly cool heated metal to the strength that you wanted it to be. if you heated a blade white hot and let it cool naturally you would have a completely pearlite structure, too soft, You want martensite pearlite and bainite composite with the distribution on the areas that make sense, martensite for a super hard edge, bainite to ease the transition to a thin pearlite spine (imho, I prefer martensite edge bainite spine with no pearlite, martensite is springier than pearlite).
This was achieved, as I outlined some distance above, using clay encasing, thick on the spine and progressively thinner to the edge.
I have never heard of cementite and you spelt pearlite wrong. It would be very interesting though if you were right about the hamon being identical to damascene steel, How would this be done from a forge perspective? coating the non tempered areas in temperature insulating substance and quenching so the temper only applied to the "pockets"?
It should be noted that Walter Scott almost certainly embroidered
on a older story here. I'm fairly sure
his notes will tell you exactly where he got the
story material.
/Anders Thulin
http://www.techfak.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/def_en/ articles/key_role_impurities/the_key_role_in_damas cus_steel_blades.html
Education is the silver bullet.
A different kind of animal
I may be stupid, but isn't a knife WITHOUT a blade just a hilt? Isn't saying "a knife with a blade" kinda like saying "a bike with wheels"?
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
think about the physics there...
A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master merely stays out of the way.
Then again, there's a lot of metalworking tech besides Damascus steel that's been kinda-sorta lost, like a lot of the twist-core stuff used by the Franks, Vikings, and Chinese. The Franks also supposedly folded the metal multiple times, just like the Japanese did.
(currently testing something about signatures here)
Remember: Steel wants to be free!
Please...
Don't anthropomorphize steel. It hates that.
Mine don't kill because they're well trained and obedient.
If you find my blades disturbing, you should see my collection of Slackware CDs.
Chris
define "reasonable period". this is muc of the problem in modern IP law. IMHO that resaonably period should be maybe 3 years? 5 at a push for patents and copyright.
dave
Insightful with a +5 katana gets hit by a lame moderator with a -1 mace while a +4 funny defends against another unknown moderator improperly wielding +1 clueby4 and wins...
Damn I wish I had a +5 sword of moderation...
Hmm, considering the present economy, I suppose this would be a good way for all the layed off H1Bs to bring in some extra income.
As stupid as it sounds, Americans should put their puctuation inside quotations. Especially if anything you write is connected with the government... you want to be viewed as a patriot, right?
The converse is also true. All of you flamey anti-US types should put your punctuation outside of quotations, just to stick it to the man. Fuck us for being the leaders of the world, right?
(Now for the moderators dilemma: Flamebait, Funny, Interesting, or Informative? Or, since there must be a perfectly logical reason why I post at -1 -- it couldn't be that fabled Slashdot censorship, right? -- maybe I'm a Troll?)
--
I like to watch.
she or he didn't say strokes, fucknut.
Quite coincidentally, that's exactly what my OTHER post to this topic said, in response to a comment much the same as the one preceding yours ;) We need more ppl around like us who actually READ the article :P
"Christ what a design! I could eat a handful of iron filings and PUKE a better emergency pump than that!"
Katana's are known to be rather brittle. I remember reading about studies conducted in Japan where they hypothesized that one katana could only cut across maximum of three human bodies before the blade needed to be re-sharpened.
:)
I think they used a replica sword and dummies...so no animals were harmed in the experiement, I hope
Well, if the current method is different from the ancient one, it wouldn't really be Damascus steel would it?
--
Insert Witty Sig Here
My kudos go out to the US of A and the innovations of the 40s, 50s and 60s that paved the way to most if not all of the technical prowess that we enjoy today. Not to discount other countries and their achievements, but WE RULE. BTW - My son is an Officer on a Destroyer in the U.S Navy. If you don't like what I'm saying, he'll come and .....(they have lotsa high-tech toys)
Sorry for the flamebait - coudn't help myself.
db
Cig:
ôô
Excellent article!
I suspect, though, that most ./ readers wouldn't know the difference between cementite, pearlite, martensite, and website.
So, what Pendray and Verhoeven have re-discovered, is the process of Wootz production. This is important for historical and archaeological reasons.
As for it being an economic non-starter, I think there are enough people out there prepared to pay BigShekels for one-off knives made from Wootz Damascus.
a quote from http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.02/dragonslay er.html ...
... I just have to know...
" Walrus penis is intriguing enough, but it's the seax blade that makes Olson grin."
Besides the obvious.. what is "Walrus penis"
-io
One of the reasons that the Iron Pillar in Delhi is believed to have survived uncorroded so long is that it has thin oxide based coating on it. As a member of the Powder Coating Institute, I can safely say that I don't mind at all if EVERYONE knew that the secret to such corrosion resistance was the selection of proper coatings ! ( http://www.powdercoating.org/home.htm )
Other factors in the corrosion resistance are supposedly the high quality of the iron used and the dry climate of the area (all of India does not have a wet climate).
You can find more info at:
www.the-week.com/21jun24/cover.htm (which also discusses damascus steel and its connection to Indian steel!)
www.corrosion-doctors.org/Landmarks/Pillar.htm
These steels are of two different types, pattern-welded Damascus and wootz Damascus, both of which were apparently first produced prior to around 500.
Woot!
Yeah, if you can patent: "heating it up really hot, and beating it really hard" :)
The only patentable idea is the proper formula, which is unlikely to be enforced very well since numerous unpatented examples exist.
"Surely, madam, I..."
"Ah, sod off!"
Karma: Chameleon (Mostly affected by the 1980s)
Some are arguing that cast steel is inferior to forge for the making of blades. In general this is correct. However, an alternative called Wootz Process Steel places many thin layers of non-carbon wrought iron into the mold. When the higher carbon molten steel (with a lower melting point than wrought iron) is poured into the mold, it wicks into the spaces between the layers. Cooled very slowly, some of the carbon migrates into the surface of the wrought iron. The result is layered steel/iron with transition zones of variable carbon content between the layers. Once cast, this is very hard to forge to shape, so you cast it as close to the final shape as you can. Some suggest that this is the "true" damascus. It does make a find blade, but fold-and-weld is tons easier to do and looks just as pretty.
Uh, not sure how to say this but ...
I think that you're a little off on your time scale. I don't know when the art of Damascus Stell was lost, but I am guessing that this was contemporaneous with the Seljuk Turks rather than the Ottomans.
The earliest possible date for the foundation of the Ottoman Empire is 1326 when Orhan declared himself Sultan after capturing Bursa [originally named Proussa]
This is a couple centuries after the 1st - 3rd Crusades.
Long answer :-)
:-) I only liked to clarify what might have been missunderstandings, excuse my bad english in relation to ancient combat :-)
Anyway: I've learned it, from several teachers, to turn the blade. And I find it not difficult at all.
I'm not sure about naming conventions, so if you raise the hands over your forhead, sword tip down(I would call it Jo Dan Uke or the start of Jo Dan Gaeshi)in the hight of your knee, foot position in Jiu Dachi, then I use the back side of the sword to block. (that is usualy not done in Kendo, where you asume armor, as you can not move your hands into that position if you wear armor)
If I have direct contact front to front I try to make a blow straight to the center of the enemy, the blades only touch each other like to pieces of paper with the flat side. (Sho Men or Si Ho Gaeshi)
Or I try to raise my sword directly in the center of the enemy above my head and strike Sho Men after the raising has deflected his blow.
Definitly I never block the sharp side of the opponents sword by bringing my flat side or my sharp side of the blade against his sharp side.
The blocking sword has a high risk of getting damaged to uselessness.
I know only a bit about "Hyo ho niten ichi ryu kenjutsu", I only know that they try to avoid standard blocks fully. But I never saw it.
I practice basicly Aiki Ken and Kashima Shin Ryu Kenjutsu.
Regarding the Tachi, I only saw straight Tachi so far, but names and forms for swords are numberous.
I saw a big sword used in battle field, which had a blade broad as a hand and it was long about 1.5 meters plus grip of over a foot.
An other kind of long swords used in battlefield, but simular to katana or tachi are called No Dachi, they are curved, but not drawn liek a katana, they are more worn liek a lance, without covering the blade.
Basicly I see we agree on most stuff
Regards,
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Evolution is a scientific dogma that is accepted as fact because people have been told that it is a fact since they were able to look at picture books of dinosaurs. Some people blindly believe in evolution for similar reasons that some other people believe in God, Jesus, etc.
For a critical look at the _theory_ of evolution, and some interesting problems with it, read "Darwin's Black Box" by Michael J. Behe.
I think that might stop a bar dispute right there (of course, the big ol' sword probably helps too).
I read this at score "4, Informative". Haha. What a laugh. I can just see some crackpot moderator going, "note to self: big ol' sword stops bar disputes." <moderates "informative">
Haha.
Saladin for his part answered this by taking a gossamer silk scarf and draping it over the edge of his blade, whereupon it fell to the floor neatly sliced in two.
You know, i sat here scratching my head for ten minutes before i realized that "it" was not referring to the sword.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
In all honesty, this brings up an interesting question.
Some bit of knowledge exists in the public domain. Then that information is lost. If it's rediscovered, can it be patented?
OK, it will be patented, no question. EVERYTHING gets patented. But is it enforceable?
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
So... It's not wrong. You're just being British! ;)
No.
You seem to be confusing work hardening with forging.
If you take a piece of metal (steel, but this also is true for copper, amongst others) and repeatedly bend it at the same point, it becomes harder, less tough. Eventually it will break.
If you take a piece of steel and you heat it, hammer it, heat it, hammer it, you do something which seems quite simple, but is in fact quite complex...
The heat treatment anneals the steel before hammering... effectively cancelling the work hardening that the previous hammering put into the steel.
The hammering modifies the microcrystaline structure of the steel.
The heat source modifies the chemical composition of the surface. A reducing flame removes certain elements; an oxydising flame removes others. Then you fold the piece of steel, incorporating this surface within the piece. Repeated folding and flatening distributes this modified composition throughout the piece.
The change in chemical composition changes the physical properties. The repeated annealing and work hardening also changes the physical properties.
And this is the Slashdot article about this. If it weren't for the linked article, this topic would be totally redundant. Except that it contains nothing that isn't in the Scientific American article, so not only is this typical Slashdot regurgitation of old topics, but the linked article is, too.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
Remember, if you ever go up against Indiana Jones and wield your mighty sword, he's just going to shoot you.
Can someone post a FREE mirrored copy? Information wants to be free people! I'm not paying $5 for a stupid article when the entire issue of the magazine didn't even cost that much at the time. That's just fucking ridiculous!
No one said it had to be -fresh- ... hopefully the forge was smokey enough to cover the stale smell.
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
-- ;-)
Kuro5hin.org: where the good times never end.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
the way I work with this is that it depends to what the punctuation refers. if the quoted section is a question then the question mark should be within the quote.
now the one that freaks me out is punctuation in regards to brackets.
"I went to the shops (the ones by the beach)." is correct to me
"I went to the shops (the ones by the beach.)" is correct according to english grammar I believe. however I have to go with the former which logically seems correct.
dave
Then, all of us armed with the swords will first go get Dimitry freed, then proceed to the whitehouse to make some demands.
.com you're talking about, right?)
I'm with you! Fight for what it's our God-given right to have, even if non-geeks just don't understand! Go OPEN source! Down with monopolistic money-milking!
(Uh, that is
Whatever happened to a good old 6' 2-hander made of thousand-fold carbon steel?
A half ounce of lead propelled down a 6' barrel by an explosive mixture of saltpeter, sulpher, and charcole took care of that.
Now if that was a good thing or a bad thing I'm not sure of.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
The patent has some interesting background as well as, of course, full technical descriptions of the various claimed methods. Click on "images" for a scan of the patent, it includes some interesting (if very grainy) pictures of a blade and the famous "damask" texture of the metal.
In academia, people write papers on doing nifty things, while in the real world, people actually do them. It's kind of like the article below where a CS professor writes about DOOM and it becomes clear (at least to me) that he doesn't really know the first thing about what John C. actually does.
Except that most scientific fields the only people on the cutting edge either have a PhD or are in the process of getting one. Find me an amateur physicist, or mathematician, or chemist who's made a major discovery in the past 50 years.
My study of metallurgy is entirely based in the realm of it's relativity to swords, and in all the research that I have ever done I have not heard a single mention of cementite, if it's a part of pearlite I guess it was simply never mentioned.
;)
Not a metallurgist, just a martial artist.
You forget that retrieving data from disk cache is MUCH more time expensive than retreiving data from a register. Probably on the order of 1000000X slower. Which is why trying to test an algorithm in a virtual memory environment can be very difficult.
I remember hearing about these guns and never knew the distinction from the blade. Until now...
db
Cig:
ôô
The funny thing is the original makers of Damascus steel were just as, if not more obsessed with keeping it out of the public domain than any corporation nowadays.
No, a wakazashi is different to a katana, not to mention you'd obviously be doing different things with different hands, I believe the traditional reason for a short companion sword was twofold;
1) it was lighter than the katana and the off hand required less strength to use it.
2) it being shorter meant that it could be passed over around and underneath the katana creating combination moves.
I chose to use two katanas because I am ambidextrous and I think the versatility of being able to switch your leading attack arm without notice is more important than being able to move in close proximity to your original strikes.
Our state-of-the-art HVAC system can't operate vents correctly. If this were Henry VIII's office, head(s) would roll.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Yes well my Ginsu(tm) blade slices, dices *AND* makes julienne fries!
If the Ottoman empire had a patent system, perhaps the secret of Damascus steel would never have been lost!
And whats to say that the public records of patents would survive all these years.
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
do you remember which science periodical?
-------- This space intentionally left blank --------
Actually, rolled or hammered steel will become stiffer, and more brittle compared to the cast metal weapons.
Only with a simple process. A forging process which repeatedly reheats the metal with have a far more complex effect on the metal.
The steel on the back of the blade is also much softer than the steel of the edge, which is why you'll see people in movies deflecting and parrying with the back of the blade.
Actually, the side(flat) of the blade is used to deflect a strike(if it's necessary - most sword Japanese arts emphasize avoiding this if possible). If you think about it, it's very awkward to have to turn your blade around a full 180 degrees just to deflect a strike with the back of your blade. How would you do it whlie keeping your hands in the proper sword holding position? You can't. But if you raise the sword just above and in front of your head and tilt the sword back towards your shoulder placing the blade on the outside you'll notice you have a perfect block for a strike to your head, neck and chest. An incoming strike would just bounce off the side of your blade. If that wasn't enough, you also happen to be in a perfect counter-striking position.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
Isn't war lovely?
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
They laid the groundwork of knowledge but were unable to reap the rewards out of ignorance of technology and a bizarre unflinching adherance to ancient religious law.
Man, it's a rip-off; you only get the Horadric Staff for like, two minutes.
But what about Chinese swords? Anything noteworthy about them? And if the European and Japanese sword tactics spoke against parrying with the blade (or at least the edge), does the same go for Kung Fu?
***JUMP PAD ACTIVATION INITIATION START***
***TRANSPORT WHEN READY***
The more I see researchers struggle with things like Greek Fire, Building Pyramids, Damascus Steel, I wonder if we're really that much smarter than our ancestors.
With all due respect, I don't wonder at all -- we aren't any smarter than our ancestors. Better informed about many things, to be sure, but by no means are we any smarter.
