Dont know about chicken feathers... I bet the reason that this kind of steel wasn't so wide spread means that the resources wasn't all too common. If the main trick would be something that literally anybody can obtain, this steel would be spreading rapidly. By the way, the presence of nano-tubes was really interesting. You can check modern nanotubes for example here. Even today its kinda tricky material because they have great properties only as long as they are perfect. Misplace few atoms and the magic is gone.