I have questions about Steel and metallurgy in Europe. I have some knowledge about it; I think I need to touch this up more… I have gotten very rusty on this subject… ( :lol: rusty) :confused:

I know that the Europeans were very able to make spring steel or Harden steel for there Steel armors & I think swords as well. And that is VERY VERY strong… :)

But I would like to get more in depth in to Steel and metallurgy in Europe… :confused:

I keep hearing some people say that the Swords & steel in Asia is better then the Steel & swords from Europe… :confused: I have a hard time believing this; because looking on European arms & armor reading as well as seeing what they are & what they can do is amazing! For a example: I read that there are some 58 to 64 inches Zweihanders that were about 3.5 lbs!!! (Most were over 60 inches and are about 4 to 6 lbs) I think that Europeans did know how to make just as good or better steel…

And what about the folded steel technique in Europe, was it known as far back to the Romans? (I herd it was)

How good is the metallurgy in Europe? And how did they make steel and arms & armors… Also any Steel names? Like Nordic Steel (Romans had). Or Toledo steel?



Thanks! :D

This is a good start:

[ Linked Image ]
Sword Blade Hardness: the current research
An article by Craig Johnson

Wootz steel contained trace elements of all sorts of elements, just like modern alloys. The raw material was better, so the product would be better as well.

Spring steel is not made with soft (mild) steel, it is made with steel of a higher carbon content, annealed (heated and then cooled slowly to make it workable) and then re-tempered.

Wootz is a kind of steel developed in India and Sri Lanka about 300 BC. It would seem that smiths and smelters in this region had acquired knowledge about the production of iron and steel superior to that found in the Middle East and Europe during the middle ages. It has been suggested that the smelters in south India would smelt iron in crucibles, which was unknown anywhere else in the world at the time, and might have added glass and charcoal to it. Some have also suggested that they could have constructed a sort of blast furnace for steel production, using the monsoon winds to power it.

Wootz steel was widely exported and became famous in the Middle East for its resilience and ability to hold an edge when used to forge weapons. And from there, it was then exported to Europe. In the Middle East and Europe wootz steel was often called Damascus steel, and the swords made from were called Damascus blades. This is not to be confused with Damascened blades which simply means that the blade has been pattern welded. There may have been some confusion involved because wootz steel often takes on a wavy pattern somewhat similar to that produced by pattern welding.

Bert Hall's short article might be useful here:

http://www.the-orb.net/encyclop/culture/scitech/iron_steel.html

Sirs-Wootz steel was crucible steel smelted in a blast furnace in a sealed clay crucible with either mixed wrought iron and cast iron, or wrought iron and charcoal. Archaeologists have found the furnaces in southern India and China. China was first to do it as they had already invented blast furnace for their bronze founderys, India started alittle later.Unfortunately, I cannot persuade this page to add my attachments. Also, the Indians put glass in theirs as it made the remaining slag in the wrought iron float to the surface of the finished ignot to be removed.

There are some great material on Wootz online.

Here is a Primer to start:

Brief history of crucible damascus steel by Dr. Ann Feuerbach

The production of crucible Damascus steel by Dr. Ann Feuerbach

Dr. Feuerbach has done some very good work on this and detailed many of the newest finds in this area or research.

A wide ranging discussion on what advantages and disadvantages wootz brings to weapons True Combat Value of Wootz, this thread has several contributors with good knowledge and covers a lot of ground.

Best
Craig

Mr Johnson-Thank you for the citations, I'm going to spend alot of time with them.My Articles cover mostly the Han Chinese steel industry, ( I say industry as the Han Emperiors built a series of furnaces, each of whicch could pour 3000 pounds at a time,)at just ONE of their steelworks. Iron and steel belonged exclusively to the Imperial house. Other state in the area did not acquire the the knowledge untill after the Han collapsed around 220 AD, acccording to my understanding.

Sirs-I refer agan to The ARMA article "Fightbook Clues to the Quality and Build of Knightly Weapons." In this the author states that some german smithe Did know to mix carbonacious material with their ore when smelting, (basic wootz) and some smiths Did use salt baths, sal ammoniac to be exact ,to quench. The fightbooks referred to come from around 1400 if I remember rightly.Also, as I pointed out in an earlier post, the Han Chinese invented the crucible steel process. Unfortunately, I still cannot make this site post attachments so I can show you the pages I refer too.Alzheimers I guess, I'm 70.

Hi James

There are even earlier examples where the use of quenching to harden items is clearly described or seen. The article you mention is using several of the Fecht books in the Lichtenauer tradition to support a hypothesis of superior metallurgy in this period. The text that refers to some of the specifics you mention is NMS 3227a, this is a house book from the period that contains several sections on important information one might need in life. The actual specifics you reference may vary some from the particular translation used in the “Fightbook Clues” article.

What the manuscript clearly details is their understanding that iron/steel could be manipulated in its hardness via heat and time. They did not necessarily equate this to metallurgical principles or an understanding of the transformation in the material, but rather to the use of recipes made from local materials. These they surmised would impart qualities to the metal when applied correctly. This is the way a medieval person saw the world and interacted with it. It worked, as a trial and error process had created an empirically understood system that created the desired results.

To your specific mention of the use of sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride), it is the mineralogical form of ammonium chloride. In NMS 3227a it is actually an ingredient in the particular process to be used to soften a piece of metal. What we would call annealing today not quenching.

Best
Craig

Hi Craig-In one of my articles it states that the Chinese did not start to work Iron untill after the knowledge of the fact that iron was a usefull metal was spresd east of the Himalaya/Altai ranges by the central asian nomads around 700 BCE. The reason they jumped ahead so fast was that they had already independently invented the waterwheel/windmill driven blast furnace for their bronze foundries. By Han times they were using the puddling process and the Seiman-Martin process to make steel.. These were not invented in europe untill the 1800's The Han were also building blast furnaces that could turn out 3000 lb of steel at one pour.. Remenber classic Chinese civilization is about 3,000 years old or so.Kung-fu tse came along late in the game, he just codified the social and political rules. I really do wish I could show you some of this stuff,maybe I'll get the site to work some day.

Hi James

I in no way claim to have extensive knowledge of the Chinese industry. I do know they were great and early. If you have links to sites that have the info you can just type the urls in the text. Or send them to me via email and I can see if I can post them here for you.

Best
Craig

There's a little information about the Chinese process in Bert Hall's article, which I've linked to above--but I'm posting the link again here for the sake of convenience:

http://www.the-orb.net/encyclop/culture/scitech/iron_steel.html

Might help for more detailed keyword searches (try something like "Zhou dynasty metallurgy").