Egyptian culture was much more ancient than our own -- thousands of years of their best engineering and mathematical minds worked on the techniques of building giant masonry structures. Isn't it a bit arrogant to assume that some liberally trained archaeologist, smart as he may be, should be able to figure it all out just by noodling for a few years? The sword thing is pretty analagous -- generations of highly trained specialists working empirically on a problem of life and death importance to the ruling class. It's no wonder they knew a few things we don't.
Our ancestors were plenty smart, and their technology ingenious and quite tricky to operate. Which would you rather learn to use if your life depended on it: a GPS or a sextant and chronometer?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I always mix up that fellow with the original creator of the katana. One was famous for having wickedly sharp blades and one was famous for having extremely good all round blades, guess masamune was the sharp one.
Doesn't this case DEFINE prior art?
Rich...
Ignore Alien Orders
THeir is much misinformation about various types of swords, including the japanese blades of legend.
Yes, they 'folded' the steel... that's how they worked it. Folding & hammering changes the carbon content of the steel.
The unique technique used in making the japanese blades was the way the blade was tempered; they tempered the edge differently than the back, so the edge was almost crystalline; very hard, can be made very sharp, but is brittle.
The back, and the rest, less hard, but can bend... so the sword won't break.
THat is, of course, oversimplifying. Cutting a silk scarf in half under it's own weight? not sure you could do it regardless of how sharp the blade is...
OK, I'll give you that modern steel might hold a better edge, but get yourself a 36" x 2.5" blade and smack it against a damascus (or even spring steel) blade of equal size and see which fares better. Remember, sharp tends to mean brittle. A blade that cuts through anything doesn't do you much good if it turns to powder the first time it hits anything.
Are you in a band called Spinal Tap by any chance?
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
The above post's Moderation Totals:Troll=1, Funny=5, Overrated=3, Total=9. This is clearly a controversial post, but is probably underneath some thresholds...there should be a category for posts with lots of positive and lots of negative moderation points. Controversy is where the most interesting debate begins.
Well, the Conquistadors thought it was flint at the time and that's what they described it as. But not that you mention it, it was obsidian.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
But would using a Katana and a Wakazashi at the same time be asymmetric dual processing?
So the thread drifts from armories to blacksmiths to tool and die makers and other professions where knowledge of metallurgy is essential: How would all this compare to making tools? I always understood forged wrenches were better than cast ones, and broke a few el-cheapo cast pot-metal wrenches in my time. Imagine carpentry tools made of Damascus steel, how would they fare against say, titanium coated drill bits and carbide tipped saw blades? And in oil refineries, the work crews often use tools made of a non-sparking brass alloy to prevent explosions in areas with flammable vapors in the air. How do they get brass as hard as drop-forged steel? (This reminds me of the copper tools used by the Egyptians that were supposedly as hard as steel- how could they carve huge granite and limestone blocks with copper tools?)
However, your earlier points regarding heat treating of steel are correct and leads me to assume that you do, in fact, probably know what you are talking about.
Bullshit. Use a line like that in a bar and I'll kick your ass if he dosen't.
Setting the Record Straight: The Miracle of Islamic Science
I agree with you that the varying access times in the memory hierarchy could not change the asymptotic scaling behavior of an algorithm, but I can see the previous poster's point as well (although it is not precisely stated): As the data size grows larger than the L1->L2->RAM capacities, if we consider the leading scaling term K*N^M, although M will remain constant, the factor K will increase stepwise, with the increase at the RAM/Virtual boundary, for example, being on the order of 10E6 (in line with the ratio formulation you have suggested). Thus, over a finite range of the data size N, the algorithm's scaling behavior may actually be better modeled by a polynomial with leading term N^(M+L) rather than N^M, where L is some positive number. Of course, as N->infinity, this piecewise approximation would become increasingly inaccurate.
Yeah, my penis can cut silk.
Hey, where'd all the women go?
Well, the Spanish did bring along blankets from plague victims as 'gifts'. All the advanced weapons in the world aren't going to help if one is in bed dying from a disease unknown to your culture.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
Actually, there are a very large number of people that advocate teaching the biblical account of Creation in schools. (And in fact, many of us are more than willing to pay $15,000 a year for private school to make sure it gets taught!)
Sorry, I actually meant teaching Biblical Creation exclusively and not teaching evolution at all - I hope nobody's pushing for this in public schools. There certainly need to be private schools that do, but public schools should be open to alternative ideas, and in a secular encironment, shutting out evolution altogether isn't much better than shutting out creationism.
Thanks for the link; I'll definitely check it out. Look for a book called "In Six Days"; it's a collection of essays written by 50 PhDs explaining why they believe in the Biblical account of Creation. You might also like an article my father wrote, Could Life "Just Happen?"
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
No. Frog will use it and kill Magus/Janus
Great. Now we'll have to make that damn steel and hunt down Masa and Mune.
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
This is somewhat the same as my dealings with forging. sorta... well not really but, chek it out anyway How NOT to Forge Aluminum http://www.chriscarpenter.org/chris/forge.htm
[ simulated persona = "Ayn Rand", node #108, max search depth 15%, neural variance 18.586 ]
[ simulated persona = "The Gube", node #100, max search depth 19%, neural variance 13.518 ]
[ simulated persona = "The Gube", node #193, max search depth 30%, neural variance 24.456 ]
[ simulated persona = "The Gube", node #20, max search depth 25%, neural variance 15.808 ]
[ simulated persona = "The Gube", node #217, max search depth 31%, neural variance 14.459 ]
[ simulated persona = "The Gube", node #107, max search depth 40%, neural variance 24.884 ]
[ simulated persona = "The Gube", node #22, max search depth 43%, neural variance 5.462 ]
[ simulated persona = "The Gube", node #92, max search depth 29%, neural variance 8.030 ]
[ simulated persona = "The Gube", node #154, max search depth 15%, neural variance 17.818 ]
[ simulated persona = "The Gube", node #93, max search depth 21%, neural variance 17.638 ]
[ simulated persona = "Ayn Rand", node #112, max search depth 22%, neural variance 17.288 ]
[ simulated persona = "The Gube", node #156, max search depth 10%, neural variance 9.066 ]
[ simulated persona = "Ayn Rand", node #6, max search depth 51%, neural variance 24.337 ]
[ simulated persona = "The Gube", node #126, max search depth 43%, neural variance 16.335 ]
[ simulated persona = "Ayn Rand", node #26, max search depth 44%, neural variance 12.717 ]
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There are groups around the world, knifemakers guilds, that have this down pat. This is really a nothing story.
For the US check The Knifemakers' Guild . There are groups around the world making everything from letter-openers to knives, swords and more. There are shows around the place and at least two magazines dedicated to this hobby.
The "modern" damascus steel is chemically the same as museum pieces. Damascus steel is great to look at but the people charge an arm and leg for it. Good pieces by masters costs hundreds for small items, thousands for big items. With modern methods there are a lot more patterns too. They keep a great edge and you get looks when you bring out a set for the roast.
djve
"There is magic in the web." - Othello Act 3 Scene 4.
No, this is a laminating process whereas the Damascus process is not, according to Scientific American.
In Murphy We Turst
I wonder if anyone trademarked the name "Q'oran" yet?
I think it would make a fine replacement for my current user LART that has "Louisville Slugger" branded into it.
Translation: eploiting the most people and land in order to build an empire built upon the theft of other people's futures.
Write your congressman today and request, nay, DEMAND that the DMCA and CSS and DVDA be repealed so we can steal MP3's again.
I'll agree with everything else you said, but not DVDA. That's the band of Matt Stone and Trey Parker. For those not in the know, DVDA stands for Double-vaginal-double-anal (from Orgazmo )
I think that might stop a bar dispute right there (of course, the big ol' sword probably helps too).
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
Nope. Evolution is a scientific theory.
It's just our best guess of how we arrived here based on the evidence at hand.
That said, it is a better theory IMO than the one put forth by the book of Genesis.
"Some advise quenching the red-hot blade in the urine of a red-haired boy"
Which brings me to the question, where in the hell do you find a red haired boy in the middle east? I'll admit I'm not culturally adept, but this strikes me as inconvineint since from what i know, most people in the middle east don't have red hair.
Boy: can I go now? I have to pee!
Smith: dammit boy, shut up and wait for me to forge the sword.
http://www.bugei.com
They sell custom made forged blades just like in the old days, I use a pair, absolutely brilliant, my most satisfying purchase ever (says a lot really )
The L6 Bainite Custom Forged Katana is slightly lighter than the Traditionalist Forge Folded Blade, I use the Bainite in the left hand and the forge folded in the right.
If you're interested in the exact specifics of the tempering process I posted all the details somewhere further up this topic.
The technique of forging the steel was secret: there was no published work that explained it. Thus, there is no prior art.
This is actually a perfect example of why patents were created in the first place: to reveal and create a public record of secret processes to prevent technologies from disappearing. Society gets the secret information in the end, but, the inventor gets a legally-protected monopoly for a reasonable period.
If the Ottoman empire had a patent system, perhaps the secret of Damascus steel would never have been lost!
exactly, anyone who has picked up ANY knife magazine for the last god knows how many years would have seen ads for damascus knives.
Evidently, no-one at the holy slashdot editorial office or at the Chicago tribune has the minimal intelligence required to do so.
Take this personaility test.
This deserves a +5, insightful
Best Slashdot Co
> To which all of Saladin's wives were heard to mutter, "men!"
I think the story you told was the euphemized version of what really happened, and it wasn't their swords that they were bragging about.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The tradition of scholarliness vs despotism cannot so easily be tied to the "two" worlds of east and west and their respective religions. Fundamentalism and Liberatrianism are better, I mean the Taliban show the intolerance of Islam and the whole scholastic tradition can be traced back to a time when St Thomas Aquinas approached life with an analysts eye.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
Well, that's what you get when you flatten a piece of steel, fold it in two, and stretch it back while hammering it 15 times...
Nice idea. Shame that's not how they're forged.
(it's a common myth)
The original artisans did not leave complete instructions for making their steel, and the few written formulas are less than helpful. Some advise quenching the red-hot blade in the urine of a red-haired boy or of a goat fed nothing but ferns. Another text suggests driving the sword into the belly of a muscular slave.
Ironically, scientists also believe this is how the first versions of Windows were created.
Adam owns the medieval period, ladies and gentlemen, so we had better call it whatever he wants us to call it.
as a highlander fanatic i think i can safely say the one immortal who most definitely had a blade of damascus steel would be Hamza El-Kahir .. (and maybe Xavier St. Cloud, hrmm) ..
:)
I've had good luck with Horadric Staffs. I've taken a liking to using a Gemmed Crystal Sword in combination with a spiked shield, too.
Carl G. Jung
--
"With one breath, with one flow, You will know Synchronicity" -La Policia
I works like this:
An ignorant man from another land that doesn't know brass from bronze asks you the secret of your livelihood, the thing that makes you rich while all other the other blacksmiths get by making pots and pans. As long as you tell him a good enough story and hint that you will die if the secret is traced back to you, then he will go away happy.
There are a lot of wonderful stories from the middle ages about how to make quality steel. My favorite is grinding iron up, feeding it to chickens, collecting the droppings, burning off all that isn't iron and pounding the powder together. It could be done, but wouldn't do you any good.
As for the stabbing with a red hot blade story, gullable europeans found out the hard way that:
- Red hot steel isn't anywhere near as strong as cold steel, which is one reason why you heat it up to shape it. Poking people with your red hot sword isn't likely to do much for its edge.
- A red hot piece of metal that is sticking out of somebody isn't going to cool very evenly, since people are full of inconvenient parts, like bone, that transfer heat at different rates.
- You can harden the surface of steel with nitrates, it's a form of case hardening, but it takes time and temperature to do it, a few seconds at 1330K (hot steel) or months at room temperature soaking in organic liquids isn't going to do it. The nitrogen (or carbon, or boron) atoms needs time to diffuse through the steel, and the energy to move about.
The secret to the pattern welded Damascus steel was never lost, but the material described in the article (and several others by the same author) is another kind, which didn't require all the metal folding that pattern welding requires.
Why is this useful? The idea behind Damascus steel was to create a quality steel from materials that would only produce a low quality steel by conventional techniques. That is a problem that will always be with us in one form or another, the impurities in iron & coal vary, and many can have bad effects on the steel. Also, it's yet another case of showing that just because people lived a couple of thousand years ago doesn't mean that they were stupid.
The story about quenching it in a slave's gut is that the exact temperature necessary to give the steel its trademark temper was 98 degrees, the temperature of the human body.
Cutting a silk scarf in half under it's own weight can be done, I have seen this done with absurdly sharp katana (sharper than you would want them for real tameshigiri practice on heavy bamboo or tatami targets)
I think the article said the ability to cut a falling silk scarf, I could do this with my own katanas which haven't been sharpened for three years and get daily tameshigiri on quite hard targets. That simply becomes a question of speed. (fun to test, but a better test is a vertically suspended piece of reasonably thick fishing line, *extremely* hard to do, the speed you need doing this ensures near perfect technique on success)
A.E. Van Vogt explained this long ago... The Indians used high carbon steel
Which reminds me, closer to topic: I believe many of the secrets of Masamune and other 16th-century master smiths are lost to this day. It's amazing how much fascinating technology we no longer have available.
absolutely false.
A blade formed by molding liquid steel will always be totally inferior to one forged by a traditional process of layering and pounding on an anvil.
The traditional process will yeild successive layers of metals of differing qualities. The high-points of this art are to be found in the swords of the Japanese Samurai, as well as in the Damascus-type blades.
The differing properties of different qualities of steel suit the differing requirements of the edge and body of the blade. The end-result is actually a primative composite, far superior in performance to what would result from a cast piece; an homogenous chunk of blah.
The only thing casting of steel swords allowed was crude mass-production. (skipping the labor-intensive steps of pounding, folding, pounding, etc. which required a very skilled and experienced laborer, as well as a lot of forge-time). And if casting didn't exist, then how did bladesmiths get the stock metal to begin with? So it wasn't casting per-se that the Arabs developed, but rather casting of a metal of a type that was of sufficient quality to work as a blade all by it's lonesome. But it wasn't an especially great blade.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
One that goes from graphite in the middle to diamond on the outside? There's your ultimate sword!
heheh, this reminds me of a friend of mine who is a swordsmith, he makes quite good swords, not as good as the ones you can get from master smiths but much better than the stainless steel stock removal jobs from spanish and taiwanese vendors, anyhow, he makes three swords pretty much identically and from swedish powdered steel stock and chooses cow bone as the test material (extremely hard, will expose the blade to quite a high possibility of a break if it is too brittle or a bend if it is too soft).
;)
He broke two of his blades not knowing the correct cutting technique and got me to test the third one first on one thick leg bone, then two, then three, sheared clean through them each time with nothing but a minor non fatal chip on the very edge on the third attempt with three bones.
I guess when it comes down to it, swords work in the fashion that they are designed to work, swinging a decent katana in the same fashion as a louisville slugger is probably not a good idea to test the strength of the blade.
The "primitive conditions" probably would have been equivalent to a european foundry of the eighteenth century, a lot of people and a lot of time would have gone into the casting of the portions of the pillar and forging them all together. It comes down to a big fire and a lot of guys with hammers forging it together and pushing the pillar back into the fire every now and again. Think of making the bits of the eiffel tower without steam hammers.
Called a chakram.
