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Sulaiman

Mon Nov 10 2014, 11:12PM

Registered Member #162 Joined: Mon Feb 13 2006, 10:25AM
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 3140

On a related subject,
when I lived in Malaysia I was shown Keris (short sword/dagger) that were made from
tahi bintang ... literally star shit ... meteorites.
Some meteorites make excellent weapon-metal.

Ash Small

Tue Nov 11 2014, 01:14AM

Registered Member #3414 Joined: Sun Nov 14 2010, 05:05PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4245

Sulaiman wrote ...

On a related subject,
when I lived in Malaysia I was shown Keris (short sword/dagger) that were made from
tahi bintang ... literally star shit ... meteorites.
Some meteorites make excellent weapon-metal.

Nickel-iron?.....everything decomposes to nickel and iron in the end, lighter elements fuse, and heavier elements fission.

Conundrum

Tue Nov 11 2014, 06:38PM

Registered Member #96 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:37PM
Location: CI, Earth
Posts: 4059

Heh.. "star shit" ..

That might be one way to get exotic metals without the needed high technology and it is also possible to use astronomy knowledge to correlate known meteor events with future ones so people can be sent on a meteorite hunting party (ie mid winter with frost on the ground)

Using lodestone + wood in a bowl as a very primitive compass would work as a lot of meteorites can be quite magnetic or at least deflect an existing magnetic field and thus detectable.

BigBad

Wed Nov 12 2014, 03:33AM

Registered Member #2529 Joined: Thu Dec 10 2009, 02:43AM
Location:
Posts: 600

Conundrum wrote ...

Seems that wootz steel in samauri swords uses nanovanadium which acts as a carbon nanotube formation catalyst.

Wootz steel wasn't used in samurai swords, it was used in Damascan steel and came from India.

I'm not sure about the carbon nanotube aspect.

Apparently it was probably lost simply because they ran out of ore, and even before that, the process is thought to have been terribly hit-and-miss. Among other things, the pattern doesn't develop at all until you grind and polish it.

It was certainly a good steel in its day, but modern steels outperform it. It's notable mostly for the pretty surface pattern and the historical interest.

Conundrum

Thu Nov 13 2014, 09:17AM

Registered Member #96 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:37PM
Location: CI, Earth
Posts: 4059

Perhaps the earlier comment re. lodestone could explain how the Nazca lines were made?
Take reading, make note of direction and repeat until crosspoint reached.
Simplez!

Andy

Fri Nov 14 2014, 08:35PM

Registered Member #4266 Joined: Fri Dec 16 2011, 03:15AM
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Posts: 874

Wootz steel , is just steel with two different layers of carbon content that is folder ed layer apon layer to make about 30 layers, one is flexible the other hard, a good property for a sword, and its got nothing to do with the chemical make up(just springle carbon on the layer that is meant to be hard, and hit with a hammer), just the kneeling process, shore they can make more extact mixtures now days, but the system to make the swords, was like the "huns" system to make there bows, with flexible outside and strong in the middle.

Ash Small

Fri Nov 14 2014, 08:58PM

Registered Member #3414 Joined: Sun Nov 14 2010, 05:05PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4245

Andy wrote ...

Wootz steel , is just steel with two different layers of carbon content that is folder ed layer apon layer to make about 30 layers, one is flexible the other hard, a good property for a sword, and its got nothing to do with the chemical make up(just springle carbon on the layer that is meant to be hard, and hit with a hammer), just the kneeling process, shore they can make more extact mixtures now days, but the system to make the swords, was like the "huns" system to make there bows, with flexible outside and strong in the middle.

I actually held a knife made in this manner ten years ago. It was made in Northern Europe somewhere (I forget exactly where) using a traditional process that was used by blacksmiths since, as far as I'm aware, the time of Thor himself.

It is repeatedly folded and hammered out flat, and, once sharpened, the 'veins' of carbon become visible as lines down the length of the blade.

The one I held had hundreds of these lines. It's placed back into the hearth regularly, to re-heat it, and each time it absorbs more carbon into the surface.

I also made some extremely hard steel in a 'puddle furnace' nearly 20 years ago, using very dry wood as fuel, with forced air from an old vacuum cleaner, blown down a length of scaffold tube. I cut some of the 'nuggets' in half with a grinder and polished them, and they never rusted, but they started off as rusty old nails and bolts. You could see 'nodules' of carbon in the polished surface.

You can't use coal or coke for this as there are too many impurities that adversely affect the steel (sulpher, phosphorous, etc.), apparently you should use charcoal, but the closest I had was some extremely dry, well seasoned (almost rotten) old wood. I got through loads of it in the process.

BigBad

Sat Nov 15 2014, 04:15AM

Registered Member #2529 Joined: Thu Dec 10 2009, 02:43AM
Location:
Posts: 600

Nope, true Wootz steel very probably wasn't made that way.

True Wootz steel was a hot-short ingot that they processed in a certain way, and if the conditions were right, a complex pattern formed on the surface after they polished it due to the crystal structure- that spontaneously formed.

IRC the different layers thing was used for Katana's and may also be used as a way of emulating the Wootz surface pattern.

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