My amiga 500 could multitask 6,500 hard-core AREXX programs that crunched numbers while STILL remaining responsive to new user input. Its multi-cpu architecture (with different cpu's controlling different things like audio and video) is STILL years ahead of even the most recent PeeCee or Apple technologies. In fact, my A500 is being used by Nasa to study the effects of gravitational impulses on nearby neutron stars. Luckily I get to use it on weekends.
Cough ... have you ever heard of the Ottoman Empire? With their artillery and other technical military items unmatched by Europeans for a couple of centuries?
... we still fight over the teaching of evolution because so many Americans have a bizarre
...
Yes, eventually their fortunes turned as those of France, Russia and other nations rose. Of course,
those nations found their fortunes wane as well.
Rule Britannia! The sun never sets on the British Empire!
Of course, Bismark and the Prussians brought great power to Germany (and don't forget that the Turks were still a force to be reckoned with in WW I).
And those powers waned as well, leaving the US and
Russia as the two remaining superpowers after WW II.
Now, of course, there is only one. But before we get too full of ourselves and assume we'll remain the world's most dominant force forever, consider that our bizarre unflinching adherance to ancient religious law rivals that of fundamentalist Islams .
Let's see
unflinching adherance to a literal belief in Genesis. That's not the whole story but it's not a bad place to start
bla
Steel wants to be FREE, people, and Nucor wants to keep this technology to themselves to help further their globalized corporate profitmaking.
Either that, or they want to charge out from the steppes on horseback to rape and pillage.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
The Japanese swords were also quenched in a special way, to make the front edge hard, while the back remained springy (this is still done today for some swords). So it's sort of like what these guys are doing, but at a more macroscopic level.
The January 2001 issue, to be exact. The article's not available online ($5 to download a PDF?? WTF??) but it's right there on page 74. A fascinating read, very detailed, with lots of great pictures.
I have a positive modifier on Troll. When I mod someone Troll their karma should go UP!
I don't deny other cultures made contributions to science, etc. We all generally stand on the shoulders of giants. I still give props to the Europeans for making the best use of the knowledge they built upon and developed themselves.
Oh well. I'm sure the Islamic world would have eventually invented the Internet, if Al Gore hadn't beaten them to it.
Helevius
PS: I have a degree in history. :)
http://www.webreference.com/new/grammar/2.html
:)
Quoth the web page:
He always puts his punctuation on the outside of quotes like this: "Off with their heads"! It's not the recommended style for American English. However, British English typically uses punctuation on the outside. This is an example of where there is no hard and fast rule. It's best to go by the styles of your organization or company.
So, if you like, you can put your punctuation on the the outside of your quotes, provided you also spell like a Brit: "colour", "flavour", "tyre" - to name a few.
That sort of leaves you between a rock and a hard place, doesn't it?
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
It's actually older than that, dating to the late 1980's, Omni magazine IIRC... Damascus blades have been available from knife shops for almost 10 years now to boot...
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
>The religious fundamentalism came later
This is not true, you already had many fundamentalist periods in the Islamic World. Fundamentalism traditionally raised every time Islam or the Islamic nation was perceived in danger, as it's the case today because of modern civilisation. This is a kind of protection against it.
This is actually rather old news. It was featured in an article in the Jan 2000 issue of Discover Magazine. The article had everything the Chicago Trib says and a LOT more details as to how it's done.
"Christ what a design! I could eat a handful of iron filings and PUKE a better emergency pump than that!"
From what the article said and what I could find, it's not the same kinda stuff....although it has a very cool look to it.
I'm glad that someone's finally paying attention to the hinge-smiths of the ancient world. It's been a long-neglected field that deserves our respect and our attention.
People the world over that use swinging doors in their homes and in their cars seldom consider the technological leap represented by hinges. Before hinges, doors had to be broken or removed every time a person walked that way - a time-intensive and laborious process. With the advent of the stone hinge, our ancestors saved themselves and their descendents millions of hours of hard work.
The next time you open a door, think of the innovative hinge-smith that made it possible. And the next time you refer to a historical monument, remember to spell its name correctly.
I read this back then and always wondered what happend. :).
IMHO
both ways of making damascus make sense. The stanford method made more sense, basicly it said "brake up the carbon (crystals)in the steel by pounding it repeatedly" Or just use ultrasound
"think of it as evolution in action"
I see - interesting, thanks =)
There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie -Noel Godin
I haven't seen anyone mention the first article in Scientific American, back in the early '80's, about "Damascus" steel.
Developed in India, it was called wootz, and the best guess at the time was that it was made by stacking thin plates of wrought iron in a small crucible and filling it up with molten cast iron, then allowing it to cool. During the cooling process, excess carbon from the cast iron would migrate into the realtively carbon-free wrought iron and stay in solution after cooling to ambient temperature. The end result was a grade of steel with more dissolved carbon than could be obtained any other way.
European metalsmiths that took samples back home to try to duplicate the material were inevitably frustrated when they tried to forge the material at typical iron or steel temperatures, and the stuff just crumbled. It wasn't until the late 19th century, IIRC, that it was discovered that wootz had to be forged no higher than around 800-900 degrees (F, I think. I've slept since then.)
Shortly after publication, I had the privilege of hearing the one of the authors speak in Houston on the subject of Super-plastic, Ultra High Carbon Steels, as I think they were calling it. This was at an AMS meeting and was for metallurgists (and one medievalist geek) in the oil patch. What they had was a solution for which there was currently no problem...
The more recent article in SA suggests a reexamination of the chemistry with more sophisticated equipment. Although vanadium was a common alloying agent in higher alloys back in the 80s, the authors (and no, I don't remember their names for reasons already admitted) may have overlooked it, discounted it as an artifact or assumed the technology of the day precluded the adding of an obscure alloying agent. I doubt there was much five-nines pure Va on the shelves in that part of the world at the time. An accident of geology is another matter entirely.
Note that pattern welding, whether one welds a strip of steel on the end of a plane iron or chisel, or welds and folds, welds and folds until the material is all but homogenous, as in Japan and to a lesser degree in the Scandinavian countries...that's a different animal altogether.
Correct! William Manchester has an excellent series of books that back up your statement. A World lit only by Fire how the Irish saved the world? I don't remember the title
Not quite. You're making a common mistake here - confusing the Islam of today with that of yesteryear.
:)
Let's see... ignorance of technology? Umn, that's a pretty big screw you to the people who invented medicine, astronomy, and chemistry as we know it. Don't get me started on mathematics.
Here's a link for the goatse weary: http://www.al-bab.com/arab/science.htm.
The muslims of yesteryear gave us a btter calendar, which we refused; a better number system, which we grudgingly accepted; a better understanding of astronomy and medicine, which we scoffed at; and preserved all of those greek and roman texts - ya know, the canon of western thought?
So where did Islam go wrong? Way too many schisms within the groups. There are no actual schisms in the sense of christianity, mind you - the fractures start taking place at the jurisprudence level. Oh yeah, and that whole colonialism / subjugation of the middle east thing. (Read Said's Culture and Imperialism. Read Orientalism. Hell, read anything, you sound like you need it.)
In closing, racism bad, and everything you know is wrong. Have a nice day
Okay, every slashdot reader is a software designer, system's engineer, database wizard, physicist, lawyer, and gourmet chef to boot (see past polls), but c'mon -- blacksmith.
Now I've seen it all.
(IANAB).
Hey, yeah, thanks for nothin! ;-)
Just raise the taxes on crack.
I would rather have my armor made of titanium, and my sword of CroMo.. ;)
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
He didn't say it was *only* used to imitate Damascus steel, he said it was.
It is.
KFG
There was a quote on the Web ages & ages ago from someone's Mage: the Ascension campaign where someone said to the scientist guy after he commented on some maneuver, "That's why you're the metallurgist and he's the ninja." And for some reason I'm reminded of that. :-) Good luck in your heat-treating endeavors.
The muslims had preserved much of the Greek and Roman knowldege that had been lost in Europe ... For example, the concept of 0 comes to the West through them.
Actually, it's well known that Romans didn't have the concept of Zero.
In fact, a large number of CS professors believe that's what caused the fall of the Roman empire; Lacking the number 0, their C programs had no way to signal successful termination.
Micro-aligned? Forget about it! The best swords use exactly 1234.534 layers of micro-micro nanometric particles, exactly aligned into 444.44 nanothin films! Believe me, this makes perfect sense, and I'm not just talking out of my ass!
mmm like a killer puff pastry :)
---
To hell with proper syntax! I put my punctuation outside of quotes. Change that archaic rule now!
Speaking of archaic technologies and practices, it's somewhat interesting to note that placing punctuation marks inside quotes is a relatively modern practice, started after the advent of the printing press. The use of justufied text became popular and it lined up better if the lines ended in a quote, rather than a period. The reasoning was aesthetic, not logical.
I also put punctuation outside quotes, when dealing with technical writing, where a quoted command could become confusing. I'd love to see the practice become more widespread.
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
-- My Weblog.
Well I am a historian, and I agree. The influence of Moorish Spain on the Christian west was greater then that of returning Crusaders. But the returning Crusaders did bring back the idea that there is more then one way to look at things, and this, at a crucial point in western history. BTW, the Moors had to have had one of the highest levels of civilization ever achieved by man. Their architecture alone gives me a woody!
I believe that 'Excaliber' comes from the latin phrase 'ex calce liberare' (sp?) which means 'to liberate from the stone'.
Karma: Good. I'm hoping in the same way as pizza is 'good'...
Any place you see selling non-antique Damascus steel is actually using pattern welding. This article is talking about the real deal, which was made through a combinations of impurities in the stock (Vandium is what these guys used) and etching the finished blade. Persumably the reason the secret was originally lost was that there were only a few mines that produced the right stock to make it, and when they were exausted, masters stopped teaching their apprentices how to do it. What you describe is pattern-welded steel, a technique used to mimic the appearence of true Damascus Steel.
Folding and flatning/forming the blade with 15 strokes?
Thats one heck of a blacksmith.
Carbon based humanoid in training.
What you describe is pattern-welded steel, a technique used to mimic the appearence of true Damascus Steel.
This article is talking about the real deal, which was made through a combinations of impurities in the stock (Vandium is what these guys used) and etching the finished blade. Persumably the reason the secret was originally lost was that there were only a few mines that produced the right stock to make it, and when they were exausted, masters stopped teaching their apprentices how to do it.
Any place you see selling non-antique Damascus steel is actually using pattern welding.
My turn, how about this one.
Bill 68, and Margie 67 take a ride to the doctor's office. Margie has her checkup first. After she's done, it's Bill's turn. After Bill's checkup is complete he says to the doctor "Doc, Margie has been forgetting things alot. She's been forgetting where she parked the car when she goes to the market, she keeps forgetting to flush the toilet, and once she even forgot our only son's name."
The doctor replies. "I noticed that something was odd about Margie, but I couldn't put my finger on it. It's possible that she has Alzheimer's disease, or it's also possible that she has AIDS related dementia. We just need to run a few tests"
Bill interrupts "But Doc, I'm on social security, and I can't afford a bunch of tests. What can I do?"
The Doctor replies "Take Margie to the local mall and drop her off. If the police bring her home, we'll start treatment to slow the progression of the Alzheimer's. If she makes it home on her own, move out."
-You can cry, but you'll still die. There'll be no tears in the end.
An Englishman, a Scotsman, and an Irishman are all to give speeches to the Deaf and Dumb Society. All are keen to make an impression on their audience. The Englishman goes first and to the surprise of his colleagues starts by rubbing first his chest, and then his groin. When he finishes the Scotsman and Irishman ask him what he was doing.
"Well" he explained "By rubbing my chest I indicated breasts and thus Ladies, and by rubbing my groin I indicated balls and thus Gentlemen. So my speech started: 'Ladies and Gentlemen' ".
On his way up to the podium the Scotsman thought to himself I'll go one better than that English bastard!' and started his speech by making an antler symbol with his fingers above his head before also rubbing his chest and his groin. When he finished his colleagues asked what he was doing.
"Well" he explained "By imitating antlers and then rubbing my chest and groin I was starting my speech by saying 'Dear Ladies and Gentlemen' ".
On his way up to the podium the Irishman thought to himself " I'll go one further than those mainland bastards!' and started his speech by making an antler symbol above his head, rubbing his chest, and then his groin, and then masturbating furiously. When he finished his colleagues asked him what he was doing.
"Well" he explained," by imitating antlers, rubbing my chest and then my groin and then masturbating I was starting my speech by saying 'Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure......."
Actually, it was the ancient Celts that came up with the damascening technique, and it made it's way to asia minor from there. This was around 150BC IIRC. Chain mail was another celtic invention. They were not so great with stone, but as far as mettalurgy goes, the celts far surpassed anyone else at the time.
Take a piece of steel. Flatten it by hand under heat. Fold it in half. Flatten it again. Repeat 20 times. You wind up with 2^20 layers of alternating hard and soft steel joined by high carbon layers created on the outside of each fold. Reheat, finish and polish. What you get is a flexible spring that is incredibly resilient yet has an extremely hard edge.
> You heat it up really hot and beat on it really hard Someone mod this "-1, offtopic". The article was about damascus steel, not masturbating.
I was quoting it from my often poor memory :)
How about that, two comments on my sig today.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
I was just responding to the frequent slashdot assertion that people with PhDs are somehow useless oafs who don't know how the "real world" works.
OK, lets invent our own process of making Damascus Steel, and make a bunch of swords (our slogan? We put the SLASH in /.)
Then, all of us armed with the swords will first go get Dimitry freed, then proceed to the whitehouse to make some demands.
Remember Congressmen (and the pres for that matter) wear SILK ties.
$sig=$1 if($brain =~
Umm... perhaps thats why the DMCA was introduced? If stabbing a POW works, imagine how well a Russian hacker would!
nah only if your american - a country which is as narrow minded and stupid as they come - after all you still think you run the world even though i doubt your president could count his toes and get the same number twice
Virtual memory? At $32 PC133 512MB (pricewatch.com)? Forgetaboutit!
an algorithm that on the surface is O(N^3) can actually be O(N^5)
I doubt that, while I agree that it can slow down computation by a huge factor, I doubt taking machine hardware into account can change an O(N^3) algorithm into an O(N^5). My reason is simple: the slowdown factor will be a constant, which might look like (time for random memory access)/(time for cache memory access). This factor will not keep increasing as N tends towards infinity (as the O(N^3)->O(N^5) implies).
You might have a slowdown of factor 1000, but that factor won't become 100000 if you multiply the size of the problem by 10.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
Back in the middle ages, the Islamic World was scientifically way beyond anything the West had seen. Historians will tell you that the information the crusaders brought back was what caused the end of the European dark ages and the beggining of the Renaissance.
The muslims had preserved much of the Greek and Roman knowldege that had been lost in Europe when the Dark ages started. Beyond that though, they made great strides on their own. Studies in astronomy, medicine, public health, nature, architecture, math, etc, in almost every field of human knowldege then known. For example, the concept of 0 comes to the West through them. Great strides in Algebra were made by them.
It is really surprising how little of this known in much of the world, besides experts in the field. Knowledge is useful, but history should also reflect where that knowledge comes from. If not for the many advances made by the Islamic world, we would be living in a really different world right now since the Dark ages would have ended god knows when.
-"Those who fought today will die tommorow."-
Really, the Romans had no zeros (well, maybe some of the emperors, but that's a different story...)
Just think how important the zero is:
I didn't realize that the cut determined the freq. I always thought it was the material. I guess you learn something new everyday.
Indecision is the key to flexibility.
Actually, Scientific American (amongst others) regularly run 'Secret of Damascus Steel Discovered' stories. I think I've seen three in Sci. Am. over the last twenty years - the immediately previous ones were a bunch of Russians in the '80s who were going to use it to make tractor blades :-).
It seems to be one of those 'discoveries' that crops up every five or ten years. However maybe this time they've got it right!
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird.
Sure they can. Unless one of the origional founders rises from the dead and takes a trip to the U.S. Patent Office.
This sounds really great, but I don't see any real data on the steel. Does anyone have stuff like Yield Strength or Modulus of Elasticity for this stuff? It may look pretty I wonder how it would compare with modern advanced materials.
Screw the secrets of Damascas Metallurgy, I want the secrets of Soviet Metallurgy!
Theres a Blacksmith in Arkansas that has been hand making Damascus steel knives for years. Even the local TV station http://todaysthv.com did a story on him awhile back. Funny how they claim to rediscover something when it wasn't lost.
BBC TV has a show called Meet the Ancestors that showed a blacksmith in Britain doing just this - making a sword the old way with much folding and beating and so on. When he was done the blade was left with an amazing sheen to it, just like oil on water as described in the Chicago Tribune piece. More on the TV show here:y /i ndex.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/archaeolog
Personally I'm more keen on finding out about the way the Japanese made their blades - Miyamoto Musashi and his ilk... I'm no sword nerd but crikey! they were gorgeous.
I am a leaf on the wind
A few days ago I got a bit diverse in one of my discussions on the Medieval-leatherworking list and mentioned that it was only in the last twenty years that the Medieval Wootz of the type that once travelled the India to Damascus route had been rediscovered after about 150 years of European attempts at imitations. Someone requested that I ramble on a bit. As I generally have documentation for my opinions (but not time to find it usually) I shall give you lucky other people some sources to research it yourself. Assuming this means anything at all to you. If it doesn't then I apologize for wasting your time. I have about fifty large folders on diverse subjects besides the library. Fortunately I had the time at one time to put a number of articles into a couple of fat ones on knives and swords. These are taken from various magazines and sources. The ones from the last few years are not separated out and filed so I shall not be messing with them. They're in stacks of magazines mostly. I suppose it could give you an insight into how well I follow my interests... Easiest found will probably be: "Damascus Steels" by Oleg D. Sherby and Jeffrey Wadsworth in: _Scientific American Volume 252: pp.112-115, February 1983_. This is a general history with illustrations of enlarged steel microsection, a Persian Scymitar, and an illustrated method of the production of wootz steel. In their citations they give: _A History of Metallography_ by Cyril S. Smith. U of Chicago Press, 1965 "On the Bulat - Damascus Steels Revisited by Jeffery Wadsworth and Oleg. D. Sherby in: _Progress in Material Science, Vol. 25, pp.35-68. 1980. A Bulat is the cake of wootz steel. "Damascus Steelmaking" by Jeffery Wadsworth and Oleg D. Sherby in: _Science, Vol. 218, No. 4570, pages 328-9, October 22, 1983. Jeffrey Wadsworth (at least at that time) was professor of Materials Science at Stanford, and Wadsworth later went to work at Lockheed Aircraft's Research Laboratory. What started them on their quest in 1975 at Stanford was a search for superplastic steels, ones with grain 200 times finer than commonly machined steel for use in forming steel and then cooling it - thus making it stronger in use, quicker to make, and cheaper to produce - gears and engine mountings for example. They didn't realize what they had reproduced was Damascus until a listener at one of their lectures informed them and they subsequently researched it. They obtained a patent in 1976 for the material. This is again written up in: "Rediscovered - Supersteel of the Ancients" by James Trefil in: Science Digest - February 1983, pp. 38-40 and p. 108. This discusses their earlier findings of rolling out the steel at 2050 degrees F, and working it at 1200 degrees F. There is also a bit of folklore in this article, quenching in a live Nubian or urine are mentioned. This later also showed up in an Associated Press Article by Michelle Locke "Damascus Steel may have resurfaced" that I didn't record the date of. This one mentions the above two researchers, but adds another pair of similar questors - Florida knifesmith Al Pendray and Iowa State University metallurgist John Verhoeven, who used more traditional methods. This mentions a mixture or Iron and possibly milkweed as ingredients in the crucible. A somewhat better article that mentions the later pair appeared in _Blade_ Magazine in August 1992, pp.52-5 & pp.96-7 & 100 entitled: "Breakthrough - How the Ancients Made _Real_ Damascus" and which _I_ take to be more authentic than laboratory conditions and modern rolling mills. The article was by Al Pendray, a famous master bladesmith, and W.E. Dauksch, and J.D. Verhoeven. (It also mentions the publication of a book called _On Damascus Steel_ by Dr. Leo Figiel, which was then available for $37.50 from Blade, POBox 22007, Chattanooga, TN 37422, USA.) This contrasts the two techniques, the industrial one, and the small scale one, involving crucibled steel, which has also been patented. It's fairly well illustrated and includes further citations in journals by Wadsworth and Sherby. I know that I have seen further articles on Pendray and Verhoeven since then refining their technique yet further. Pendray was mentioned earlier in an article in Blade Magazine July-August 1987 called the Wizard of Wootz by Daryl Meir, and earlier yet in Blade Magazine September/Oct '82 by Meir again in an article Entitled Damascus Steel - Wootz Revisited. In this article Robert C. Job of Hawthorne, NJ, USA is working with Al Pendray and Stephen Swertzer of Williston, Florida. Mr. Job is the principle subject of this article though and he has a further method for producing crucibled wootz steel, also patented. Pendray and Verhoeven are the people I associate with true modern Damascus, but that is a personal opinion. Meir also wrote an article on entitled "Damascus Steel - A Definition" in Blade Magazine, July-August 1982, in which he tries to set forth an accurate description of what should be considered true damascus steel, contrasting it's historical methods of manufacture with the modern imitations. I don't know how many readers of this actually read Knives Illustrated or Blade Magazine but there are a couple of dozen ways to make modern damascus involving state-of-the-art modern, very high technology methods. Most modern jewelers have very little at all on some of the modern blade artisans, there probably isn't a technique or material in jewellery or machining they aren't exploring or haven't explored. I get Lapidary Journal and some other gem and metalsmithing magazines and I can tell you there is one hell of a high state of art done. Smiths can literally spell their names or logos or other artworks clear through the steel - multiple times using various methods. Mixing nickel and steel, or using steel cable, or using steels of mixed carbon content is not the same thing as using wootz steel, nor is wootz made the same way, or forged the same way as it's more modern imitations that use the name Damascus. An earlier article on "The Manufacture of Mediaeval Damascened Knives" by J. Piaskowski appeared in the Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute, Vol. 202, July 1964, pp. 561-8. This investigates the manufacture and pattern in medieval European imitations of Damascus steel in Poland. An interesting thing in this article is the cross sections, and a newly ground, polished and etched side of one knife showing that the Polish knives had damascene patterns on the upper fatter portion of the knives (which in at least one instance was very pretty), and a higher carbon edge of uniform steel welded on below it. In _Science_, Volume 216, No.4543, 16 April 1982, pp 242-3 Cyril Smith of M.I.T. discusses the historical methods and literary history of imported Damascus in the west - citing Giambattista della Porta, in _Magiae Naturalis XX_, 1589, London english translation, 1568, and Joseph Moxon's references to it in Mechanick Excercises, London 1677, describing it's working properties at a blood red heat, its highly prized properties as punches, and how it would crumble at higher heats. He also references his own work - History of Metallography- and others specifically Breant (1820's)and Faraday. In _Science_, Vol. 218, no. 4570, 22 Oct. 1982 Sherby and Wadsworth dispute Smith's claim that properties of damascus steel were well known in the 19th century. Apparently the 1980's were a hot time in the steel re-discovery field. Three patents at least. An interesting history of Damascene steel may be had in an earlier work "Damascene Steel" in _Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute, Vol. 97 pp.417-37, 1918. The author traces numerous oriental techniques and says the process extends centuries back before Christ. Gives a nice long historical discussion. I've entirely left out the imitation damascus steels and their widely varied methods. They are indeed awesome, but they are not wootz. (This in no way means any disrespect to Dr. Hrisoulas, metallurgist PhD, master bladesmith. I own two of his books, but not the one on Patternwelded Blades. Jim Hrisoulas is known as Master Atar in the SCA and well respected for his knowledge.) It is only considering the rediscovery of wootz by various modern others. Master Magnus Malleus, OL, GDH, Atlantia © R.M. Howe 2001. ***May be reposted to closed email discussion groups within the re-enactor circle, but not to open newsgroups, such as the Rialto - rec.org.sca, or to the SCA-Universitas list. Those desirous of republication in a newsletter should contact me. Inclusion in the http://www.Florilegium.org/ is permitted.***
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
A nerdy accountant is sent to jail for embezzlement and they put him in a cell with a huge evil looking guy.
The big guy says, "I want to have some sex. You wanna be the Mommy or the Daddy?"
The accountant replies, "Well, if I have to be one or the other, I guess I'd rather be the daddy."
The big guy says, "Okay. Now get over here and suck Mommies dick."
Although Verhoeven and Pendray have patented their technique ... :)
There is also someone in California who is patenting blue stained glass windows
This is not a signature.
I remember hearing about a katana company that tested the sharpness of their blades by sticking the sword upright in a river and seeing if it could cut leaves floating in the water...
Interesting story, even if it isn't true..
Shit adds up at the bottom...
nah, you don't want that technology. the kernel didn't even multitask.
back in the day it was a secert ..now every custom knife maker cranks out damascus items.Heck i own 17 japanese ww2 bring back swords and 2 russian made short swords all damascus items
..the ppl who wrtie about secert ways of damascus steels or Laminated watch to many highlander and ninja movies..
..Had a guy from japan buy one for 3400$ with shark skin case and a prayer slip under the handle,,,and its illegal in japan to own a sword.. i found out later after customs grabed it Doh
rare - kinda secert art - no
only good damascus knife made atm that you can buy for under 1000$ is cold steels tanto V
http://www.coldsteel.com/tantoseries.html
lore and myths about damascus weapons tho due to they didnt break under hard use..catholics killed
members of there army once due to they said it was witchcraft
heck in 1850s-1900 many guns uses damascus steels..they also blew up alot
it isnt a lost art..You can get videos and books on how to make swords knifes and such useing 1000yr old ways
heh one thing tho ppl pay way way to much for Laminated and damascus blades on e-bay i have sold a ton of japanese swords 1850s-1900s
m0zone
The Gentleman's Dagger looks pretty cool, but damn! $200US Ouch
The site is slashdotted, but $200 is not that much for a hand-made dagger.
I've bought a few (collectors) knives in my time, and the cheap ones (from United Cutlery, which makes sheer crap) start at $100US.
For something hand-made, $200 sounds pretty cheap.
Yes, I can just imagine a horde of blobby, shapeless geeks storming the local prison, brandishing their home-made Damascus-style swords. My guess would be: not all parts of all geeks will arrive at the gate...
-- H. Wilker
Steel doesn't want to be free... people want steel to be free.
Face it, people are stupid, and the internet is the place where they all meet.
I don't know the source or the truth of this, but here is the legend as I have heard it told.
---
Richard the Lionhearted had been captured by Saladin, and was being held hostage for, literally, a king's ransom. During his rather luxurious imprisonment, Richard fell to boasting of the quality of his blade, claiming to Saladin that its equal was not to be found anywhere.
As proof, Richard called for an anvil, and with a mighty blow of his broadsword he smote it in two.
Saladin for his part answered this by taking a gossamer silk scarf and draping it over the edge of his blade, whereupon it fell to the floor neatly sliced in two.
To which all of Saladin's wives were heard to mutter, "men!"
---
OK I made that last bit up, but its as likely to be true as te rest.
If you are interested in the subject, a pair of metallurgists who also claim to have uncovered the secret of Damascus steel wrote and article in the Feb '85 issue of Scientific American that is well worth looking up.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
And I know just the client to test it out on too.
Will that be Michael Eisner (head of Di$ney and responsible for the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act[?]), Hilary Rosen (head of RIAA), or Jack Valenti (head of MPAA)?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Whatever happened to a good old 6' 2-hander made of thousand-fold carbon steel?
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
This was featured in Popular Science more than 6 months ago.
I couldn't get the page to load correctly, so I couldn't see the knife you were talking about, but US$200 for a handmade fixed blade knife isn't bad, especially if it's damascus.
:) His site is http://www.ansoknives.com
I've got an order in with Jens Anso for one of his "Personal Sheepsfoot" fixed blades. Cocobolo wood handle, halftanned leather sheath with red/black lizard skin over the leather. It's been 6 months and will be another 2 months (he's a part-time maker). mmmm, yummy.
Chris
It is easy to sharpen a blade so it is sharp enough to cut through silk.
What is hard is to make it hard enough to keep that edge without making it as brittle as glass.
The Japanese katana accomplishes this. It can be polished so sharp it will cut through meat under its own (low) weight. On the battlefield, admittdly there is little need to cut through a silk scarf or to carve steaks, but one useful tricks you could do with a katana and presumably with a fine Damascus blades was to actually cut through lesser blades. Which is very useful indeed.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
More neat katana tricks: the aesthetically and functionally perfect curve of a katana doesn't form until the nearly-finished blade is quenched, and it forms naturally - it's not forged in. The differing hardness and thickness on either side of the blade causes it to cool and contract at different speeds, forming the curve. The steel on the back of the blade is also much softer than the steel of the edge, which is why you'll see people in movies deflecting and parrying with the back of the blade. This allows an enemy's weapon to bounce off the softer steel so the hard edge doesn't chip or shatter.
At least, I think so - that's what I heard from a friend who was a blacksmith for a while.
-Kevin
The concept of zero was invented in India. As was the decimal system (Arabic numerals) and the concept of negative numbers. The Arabs traded between India and Europe and were responsible for learning the concepts from the Indians and transfering them to the West. So the Islamic world didn't invent the zero any more than Columbus discovered America. Both get credit only for bringing this knowledge to Europe.
Mmmm.. Donuts
And if you want some pretty pictures of knives with Damacus Blades, check out their product page Forgot to include the URL above before I hit submit *smack* ow.
Top Most Bizarre/Disturbing Error Messages
So superior weaponry allowed the Muslims to throw the Crusaders out of the Holy Land...
Not true, at least not entirely. When the Crusaders initially invaded, the various Muslim powers of the region were divided. The consequence was that the a crew of large, smelly Western Europeans (hey, I'm one) managed to get a foothold in what was, at the time, the civilised world. Once the Muslims got their act together (and once Saladin came along) the Crusaders got clobbered (fall of Jerusalem, Battle of the Horns of Hattin, Fall of Acre, etc).
Sure weaponry played a part, but political unity, and superior strategy and tactics on the battlefield were of far greater significance.
"swords that had pieces of flint embedded along the edge. "
...
Well, they still lost they entire empire to a bunch of tired Spanish soldiers.
I find that much more interesting
Sure, they kicked ass and took names in the beginning, but after a while they just settled down and put their feet up.
That's where they got their name.
[runs from the hail of rotten fruit, broken bricks, and lobbed scimitars]
---
You'd be surprised at the broadband connection available to things crawling around in your hair.
Um, maybe I'm confused, but Atlanta cutlery has had Damascus steel blades for years. Heck, my roommate even has an older Famascus steel pocketknife.
:)
We've never tried cutting a falling silk scarf, but the thing gets sharp, and holds a heck of an edge. I'm planning to make an athame (Wiccan ritual dagger) from a Damascus boot-knife blade, with a jet handle, inset with mokume gane.
I'll let you know if I can cut a falling silk scarf with it
Lemon curry?
There were actually swords designed to do exactly what you specify here called Katana-wari-katana, IIRC these were constructed with a less brittle edge than a standard katana and took less time to make because it was expected that they would deform and eventually break after time, but in the interim would be useful as anti katana weapons.
Remember that katana were constructed with the primary enemy in mind being *other* katana, I don't doubt that it would take not much effort at all to shatter a brittle rapier blade or shear a thick euro broadsword in two with a standard katana, but katana rarely came up against either of these two blades as an opponent historically speaking so it's largely a moot point.
There is not a single technique I have learned in standard kenjutsu / iaido that deals with the target of the attack being your opponents sword.
I hear you. What do you expect from a school whose mascot is a tree? And a retarded looking one at that.
Why, exactly, can they patent this? Isn't the Damascus steel itself prior art?
One - Masamune's swords were the good ones, not the evil ones.
Two - Damascus Steel != Japanese technique.
Luv!
masamune was japanese you idiot. the japanese had much better blades than these anyways.
Wasn't that what the Amiga was made out of?
A Multiplayer Strategy Game for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux
I spent all that time looking, and ended up redundant. heh
In fact, from reading the articles that others have cited about their work, and from reading Dr. Hrisoulis's web site, it is very clear that their two works are completely different in intent and technique. Dr. Hrisoulis does not claim, on his web site at least, that Dr. Verhoeven and Mr. Pendray copied his work.
Dr. Hrisoulis is a master at pattern welding. (For others besides cprael reading this, I recommend going to his armoury and looking at his work. It's really worth it), and freely admits his technique and skill. To his credit, he has also written three books on his techniques, for the purposes of sharing that technique and his hard-won knowledge to others. As he points out, pattern welding is a technique that has been used for centuries by people all over the world. However, Dr. Verhoeven and Mr. Pendray are not doing pattern welding -- nor do they claim to be. In their articles, they admit that pattern welding has been used for centuries and many different cultures to produce blades with Damascine patterns. It is clear that they understand the process and technique.
What they claim is that research has long shown that the best museum examples of Damascus Steel blades are forged out of a single alloy, rather than multiple alloys as pattern welding does. This technique has long vanished, and apparently flourished in India and Persia for a relatively short time (a few hundred years). What they claim to have done is developed a process for reliably recreating the alloy as well as recreating the special forging techniques needed to create properly formed wootz-metal Damascus steel blades.
Based on what I read on Dr. Hrisoulis's site, I seems reasonable to me that he would be happy to see Dr. Verhoeven and Mr. Pendray's work continue. Dr. Verhoeven and Mr. Pendray are recreating an bringing alive again a lost ancient metalworking art, which seems right in line with Dr. Hrisoulis's goals and asperations.
Damascus steel is cool, but it's nothing compared to the edge holding and sharpness you can get with VG-10 steel. You can find that on some of the more expensive Spyderco knives. I recently got a custom stoneworks Viele, and the thing can slice through about 30 pages of paper by just *pushing* on the blade. You really would have to use one of these to appreciate the quality. It truly puts Damascus to shame (though it isn't as pretty).
a story as it was told to me by my uncle. my grandfather was working in the nazi department of supplying the army with erhhm.. supplies and when they went out to look for steel of a high quality they found one small company in austria being able to produce steel of that quality, at first they tried to figure out what was done to that steel to give it that quality, but were unable to do so, so they went to austria to that company, where at first they saw nothing uncommon except that the owner was running a small party every evening for his workers.
After a while they found out that the owner made his workers pee in the bucket where the steel was hardened, so my grandfather and his collegues where able to replicate that process.
we didn't win the war though.
--- The only more dangerous to your liberty than n politicians is n + 1 politicians.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
Yep they did too I vividly recall it.
... just a normal beheading for me thanks.
I always remember the method of quenching the steel was to "thrust the red hot blade into the belly of a nubian slave" or something like that (apocryphal of course). Gees, lucky for me I'm an infidel I'd probably ruin the blade
Bitter and proud of it.
Islam has suffered from the same problems that christianity has, although at this time it is far worse.
The problem is when religion is used to control people, the actual religion tends to take the back seat to interpetations used to control. We see this through much of the history in europe, moderate cases in the southern US, and especially in islamic dictatorships.
Er,.. didn't those guys from Damascus already do this? How can they then patent a technique kinda old? While at it, why not just patent a smithy?
had an excellent article about Verhoeven and Pendray in the Jan 2001 issue, but I can't find a good link on their website
In depth article about a year back. January actually.
m ma ry.html
The Mystery of Damascus Blades
John D. Verhoeven
Centuries ago craftsmen forged peerless stell blades. But how did they do it? The author and a blacksmith have found an answer.
http://www.sciam.com/2001/0101issue/0101quicksu
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Can you say Prior Art?
But can anyone prove that the Damascus steel of legend was made the same way as the Damascus steel of the 21st century? Who has the burden of proof?
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
I think that anybody writing or pointing to an article that has a focus on the beauty of the steel should include a picture.c IiLiBoDDfeIhoj
h tm
I found the article on scientific american, but it costs five dollars to get: http://www.sciamarchive.com/welcome2.asp?Sid2=FlB
Here is a picture of a knife w/a blade:
http://www.jarodsworkshop.com/gallery/r6_1_pic.
I read this cool article in Wired about forging the strongest possible steel... using computers to design it. If you're into knives and swords (like I am) you may find it especially interesting.
Developers: We can use your help.
i can't believe someone blew a mod point on that
woah... thanks man:)
That was totally more info than i ever expected as a reply.
Prospecting Stinks. Stop Wasting Time on Cold Calling.
One of the features of the myth surrounding Damascus swords was that they were quenched by plunging the sword hot from the forge into the body of a slave. I wonder if Microsoft has enough middle managers to keep a good modern production line going for a while?
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
Isn't 32.768K the resonant freq. of quartz?
Indecision is the key to flexibility.
And have Sephiroth steal it and kill Aeris? Are you insane??
It happens most often in fields that require observation. Natural sciences are a great example. I can think of countless examples of amateurs coming up with great discoveries/inventions, but my examples tend to be 100 years old. Anything by Thomas Edison (lightbulb, phonograph, etc.), Lee DeForest and the vacuum tube, etc, Oliver Heaviside and the Laplace transform (operator calculus) used to solve electrical circuit equations (more generally, linear differential equations), Heaviside and the modern form of "Maxwell's" electromagnetic equations, etc. Anywhere expensive machinery is not required, but rather persistence and observation, an amateur can contribute.
No. Excalibur's original British name was Caliburn, which has a legitimate (if hazy) Celtic etymology.
- the original steel for Japanese blades had several contaminates from the original iron ores they used
- Chromium
- Vanaddium
- Molybdenum
- by rehaeating the blade repeatedly the steel aquires carbon for iron carbide (very hard but brittle)
- The hard part of folded blades in general is making the welding flux things like silica sand, and Sal amonium are used this is what the secrete formulas came from mostly
- the actual folding pattern controls the patern on the blade and a lot of its individual properties. if I remeber correctly, individual modern knife-smiths have patents, trademarks and or copyrights of these paterns
In short to do-it yourself start with your Craftman's socket set, some old carbon bateries, and sand and start pounding. Maybe you'l figure it out before you go broke. I don't think that just because the original steel was from Japan that maybe chinese ores wouldn't have been simalar, and available to the Indian and Arab's, they were primarily trading societiesApocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
your usual damascus is only a pattern added to the blade, remembering the original blade pattern.
On Damascus Steel Blades, the pattern is a result of the inherent steel structure, and doesn't have to be added...
Also, a good difference is the price, for an antique damascus will start at around $5000 8)
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
I have to say, even if it's not considered correct by the historians, it is damn good stuff. You can hack through a 2x4, cut a free hanging 1 inch thick rope, and bend it 90 degrees in a vise - in that order - to show the strength, hold on sharpness, and pliability. And the laminated pattern is unbelievable.
"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there" - Will Rogers
Hmm... I'll let you build that. I don't like getting cut.
The Key Role of Impurities in Ancient Damascus Steel Blades (1998):e n-9809.html
t m dispells some of the most common myths surrounding swords, including the scarf slicing one.
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/9809/Verhoev
It has some nice pictures too, if you don't know what Damascus Steel looks like.
http://www.miaminiceknife.com/pictures_1.htm also has some good shots.
http://home.earthlink.net/~glennwood/swordmyths.h
"If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
Keep in mind they patented their PROCESS for making Damascus Steel, not Damascus Steel.
We just covered this in my Engineering Materials class, so technically I'm doing my homework by visiting slashdot. :-)
Cast steel is generally not as "strong" as Forged steel. I use the word strength loosely, because steel has many properties which can be associated with measuring strength. (i.e. Ductility, modulus of elasticity, Stress/Strain relationships, yield point, etc.)
There are two major considerations here.
1) The atomic structure of the material.
This is the arrangements of the atoms. The strength of steel greatly depends on the atomic structure which relies on the method used to cool the molten material. Speed of the cooling process determines how the atoms will arrange themselves, therefore determining "strength" via the number of and geometry of the atomic bonds.
2) The grain structure of the material.
"pounding" or Forging steel literally squeezes the atoms closer together. The forging process aligns the grain structure into a "stronger" geometry, although some directions are stronger than others.
In general, Casted parts are used when parts are in complicated shapes (like engine blocks and cylinder heads), and when strength can be comprimised.
Forged parts are prefered when strength more important than cost. Racecars typically use Forged conecting rods because of their high strength to weight ratio. Low weight is especially important here since engines reving 9000 RPM reciprocate each rod back and forth 150 times per second!
A few more good examples of Forgings:
Hand Tools, (Snap-on, Craftsman, Mac, etc.)
some crankshafts (typically racing applications)
some pistons (5.0 Mustang Guys say to only run NOS on forged pistons)
For more info, Here is an excelent comparison of Forging and Casting
Yea I think the guy in Raiders of The Lost Ark had a Damascus sword when he took on Indie and his gun with hillarious results.
This works for computers too!
air and light and time and space
/me turns on Home Shopping Network in search of the new Damascus Steal Ginsu Knife:
"It slices, it dices, it cuts through silk cans!!! It'll cut your fingers off cleaner than ever!!!"
There was an article about this in Scientific American, but I can't find the link. Do yourself a favor and find it, without pictures, articles discussing the technique are useless. (eg, look at the shiny pretty sword)
[o]_O
Why not? Hell, I'd pay a ton of money for one of them. And I know just the client to test it out on too.
Now I have a new ferrous option to coat my depleted uranium slugs with for my rail gun...
I think the original "Damascus Steel" must have been made by stacking sheets with a superior flux between them, rather than what seems to be a beaten-single-bar as described in the slashdot article.
I don't think the original method was "lost", however. The stacked sheet method has appeared in books.
There is an old type of shotgun barrel called "damascus". It is made from spirally-wrapped strips of steel that would have been blacksmith-welded together to form the barrel. That would tend to point to the original 'damascus' being made from stacked sheets.
They won't be able to get a pattent if it was already developed in recent history.
;-)
I dunno. With the current state of affairs regarding patenting, it should be entirely possible.
Pinky: "What are we going to do tomorrow night Brain?"
Brain: "I would tell you Pinky but this 120 char limi
I certainly encountered more than my fair share of professors in undergrad and in grad school who had tenure and all kinds of honors, but didn't understand how a real computer works. Case in point: Algorithm analysis. We analyze the performance of algorithms based on a model where every memory access can take the same amount of time
Yes, that's why the traditional algorithm analysis is rapidly being displaced by a new field of CS -- "algorithm engineering". Algorithm engineering aims to understand what makes algorithms faster on real life machines. It is of course far less clean and much more empirical than traditional methods.
There's a lot of confusion in the posts here...
Note: I'm almost exclusively discussing European techniques.
I'm an amateur knifemaker. I don't forge blades yet (well, I've started one in 070A72 but not getting very far because of time and meteorological conditions: it's too damn hot to spend time in the forge)... but I'm studying the background and making up knives and bill-hooks by stock-removal either from rolled bar or from forged blanks that I buy.
I can buy a piece of 'damascus' about 20cm × 5cm × 1cm (i.e. 8" × 2" × 13/32") from my knife dealer, or I can buy a part-finished blade in 'damascus'. I can even get a near-as-damn-it finished bowie blade that just needs quillons, handle and pommel then sharpening.
These blanks and bars can even be made of stainless steels. Clearly this has very little to do with the original Oriental process (stainless was invented in Sheffield, England, in around 1916). The term 'damascus' is used because of the technique of taking two steels of different compositions and forge welding them together, and because the visual effect is very similar.
The action of folding, hammering, repeating gives a final piece that has many many layers of these different steels. When you clean up the finished piece with a certain chemical (I forget the list of things used, though I seem to remember iron sulphate and even citric acid), the difference in colour between the two steels is accentuated.
Making and using modern 'damascus' steel responds primarily, to my mind, to aesthetic rather than functional criteria. This is confirmed by the increasing use of 'damascus' amongst custom knifesmiths and hobbyists for making mitres, guards and pommels. Modern steels are easily good enough for the job of cutting and holding an edge. Indeed, for some jobs, you really should only use stainless (knives that touch foodstuffs, including skinning and hunting knives).
Up until the nineteenth century, and for some applications, into the first couple of decades of the twentieth century, good steel was too expensive and too brittle to be used alone. It is very common to find knives, axes, adzes and other chopping tools that are made by welding a hard steel edge onto a softer but tougher 'body'. This does not give the 'damascus' effect of wavy lines throughout the tool. Another technique was to take a bar of the expensive hard steel, a bar of the less expensive tough steel or iron, and twist the two together. This technique is ideal for the forging of long blades such as swords. This technique was known to the Vikings in Scandinavia and in England.
There are quite a few books that explain how to go about creating these modern 'damascus' steels. From the simple wavy pattern, to repeated geometric patterns. I've even seen photographs of blades with legible text composed from 'damascus' blocks.
Getting back to the point, and to touch upon patents a little, is that these two Americans have re-discovered that traces of Vanadium made a big difference... Well, I bet that professor of metallurgy is kicking himself now. It is very well known that very small amounts of Vanadium, Manganese, Chromium, etc, can change the physical properties of steel. And since we're also talking about the micro-cystalline structure of a composite material, he should have thought about this a little earlier... Take two steels, one of which contains just enough of an element that increases toughness, make 'damascus' steel from them. Simple? Perhaps so simple he overlooked it. Perhaps he thought "well, they wouldn't have had access to Vanadium back then, so it's not worth looking into".
But then again, there are some very strange steels that have been produced (and may still be being produced) in what we would call 'very primitive conditions' in India... For example there is a very large pillar made of iron or steel (I forget which, and I forget where it is) that has peculiar corrosion-resistant properties, supposedly due to "trace impurities"...
You should never overlook the improvements that can arise from letting "impurities" into things... I bet the first time yeast found its way into the dough, it was considered an "impurity".
Sorry if that wasn't clear. Yes, I know this article is about making wootz damascus steel. But there are lots of knife makers selling pattern welded damascus steel. In fact, I think it is a requirement for becoming a master knifesmith, to demonstrate a damascus steel blade.
I was trying to make the point that what these guys are doing is different than what you are going to see called damascus steel at a local knife show.
"They still hope that their high-carbon material, which they call "superplastic steel," could allow makers of vehicles such as airplanes to replace riveted sheets with fewer, stronger parts."
Sounds like these clowns are full of baloney.
I agree with your primary thesis. As evidence I offer my experience of many more years than I care to admit pursueing a doctorate on three continents all the while acknowledging that the degree was only an admission ticket to the higher ranks of academia. Now that I'm working, I much prefer having to know multiple fields and actually getting things done.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
Well,
;)
Kendo and Kenjutsu are not the only (remaining) traditional sword combat arts.
Also you have to distinguish between battlefield and duell.
Modern Katana, forged after 1650, the beautyfull weapons most of us assiciate with Samurai, are unlike to be used in battle. They are used ceremonical and in combat where you likely have no armor, e.g. in a duell.
Katana were also used in battle, there is nothing in raw iron backed with bamboo and straps of leather (which is what samurai armour was constructed of) which would decisively nullify the use of traditional katana. There is a certain Ryu that I have seen demonstrate use of an extremely large katana with a much thicker blade and longer blade than I have ever seen before and I am told that this is actually designed as an armour splitter.
In battle much bigger swords where used.
As above.
The technique you are describing above as an aikido technique is not called Ikkyo but Shi Ho Nage.
I am a newbie to Aikido, thankyou for the correction, I assumed that other people would be more familiar with Aikido than they were with Kenjutsu or other Japanese sword arts.
You avoid touching the opponents swords at all, you only hit their bodies.
as I mentioned, whenever possible, correct.
The curve of the sword is mainly to let it be drawn quicker. Also it is usefull in cutting enemies(or their weapon or armor), as the point where the target is touched is very smal and so the pressure on the target is maximized in relation to a not curved sword (Tachi).
The Tachi is a curved sword, it's simply a lot bigger than a katana.
And yes: you have to turn the sword by 180 degrees to use the back soft side to deflect a opponents sword.
This is not the way that I have been taught to block and when the springiest part is in the center and it's easier to flick the blade 45 degrees than it is to flick it 180 degrees I don't think this is correct, brittle will chip (edge), soft will deform (spine), springy will deflect (center).
And yes, you *only* practice kendo, so you do not know it: if you do not turn your blade but use it directly to deflect an other sword masters sword, your sword is gone, it is simply cut into two parts.
I don't actually practice kendo at all, I practice a modified form of Hyo ho niten ichi ryu kenjutsu, I have had a little experience also in Tenshin Shin'yo Ryu Kenjutsu and Shinto Ryu Iaido.
It does not stand to reason that the springiest part of the sword would be the part to snap whilst in contact with (as you pointed out earlier) quite a small part of the enemies blade, the possibility of shear seems even smaller as this would necessitate moving the edge through the springier steel and the harder steel as well.
And you are right, after deflecting it you have a mark on the back side. But thats far better than having the mark in the sharp side of the blade.
Imho, no, it's not, you can polish out small marks on the sharpened edge much simpler than you can polish out large deformations to the softer steel on the spine. taking that into account plus the fact that you have to flick the blade 180 degrees to block with the spine I'd have to say in a situation where you could not simply avoid the attack or deflect it with the central springy part I'd definitely be edge blocking.
Remember, you do not use a Katana like an Axe, its not a punch! Its a cut. If one sharp edge of a sword cuts into the sharp edge of the other sword, its only a matter of luck (or call it balance and stance) if you cut straight through it, as the whole cut happends at one single point of the other sword.
a punch is a thrusting technique, katana cuts are cuts, I don't see what you're getting at here?
Your sword looses likely its sharpness, the other sword has a DEEP mark in it or is in two parts.
You've lost me again.;)
Regards,
angel'o'sphere
I took the liberty of reading up on some of your other posts and noticed that you are an Aikido practitioner so I'll take it as correct about shihonage, but in regards to kenjutsu techniques I will have to maintain disagreement with you.
Regardless, thankyou for the correction.
Does ANYONE here have any idea what this guy is talking about? He must be some kind of total math pencilneck egghead geek. Stop with the bizarre rocket science, bub, we're humans here, not frikkin computer chip-head geniuses.
FYI, casting does not produce better quality steel, what made the Arabic blades better were their methods of tempering.
as a big Gunnm fan, I'm pretty dang impressed by that.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
The thing is, sometimes the clever bastards will drop a tent on your head. (we all know that any normal villain will be totally trapped under any sheet surprisingly dropped unto him). A blade of damascus steel will let you free yourself and kill the clever bastards.
Brute strenght is cool, versatility is better.
You can't take the sky from me...
Ha!! That was funny!
Blarf.
SCA Blacksmiths have been playing with the folded metal style of blade, commonly called Damascene steel for over a decade now, probably more.
This is just another case of a scientist claiming to have discovered something that has been common knowledge for a while. And then patenting it to try to make cash - so much for the scientist part I guess.
I have read in depth instructions on how to produce folded steel weapons - and I have met folks who have done so and seen the results - wavy pattern on the blade and all. This guy might have discovered a refinement on the technique but he sure didn't discover anything new that hadn't already been rediscovered previously.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
As I understand it, the nature of a sword is dictated by the armor it is expected to defeat. Here is an excelent interview with an expert in the history and development of European swords.
The original article is not the SciAm one but one in the Journal of Material Science titled The Key Role of Impurities in Ancient Damascus Steel Blades . Don't forget to have a look at the high res pictures, they are great!
Best of all this original article is free (in the HTML version)!
1. fake/imitation damascus or pattern welded steel. beautiful, modern knives available. pattern developed by artist smith. this is the usual damascus we hear about.
:-)
2. crude arab armor damascus cast iron sheets laminate.
3.original damascus or wootz (ukku). from andhrapradesh/karnataka. (read-hyderabad/bangalore). The pattern develops intrinsically.
All original damascus dates BEFORE 1700. the supply stopped around 1680. The swords/knives are not glamorous looking. They just mean business, meant for professionals. (big iron
This has never been reproduced, neither russki bulat or verhoven come near. (accomplished scientists all).
That's not right, kenjutsu techniques rarely attempt to put blade directly against blade, ideally large flowing movements using the entire body and momentum therof are used to avoid strikes and absorb the energy of avoidance to supplement the strength of your own cuts.
;)
For example the aikido technique Ikkyo was developed from a common kenjutsu technique dealing with two opponents, one attacking from the front and one from the rear, to avoid a downward cut from the front you would step into the attack slightly and simultaneously wheel to the side with a sharp hip movement throwing your arms into the crossing attack at the opponent behind you, letting the blade strike flesh and the original attacker miss you completely with their strike, from this position a second wheel and step back and a cut from the top right to the bottom left will cause the first attacker to drop into two neat seperate segments.
Of course, all this is in theory and often in practice you would simply do everything that you could to stay alive, in ancient battlescarred blades ( and in my own katanas that I rarely use against other live blade katanas ) there is evidence of blocking with the hardened sharp edge, but in order of preference, when using a sword your options would be as follows;
1) Get out of the way and use the momentum from avoidance to deliver a counterstrike.
2) block with the flat off the blade, preferably in the center where the hardened edge fades into the more springy spine, twisting the blade at the same time will cause the block to "deflect" the attack.
3) block with the edge, you're likely to get a non fatal chip in the blade but no fatal flaws that can't be sharpened out.
4) Block with the spine, this is extremely rare as usually in combat the sharpened edge faces the enemy anyway so you would have to twist the blade a full 180 degrees in order to do this, furthermore the hardened edge would leave quite a mark on the springy spine, admittedly not compromising usability but undeniably compromising aesthetics, and seeing as the unsharpened spine was never sharpened this would be there to stay.
As for legends of falling silk scarves being cut by flashing damascene scimitar blades, this is not an impressive feat, a sharp blade is not difficult to achieve, renaissance rapiers were extremely sharp (high carbon steel) but quite brittle, in the rare occasion that one of these glasslike blades came into contact with a lower hardness steel with more spring in it with any considerable force, the likelihood of a break would be very high.
Japanese steel in a katana is forged by heating the blade white hot after hundreds of folds and covering the spine with clay and gradiating down to a thin layer on the front and plunging the blade into water (causing the spine to cool slower than the edge, resulting in a martensite/bainite/pearlite gradient from edge/center/spine and as pointed out in the parent post, causing the curve.)
Not mentioned in the parent post is the misty pattern often polished onto imitation oriental swords, this is not actually decoration on a functional katana, it is a result of the complex tempering process and is evidence of a well forged blade, on a real sword it actually goes the entire way through the blade and gives a visual record of the area of the sword which is hardest (the misty part will follow the edge up to the point, that is the hardened edge).
In my view the impressive thing about damascene steel, even though compared to the above process for the purpose only of making swords with a single edge and an unsharpened spine (which the scimitar was, also) it is quite inferior, is that damascene steel did not rely on a gradiation in tempering, it was a single solid pillar of power compared to contemporary steels and not gradiated like the japanese blade.
All in all quite a bit of media sensationalism in the article but there you go, not that new.
You can make Damascus style blades out of all kinds of stuff too.
Even I have made a small knife out of a 6" piece of Steel AirCraft Cable.
Knife and Blade makers today can make some of the most amazing patterns.
Recreate!?! Hell make your own!
go here
How are these people going about making Damascus steel? If I remember correctly Damascus steel was hardened by stabbing prisoners of war with a red-hot blade and leaving it there until it cooled. This bonded it with the organic nitrates.
Sure, it can be 1000000X slower, or even 10^100 time slower, but still as N goes to infinity, the slowdown fact does not.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
It is. You can thank Dr. Jim Hrisoulis for a lot of the research these turkeys are trying to claim. http://www.atar.com/ is his swordmaking site.
A Finnish blacksmith, Heimo Roselli, produces knives with Damascus and Wootz steel blades.
m l
Take a look at this page:
http://www.roselli.fi/1/eng/products/damasti.ht
Verhoeven's article in the Journal of Metallurgy on their findings is at this link. http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/9809/Verhoeve n-9809.html
Jim Larus had an interesting article or two regarding cache-conscious data structures, with some interesting timing statistics, based on different L1/L2/L3 memory architectures.
Somehow I don't think it will be difficult to find prior art on this patent. :)
Anonymous Kev
Proudly posting as Anonymous Coward since 1997
I wonder how this stuff compares to the Damascus used in contemporary custom knives. To my knowledge, curent Damascus is used mainly for it's visual effect (there are many different types of standard patterns available), but it sounds just like the stuff this team created. To the guy who wanted a damascus katana, you could probably find a maker willing to create one for you. It'll cost you though. BTW, http://www.bladeforums.com might be of interest. Chris
Seems to me the whole point of the exercise was determining what the prior art was...
"If I can see farther it is because I am surrounded by dwarves." -- Murray Gell-Mann
I don't mean now. There is no Ottoman empire now, you dipshit. Here, read this example instead:
If 1913 really occured in 1912, then maybe we're living in 2002.
If 1913 was really in 1912, then maybe we're living in 2002.
If the Ottoman empire was run by Bill Gates, then it's news to me.
I'm not saying what you think I'm saying. And I'm perfectly grammatical.
I mean neither "were" nor "had been", since I use neither "would" nor "would have". Duh!
The Japanese have been using this method for centuries to make their swords.
Each swords has 32,768 layers of microthin metal, confering to their blades superior strength.
Why 32,768 layers exactly? Well, that's what you get when you flatten a piece of steel, fold it in two, and stretch it back while hammering it 15 times...
I dunno about the differing hardnesses of steel, but it sounds plausible. Anyway, the big reason for deflecting with the back of the blade is two fold: One you don't notch it, and, two, parrying with the back of the blade tends to put the edge in position for a counter strike. At least in what I've seen so far of Japanese sword fighting work. Of course, your point could be the reason why the technique came out that way. Course, I'm still working with wooden practice swords
There's a reasonable Behe critique here.
I bought this house and you know I'm boss
Ain't no h'aint gonna run me off
The periodical was Scientific American and it was printed sometime in Sept to Dec. of 2000.
it would not. The japanese made far better blades on their own than these damascus ones.
Shoeboy, posting anonymously to protect my precious karma.
This is the sort of cutting edge technology that belongs on Slashdot!
A truly excellent pizza parlor is a delight unto the heavens. Treasure the sauce and the toppings!
"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,'" Pendray said.
Someone get this man a slashdot account.
...I'd also say that being beset by the Crusaders, then conquered by the Ottomans, and finally, turned into European protectorates also had something to do with their decline.
Interesting. I guess that's why Excalibur is the "sword in the stone". It was a stone mould.
Way OT here, but I wanted to let you know that the actual quote is:
:)
"Who is driving?! Oh my god, bear is driving, how can that be?!"
Great choice, though
God, get with the program. I can't believe how much this sucks!
I don't know about "Lost Art", but I just wish that modern science would get to work on discovering how to release "Lost Ark" on DVD!
Of course, if/when I buy the DVD, I'll donate to the EFF as well to level the playing field.
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
Scientific American, January 2001
I know it's in vogue on /. to criticize every patent in existence, but the overall ignorance from these various patent-haters is finally getting to me.
NO, this is not a prefect example of prior art. Yes, the patent office has done some stupid things, but this isn't one. These two guys have a perfectly good patent. They patented the process of making Damascus steel. They worked for a helluva long time, according to the article, to make this stuff, and their work deserves a patent. The patent doesn't stop others from making the steel, it just stops them from making it just like these guys did.
If someone else has already figured out this process, then the patent should fall, but afaik, that hasn't happened. Please, do a little learning instead of spouting off mob mentality. Patent-knocking is becoming as common as first posting and Katz-knocking. The word patent is not evil, software patents are.
Doh, I meant 'creation' not 'evolution'!
You conveniently left out that the fight, by some, is to INCLUDE the teaching of evolution.
"And like that
Regarding cutting through "lesser" blades with the katana, I thought that wasn't easily possible, given that most katanas are draw blades which don't have an optimum angle for cutting metal. Since iron was so expensive in Japan, there weren't that many people in Japan wearing metal armor, and it didn't matter anyway; it was more important for the metal to be light instead. In China, things were different; there the Warlord of Wu (for example) really could afford to buy armor for himself and a couple tens of thousands of his close personal friends. Hence the difference between Japanese and Chinese sword designs (well, that, and Japanese swordmaking was, besides a good way of making a sword, a good way of making a good sword from lousy feedstock materials.
(ObSF: The war over the iron mine in Princess Mononoke; also, the secret to making the Green Destiny sword in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which had been lost.
(currently testing something about signatures here)
There is something seriously seriously seriously swrong with the moderation system used here.
......
I am no expert on metals or blades, however this looks like an extremely intelligent and useful post, with a lot of information. However as of now it's rated +3, Informative, and on either side (with my filter set to a minimum of 3) there are +5, Funny one liners that aren't really all that funny.
So someone intelligent gets +2, and someone spitting out a silly 1-liner gets +4.
Something's not right with this picture.
If God gave us curiosity
'cept excalibar wasnt the sword from the stone. Why does everyone confuse the swords of arthur?
And from another post around here somewhere why would a british king have an irish named sword? I think a welsh/cornish name is far far more likely.
The poster I'm replying to said Islamic, not Palestinian.
Blow yourself up on slashdot accordingly, you fucking palestinian shit-eaters. And that goes for you too, you Islamic shit-eaters.
Islamics: you're just jealous you'll sit in shit forever once you die, because you're not as good as the palestinians.
Palestinians: you're just jealous you'll sit in shit forever once you die, because you're not as good as the palestinians.
Go ahead. Crack OSDN's facilities, get Slashdot's IP logs, and trace this message back to me, track me down, and blow yourself up in front of my house. (You shitheads aren't advanced enough to have the idea of a mailbomb yet...hell, even we only had a very bright uni(versity) bomber realize you could do that...)
Go ahead. Do it. You'll just prove my point. Shit eaters.
Oh, and I rape your women with my lascivious gaze.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
I'm not trying to start the whole argument about what /. is now, what it was, etc.
Just a simple Well Done!
Over 500 comments on this thead, and the one about starter linux distros...This is the kind of news that -really- matters to people.
Keep up the good work! This is the good stuff.
"Although Verhoeven and Pendray have patented their technique and received some funding from Nucor Steel Inc., they concede the technology in its current, labor-intensive form probably is not a moneymaker"
So they figured out how to do something that was done hundreds of years ago, and were able to patent it? Isn't there blatant evidence of prior art? Is it just me, or does this further the idea that the US Patent Office is full of morons?
Damascus is for Sallies.
Real men wield mithril swords.
So you're saying that a mechanical thermometer works in the same manner as a katana?
Cool.
And it tells the temperature, too.
Let's see ... we still fight over the teaching of evolution because so many Americans have a bizarre
...
unflinching adherance to a literal belief in Genesis. That's not the whole story but it's not a bad place to start
I always thought the fight was because so many Americans have a bizarre unflinching adherance to the belief that evolution and the Big Bang are proven scientific fact, when by definition they're not even provable scientifically.
Is anybody seriously arguing that we should be teaching the Biblical account of creation in public schools? Not that I've heard of. Catastrophism is certainly valid in a secular context, and even the young-earth theories can be discussed without necessarily talking about a Creator, yet these concepts are ridiculed simply because of the association with Bible-thumping brainless lunatics. Open your mind a little!
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
How about the kid who discovered a brand new mathematical theorum during study hall? (Posted on /. awhile back, i'm too lazy to look it up.) The truth is that many, if not most, discoveries are accidents. From penicillin to plastics, they were stumbled upon. Does it take a PhD to have an accident? My 6 year-old says no.
For a really interesting discussion of how swords were really used and how they evolved check out this link.
Bitter and proud of it.
No shit. Especially given that Dr. Jim Hrisoulis of UNLV has been publishing about this for a number of years now. Not just prior art, but out-and-out plagiarism.
I remember seeing Randall damascus steel knives for sale 20 years ago. A two year waiting list and $100/inch of blade at that time.
Well,
Kendo and Kenjutsu are not the only (remaining) traditional sword combat arts.
Also you have to distinguish between battlefield and duell.
Modern Katana, forged after 1650, the beautyfull weapons most of us assiciate with Samurai, are unlike to be used in battle. They are used ceremonical and in combat where you likely have no armor, e.g. in a duell.
In battle much bigger swords where used.
The technique you are describing above as an aikido technique is not called Ikkyo but Shi Ho Nage.
You avoid touching the opponents swords at all, you only hit their bodies.
The curve of the sword is mainly to let it be drawn quicker. Also it is usefull in cutting enemies(or their weapon or armor), as the point where the target is touched is very smal and so the pressure on the target is maximized in relation to a not curved sword (Tachi).
And yes: you have to turn the sword by 180 degrees to use the back soft side to deflect a opponents sword.
And yes, you *only* practice kendo, so you do not know it: if you do not turn your blade but use it directly to deflect an other sword masters sword, your sword is gone, it is simply cut into two parts.
And you are right, after deflecting it you have a mark on the back side. But thats far better than having the mark in the sharp side of the blade.
Remember, you do not use a Katana like an Axe, its not a punch! Its a cut. If one sharp edge of a sword cuts into the sharp edge of the other sword, its only a matter of luck (or call it balance and stance) if you cut straight through it, as the whole cut happends at one single point of the other sword.
Your sword looses likely its sharpness, the other sword has a DEEP mark in it or is in two parts.
Regards,
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Another irrelevant fucking post.
Greebo had spent an irritating two minutes in that box. Technically, a cat locked in a box may be alive or it may be dead. You never know until you look. In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious.
-terry pratchett, lords and ladies
Many months ago Sciam had a lengthy article about these guys' work. It went into detail about what they did and the difference between their steel and the other stuff. If I remember right one conjecture about why Damascus steel began to vanish is because other sources of iron became cheaper than the sources in India, and the Indian sources simply closed shop. And, the Damascus steel makers couldn't find the right iron. Gotta go dig trhough my stack of back issues and look it up.
It's kind of like the article below where a CS professor writes about DOOM and it becomes clear (at least to me) that he doesn't really know the first thing about what John C. actually does.
People who play Counter Strike shoudn't begin to talk about DOOM, they just don't get it.
>And have Sephiroth steal it and kill Aeris? Are >you insane? So *that's* why Bush allowed for the continuation of stem cell research! Next we'll hear that Mako is the reason they're going to drill in Alaska. Surely Hojo has a hand in all of this...
I practice japaneese sword technices as part of my aikido training.
Your comemnt about the use of the back side of the weapon for deflecting is perfect right.
The main purpose however is to protect the sharp side, which is the hard side, and you can not use the side if the sord for deflection because the other sword could cut through it.
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
What we need now is the secret of Geek... err.... Greek Fire!
"Able to completely incinerate a falling silk scarf in midair!"
Sciam had a great article about reproducing Demascus Steel in the January 2001 issue. Unfortunately, I can't find it online, but I definitely recommend checking it out if you have an interest in this subject.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
How can they consider this cutting-edge technology ?
I know blacksmiths who have been making what they refer to as damascus steel blades for years. Most of it is made by heating and pounding large steel cables. I guess it isnt the same as the old amascus steel, but it definitley has the look.
-- free as in swatantryam - not soujanyam.
I suppose some of you guys would regard this as a funny lil queer invention, but this is actually quite something remarkable. In fact, the entire world of ancient blacksmithing in something in and of itself. I did a research project last summer on corrosion and one of the most interesting tidbits I came across was an iron monument in India.
I forget the details exactly but the import ant thing is that this monument has been standing for hundreds of year, and it has NOT RUSTED a bit! -- this is in India's tropical climate! Corrosion problems cost the U.S. hundreds of billions of dollars each year and I know of more than one civil engineer who would kill to find the secrets of those ancient blacksmiths.
I'm bored, lets go break something.
This is troll post and not only that it is totally inaccurate and wrong - read your history (and i don't mean your christian history)
Most of the mediavel history taught in the western world was written by Catholic (holy roman) scholars and thus is biased - the bullshit about unfliching religious law shows someone who has no familiarity with the Muslim religion - try reading the Koran before passing judgement.
They ran empires before the british had anything but an island
... how come he couldn't escape?
> Steel doesn't want to be free... people want steel to be free.
No... no... I think it's "People want to steal things that aren't free"
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
But have you considered this: just after battle, still in your armour, this lady, who stole your heart, passes by, and drops her silk handkerchief. Quickly, you reach out to prevent it from falling in the dust and lo! After landing across your outstretched Damascus steel gauntlet, it parts and continues its fall on either side.
Stefan.
The truth shall make you fret. (Ankh-Morpork tImes motto)
If the Ottoman empire had a patent system, perhaps the secret of Damascus steel would never have been lost!
Gawd, does no one speak English? You mean "had had" not had"
If the Ottoman empire had been smarter, it wouldn't have died.
If the Ottoman empire had had a patent system, it wouldn't have died.
If the Ottoman empire was run by Bill Gates, it's news to me!
If the Ottoman empire had a patent system, it's news to me!
Study these sentences.
I mean I can't count the number of times I've been in battle and needed to slice through falling silk in mid air... geesh, I wish I had one of those
~ now you know
"Although Verhoeven and Pendray have patented their technique and received some funding from Nucor Steel Inc."
Steel wants to be FREE, people, and Nucor wants to keep this technology to themselves to help further their globalized corporate profitmaking.
This is an outrage to the Open Source community, and I am hereby calling upon all Linux geeks to band together and produce their own Open-Source version of Damascus Steel. It's high time we show these people we are not going to tolerate their greedy ballyhooing at the expense of poor Dimitry and sweatshop workers in Malaysia. Write your congressman today and request, nay, DEMAND that the DMCA and CSS and DVDA be repealed so we can steal MP3's again.
Remember: Steel wants to be free!!
Free Dimitry!!
"Technically, a cat locked in a box may be alive or dead." -Kurt Cobain
Scientific American had this article back in January. I think the SciAm article suggests an interesting point though. How many art forms have disappeared in the last three centuries due to the ever moving juggernaut that is progress? It's theorized that changes in trade led to a diminished amount of the carbide infused steel to reach blacksmiths which eventually led to no one being able to produce Damascus blades. We run into the same problem today, how many of you have a drive that can read 9" floppy disks?
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
The original artisans did not leave complete instructions for making their steel, and the few written formulas are less than helpful. Some advise quenching the red-hot blade in the urine of a red-haired boy or of a goat fed nothing but ferns. Another text suggests driving the sword into the belly of a muscular slave.
I've heard of job security code, but this is ridiculous!
Lies about crimes
nice!
Liberty.
The religious fundamentalism came later. The Mongols destroyed the great Islamic civilizations; Europe was saved only because tradition required all of the clan leaders to return to elect a new Khan, and the new leader (Kublai, who you might remember from the poem about Xanadu or Marco Polo's stories) wasn't as interested in world conquest as his predecessors. The Mongols were never defeated, they just went home.
The Key Role of Impurities in Ancient Damascus Steel Blades
Now we can re-create the legendary Masumune Sword.
I am Jack's HTTP Server
Shaving razors that can give you that oh so smooth skin ...
What was that I just dra...
Check out the following link. It also has some images of their reconstructed sword blades: http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/9809/Verhoeve n-9809.html
Etymology from the OED, which sort of supports your statement...
Goat se# i mean.. goat silk is cooler!
http://www.machinedesign2.com/turnstyle.php?ID=971
this came from a newsletter they put out when this originally came out.
when they ban enctryption only criminals wi$21*J *#JF$%!@#$':
The Key Role of Impurities in Ancient Damascus Steel Blades
Those camping bastards. Grrr.
Woot w00t w007.
How can a 600 (or more) year old material be patented? Even assuming that the patent only covers the method used to create the steel, how is the re-discovery of a 600 year old method of steel producton patentable?
Come test your mettle in the world of Alter Aeon!
Machine Design ran an article on this last year, and they generously provide it online in PDF format, with purty pictures and all (though they are a bit low-res). Go to www.machinedesign.com and search for "damascus" for the link. Now if only every publication were as thoughtful...
The cast metal-swords are thus a bit more flexible, but that's not a major problem. The big advantage is that it is less brittle, so the blade won't break as fast in battle.
You mean like these? http://www.fremlinsforgery.com/damascus.html
There's tons of places out there selling something they are at least CALLING damascus (dunno all the details)...which is really cool looking btw. It's been around for ages...custom knife makers/sword makers etc. use it for ornamental work. Seriously...search google...there's tons of it.
Excellent post, too bad you were AC'ing and didn't pick up some nice karma.
The recent work, which has been going on for a few years, involved looking at original peices of that type of Damascus steel, examining the structure, then working out a technique to duplicate it.
C'mon you guys... get real. The art of making damascus steel was never lost... it's simply a matter of forge welding two or more different kinds od steel in a laminate. Simple stuff. Actually you can use nickle instead of one of the different steels... or iron. You can buy it ready made or you can do it yourself and always have been able to. It might interest computer nerds to know that Danascus steel had really very little to do with Damascus.It was a laminate composed of iron and high carbon steel and it was the high carbon steel that was the ingredient that made it so valuable. The High carbon steel was made in India in clay crucibles. The method was simple. Put raw iron and some charcoal in a clay crucible with a small vent in the top and melt it. The iron absorbed some of the carbon (charcoal) and voila... carbon steel. This was called Wooten steel as I recall, after the Indian family that had discovered the process. For years it was a family secret. Arab traders bought it in India and transported it to Damascus which was at the time the largest market, where it was sold for an equivalent weight in gold. The source was kept secret by the traders. Kinda like microsoft.. Thus the assumption that it was made in Damascus. The carbon steel was brittle because of the high carbon content so it was laminated with iron. Iron gave it toughness and resilance and the carbon steel gave it a hard cutting edge. Because it is composed of two or more different hardnesses the edge of a Damascus blade is microscopically serrated which allows it to outcut a conventional blade 4 to 1. There any number of bladesmiths making Damascus blades today. Some of the magical blades of the past (Excalibur) are reckoned to have been forge welded from iron and meteorite nickle from whence came their mystical properties. Forge welding has been around since man discoverd fire and metal. Pick up any Knife magazine and you will find that probably half the blades are so called Damascus. The beauty lies in the pattern. After the first several layers are laminated they can be twisted, cut and rewelded a number of times. Beautiful patterns can be created. When the blade is finished it is usually soaked in a weak acid solution. The acid eats away one of the laminates more easily than the other, enhancing the pattern. Another example of forge welding is Damascus gun barrels which were still in fashion at the turn of the last century when black powder was still in vogue. These were made by forge welding.strips of steel around a round mandril. They too were commonly etched with acid to enhance the spiral pattern. Usually they were browned instead of blued. I hunted with a shotgun with Damascus barrels 50 years ago when I was a kid. Beautifull gun. Unfortunately the increased pressures developed by modern powders ocassionally caused the barrels to unlay with scary results. The rediscovery of Damascus steel is comparable to Microsoft rediscovering the internet. In other words it's bullshit. Sounds like another patent scam to me.
Unfortunately, it costs US $5.00. Good thing I have my tree-killing version. Go to http://www.sciamarchive.com and search for it. The Mystery of Damascus Blades from the January, 2001 issue.
Say what? I seem to remember being able to buy Damascus knives at various shows. Granted, they're horribly expensive. I don't think the art has ever been really lost. It's just labor intensive, and not very useful technology unless you need a sword. I've had sword-maker/blacksmith friends that have worked on damascus blades (knives only due to cost). Interesting article, but they've just been playing games with their sponsors money. This isn't about rediscovering a lost technology, it's about a couple of sword-maker neophites figuring it out for themselves.
it's been at least 75 years (more or less, I'm a bit lost on patent laws)
it should be part of the public domain.
No, but there are enough lawyers in Washington DC. 70% of the worlds lawyers infest the United States. That would be a good start.
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2
Machine Design Magazine did a story on this a few months back. It's up on their web page at http://www.machinedesign2.com/turnstyle.php?ID=971 . Also see that it won several awards.
when they ban enctryption only criminals wi$21*J *#JF$%!@#$':
Eh?
the sword you're referring to is probably a wakazashi, identical to a katana in all but length and (usually) quality.
the samurai class of ancient japan were the only ones allowed by feudal law to wear the katana, but there was no law dictating that a wakazashi could not be made using the exact same metallurgical methods as a katana was, and in fact with the more wealthy owners this was often the case.
It was certainly the case in the instance of actual samurai weilding the wakazashi and katana as twin weapons, a shattering wakazashi would be useless.
Personally I use dual katanas due to the extended reach and interchangability of the techniques from left preferred to right preferred, but this is extremely unusual and historically speaking I know of no other examples of it, so it is without a doubt that the wakazashi was often tempered in much the same way as the katana.
It's actually pretty important, if no other reason than perspective, to understand how ancient civilizations used the materials around them to fashion tools and weapons. It gives us insight into how some societies rose to the level of empires and how they were in turn toppled. It gives us insight to the level of technological advancement that we, as modern people, often assume is very primitive. Let us not forget that we still aren't positive how Stonehinge, the great Pyramids of Egypt or the Easter Island statues got to where they are, and those structures were all placed by ancient people.
;)
Plus, you may not need a sword now, but what about when the government takes away your guns, Microsoft takes away your privacy and the DMCA takes away your ability to pirate without being thrown in jail?
"Quickly, my sword!"
My sigs always suck.
Here is a very in depth article about this whole thing:e n-9809.html
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/9809/Verhoev
Quite the interesting read
Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Muslims have seen many rewards from their love and pursiut of science, the"unflinching adherance to ancient religious law" you talk about is a misguidend CNN/hardcopy view of the orient that is highly prevalent and highly distorted.
While it may be true that many parts of the muslim world today are in shambles, Afghanistan's taliban, etc. This is not indicative of a falure in the religion, or of adherance to religion. Anyone with a rudementry understanding of Islamic law, or the Quran can point out the contradictions between Islam, and what is being implemented in Afghanistan.
Last, the "ancient religious law" you speak of is nothing of the sort. Islam has one of the most coherent and highly developed systems of law. Islamic law, and jurrice prudence has heavily influened the west. Concepts such as social justice, public utility, womens equity, equity, and tolerance were all popularized by muslims.
a Damascus katana. That would be the finest blade type weapon ever.
Wouldn't it just be easier to use a laser to cut the silk scarf? It'd look cooler too. Ninjas with Damscus steel blades are nowhere near as cool as Ninja with Lasers.
Erik
"You," Bite me.
"Each and every one of you." Bite me.
I was under the impression that forged steel was better and stronger than cast steel. Supposedly, a firearm with a forged receiver/frame can be smaller and lighter than a similar firearm with a cast receiver/frame. The cast steel firearm is supposed to be less expensive to fabricate. Is this all gun owner's folklore?
Aside from developping better steel than the rest of the world, the Arabs also developped the technique of pouring molten steel into a mould to cast blades and other items out of steel. This produced much better quality swords than europeans who were using only the old "heat up a chunk of metal and pound it with a hammer" technique - because it doesn't induce all the metal fatigue of pounding, or something like that.
Anyway, the latin word caliber was a latinized form of the arabic name for the moulds used ( yes this is where we get our word 'caliber' to describe the size of bullets ). So a sword which was taken out of such a mould would be ex caliber ( out of a caliber ), hence the name of King Arthur's famous sword excaliber and why it was so much more powerful than all the other swords of the time.
There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie -Noel Godin
Sorry, but I was subjected to a number of info-mercials this weekend and this copy reads just like it...
It slices, it dices, it purees european knights at the flick of a wrist! How much would you pack for this? But wait! Act now and we'll throw in this handsome silk scarf! All for only 6 easy monthly payments of $19.95 Have your credit card handy and call 1-888-555-1234! Don't wait another minute! Buyers who contact us within the next 10 minutes will also receive this book: Greek Fire Made E-Z
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
To add to what you said:
That's exactly the purpose of patents, and it's very valuable.
What pisses people off is stuff like Amazon's one-click patent, which is should have been denied as 'obvious to a practitioner in the field'. Amazon's real achivement that enabled one-click was to gain their customers' trust to allow them to keep credit cards on file, not any technical advance.
The PTO has been way too liberal with technology patent of late, but don't forget the true purpose of the system is to encourage private investment in R&D.
For hundreds of years, some of the keenest minds in science sought in vain to tap the secret of how blacksmiths in ancient India and the Middle East fashioned a supremely tough metal known as Damascus steel.
[snip]
Although Verhoeven and Pendray have patented their technique...
Can you say Prior Art?
Buy Hex-Rated Stuff, fight the DMCA!
Who moderated that as insightful? Has /. suddenly become a haven for pre-Renaissance historians? Or is this just a symptom of False Authority Syndrome
Special Relativity: The person in the other queue thinks yours is moving faster.
Make one like this and I will go nuts.
. htm
For the paranoid: http://www.dplanet.ch/users/firehand/steve/dblade
Of course, Taco, had you read the Gunnm(battle angel) manga, you would want one as well!
Imagine a beowulf cluster of those...
Damascus Steel in fact was never lost, at least in Soviet Russia. Several articles But in the west, it might not be taught in metalurgy classes. There is this article found on the net from 1994 where someone had "rediscovered" the secret back in 1981, with the development of "ultrahigh carbon steels". I also recall an old Scientific american article from the 1980s (?) which went into the making of Dasmacus Steel So I imagine that the secret has been rediscovered several times over the past 20 years, There is more on this from another source here and also here. Other resources are here on the Materials Science and Engineering newsletter. I see that that the people in the article are right now looking to put a patent on it. They won't be able to get a pattent if it was already developed in recent history.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
...now I'll say it a (++cur_aleph)th time: People, this is why we need patents!
Do you know why "this technology has been lost for about 200 years"? Because it was a trade secret, that's why.
The ancient Islamic warriors couldn't rely on patent law to protect them, so they kept the method a trade secret.
Result? It dies with them.
Imagine if ancient Islamic Generals had discovered RSA encryption, but, because they couldn't threaten their enemies with lawsuits if they refused not to use it themselves, they had to keep it a secret.
Result? It's never publicly published, and for hundreds of years we end up having to rely on ROT-x. (--and even that wasn't invented until Caesar's time). Ratio today of ROT-13 aware browsers/newsreaders to PGP/GPG aware browsers/newsreaders? 10:1. That's what happens when you don't publish. That's what happens when you keep it a secret. The world needs to rediscover RSA all over again -- even if it takes millennia.
So the next time you curse the cease-and-desist letter you get from EvilCo about your opensource program PROG_TO_KILL, module MODULE_TO_KILL, lines 1324-6 and 2357-3, because, well, those mathematical operations done in that order are covered under their patents number BIGNUM and BIGNUM + SMALLNUM, which won't expire until LATER and STILL_LATER, just say to yourself:
"It's okay. I should be happy there are patents. If there weren't, the computer would still be proprietary, a closely guarded trade secret. And where does that leave my prissy "open-source! free the information! it wants to be free! it has a right to be free!" ass now, huh? No-where, that's where."
Come on, people, how hard is it? I'm really appalled by the ignorance I see here sometimes.
I'm not a lawyer, but I like acting really pissed off and even appalled at the ignorance I see here sometimes, at all these crackpot morons who haven't even studied eight credit's worth of IP law. Yeesh. The ignorance!
That wasn't flint, that was obsidian, a volcanic glass which can hold a very sharp edge. I seem to recall that someone manufactures surgical scalpels with obsidian blades.
It's true that many people believe in evolution out of what amounts to faith. But despite your implication to the contrary, this has no bearing on its validity.
In fact they missed the "rational" revolution, although they had very brilliant scholars like Avicennes, Averoes et al, who began to laid it's foundation but never crossed the boundaries. The reason was that it was not conceivable to say that things may have a rational explanation and not simply made by god's will, this was perceived as a form of apostasy could lead you death sentence and still in many countries. This has not been simple in Christian countries too, remember Galileo and Jordano Bruno.
Please note, by the way, the "legends and myths" remark above: swords can't actually cut falling scarves, even good ones, no matter what you saw in the "The Bodyguard". (Now, if you swing the sword, no problem.)
So... were they able to "slice a falling silk scarf in midair" with their new blades?
Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com
...can you hear it? That's the sound of a few thousand rabid Highlander fanatics drooling over their own piece-together Damascus-steel Kurgan sword.
Or, for the ladies, a Damascus-steel Xena death-frisbee.
Robotiq.com is heavily tested on animals
The art hasn't been lost for that long, it was last "found" in the 1940s. The Nazis had an artisan that produced ceremonial daggers, for high-ranking officials, of Damascus steel. Granted, I never saw any swords made, but I have personally seen two of the daggers. They had the very distinctive pattern created by folding and pounding out different layers of steel repeatedly, and then etching.
If you are interested, you can read Verhoeven's paper here. Apparently, it was published in 1998!
--
Error 500: Internal sig error
The question was: "Find me an amateur physicist, or mathematician, or chemist who's made a major discovery in the past 50 years"
The kid's discovery hardly qualifies as major.
This link gives a little more detail and some graphics: http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/9809/Verhoeve n-9809.html
I certainly encountered more than my fair share of professors in undergrad and in grad school who had tenure and all kinds of honors, but didn't understand how a real computer works. Case in point: Algorithm analysis. We analyze the performance of algorithms based on a model where every memory access can take the same amount of time. But anyone who understands modern virtual memory knows that's not the case. And it turns out that although that won't take an algorithm in polynomial time and move it into exponential time, an algorithm that on the surface is O(N^3) can actually be O(N^5) (according to one of the examples Larry Carter at the University of California-San Diego gave in a lecture).
In academia, people write papers on doing nifty things, while in the real world, people actually do them. It's kind of like the article below where a CS professor writes about DOOM and it becomes clear (at least to me) that he doesn't really know the first thing about what John C. actually does.
I'm not pissing on degrees; I certainly recognize the value of my degrees now that I have a job. But it took me a while to un-learn the habit I'd acquired in grad school of thinking ideas into the ground without actually doing anything with them. For a while I had to force myself to just DO things and worry about whether I was doing them "right" later. Only then did the education start to prove its worth.
I think it's common to think that people with Ph.D.'s are brilliant. They may be smarter than average, but getting a Ph.D. is more a matter of working VERY hard towards a goal than it is about being a genius.
Now, of course, there is only one. But before we get too full of ourselves and assume we'll remain the world's most dominant force forever, consider that our bizarre unflinching adherance to ancient religious law rivals that of fundamentalist Islams .
... we still fight over the teaching of evolution because so many Americans have a bizarre
...
Let's see
unflinching adherance to a literal belief in Genesis. That's not the whole story but it's not a bad place to start
You conveniently left out that the fight, by some, is to INCLUDE the teaching of evolution.
You make it sound as though we are fighting for the right to teach science -- it's the other way around. People are fighting to teach non-science, and losing!
"And like that
The solution? "You heat it up really hot and beat on it really hard," Verhoeven said.
This works for computers too!
So, like, this guy in a Honda Accord misses his exit, and stops dead on the freeway. Now, in most big cities, if you maintain a proper following distance while driving, you get cut off by people who see it as an opening into the lane. So I was closer to Accord than I should have been - a one second following distance.
I sullied my *perfect* driving record by using my 1976 Dodge Ram pickup truck to push his taillights into his back seat. As a result, I got to spend all of Sunday panel beating.
Rule number one in metallurgy: They don't make 'em like they used to.
Rule number two: 1/4" thick plate steel frame rails, with sufficient velocity and inertia, will cut through the rear end of a modern car like a hot knife through warm butter.
Rule number three: When you've dented a piece of steel, you've stretched the metal around it. In order to be able to beat it back into submission, the panel's affected area should be rested on a canvas bag filled with sand. A blowtorch should be used to heat the dented area, and a shrinking hammer (which looks like an iron version of a meat tenderizer) gets used on the hidden side of the panel.
Rule number four: While it looks and sounds easy, you quickly gain an appreciation for the artisanship of an old-school auto body man or a blacksmith and after you've managed to make the fender look like it's got the mumps, you realize it's about time to stop wasting blowtorch propane and knuckleskin and buy the $72.99 new reproduction fender you find online. Because it isn't easy. In fact, it's about as difficult as locking down a Windows 2000 box well enough to make it suitable for a production environment.
My kudos to anyone who is a blacksmith. It's an art.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
As a long-term sword collector and person interested in metallurgy, that article is a mixture of silly mysticism and legends and pure posturing. Read the SciAm article, or other serious discussions of the topic. Much of what's in the article is long-debunked myth and legend. There've also been good articles in the Japanese Sword Society journal.
The claims for the properties of Damascus steel are overblown. It's the search for the "lost secret" again; a classic story (or more to the point legend). They were good. Very good compared to Western European blades of the day. But not magical. In metallurgic terms they had a very interesting microstructure, but metallurgically good japanese swords were superior. Both, however, where the best of their part of the world, and both designed for their specific uses in warfare.
the damascus shit you buy in knife mags are made using a different technique than the damascus blades of lore. the scientist and blacksmith rediscovered the lost technique, which is apparently superior to the one thats been used to make current damascus blades.
Evidently, you don't have the minimal intelligence required to read the fucking article before posting and making a boob of yourself.
"The original artisans did not leave complete instructions for making their steel, and the few written formulas are less than helpful. Some advise quenching the red-hot blade in the urine of a red-haired boy or of a goat fed nothing but ferns. Another text suggests driving the sword into the belly of a muscular slave." ROFL how about driving it into the belly of a skinny Bill Gates "It crashed again , Bitch !!"
If you don't respond to his posts he will eventually disappear like every other Troll. By responding you are just feeding him and making him continue. Ignore him and he'll be gone like the Pancake Ninja, Hot Grits and Natalie Portman trolls.
Just because something is irreducibly complex, doesn't mean it couldn't have evolved. I wish I could find the beautiful critique I read of Behe but I can't. The best way I can think to explain it is if you looked at two cards balanced against each other, you would say "that's irreducibly complex"(i.e. neither card could stand on it's own). But what if originally there was third object, that the two cards could balance against. Then, once the two cards were in place, you could remove the object and you've got irreducible complexity.
The metaphor here is that the cards represent some irreducibly complex system(something that, before all the pieces are in place, is useless), and the third object is something that was already there serving a different purpose.
And I wish I could elaborate further, but I'm about to be hit by lightning.
well if you're not one such lunatic, you'd be the first non-biblethumper I've ever heard talking about a young earth.
Nothing in science is ever proven and I wish some people would get that through their skulls. But considering that when we see a star explode we're getting a live look at an event which took place millions or billions of years in the past, it makes sense that the theories taught today (big bang and the like) are the most widely accepted.
Nice derivation, particularly given one of Arthur's lines in the legend snip reproduced above. However, the probable derivation for Sir Thomas Mallore's latin Excalibure is a pun: the Cornish and Welsh texts he was plagiarising use the word 'Caliburn', pronounced almost exactly like Galadriel's husband's name. It is thought that he was trying to be funny.
~cHrisActually, there are a very large number of people that advocate teaching the biblical account of Creation in schools. (And in fact, many of us are more than willing to pay $15,000 a year for private school to make sure it gets taught!)
There are indeed very good scientific reasons to consider young earth or catastrophism theories as scientifically valid. I also usge you to open your mind a little, if you're really not afraid of what you'll find. In fact, if one takes an objective look at the data, it quickly becomes obvious that Darwinian evolution is built on some of the worst "science" ever to walk under that banner. Whether you are for or against evolution, you owe it to yourself to understand some of the real scientific problems raised by the current evolutionary dogma. For a very fair assessment of how science undermines rather than supports evolution, I suggest uber-hacker Do-While Jones' excellent site devoted to the subject: www.scienceagainstevolution.org - you'll find a ton of mostly excellent articles that raise important issues in the archives of Disclosure, their monthly newsletter. Spend some time reading these - I particularly recommen Teenage Mutant Mammal Turtles, Let's Talk About Lucy, and the series on radiocarbon/radioactive dating methods. I think you'll be surprised...
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last