Don't forget that there were also pattern-welded swords outside Europe
and western Asia. The "wood-grain" effect on some Indonesian blades was
achieved by laminating plain carbon steel (or iron) plates with plates
of nickel-iron alloys, folding multiple times, then forging to shape,
grinding, polishing and etching with acid fruit juices that darkened the
plain carbon steel layers. The nickel-iron alloy came from the smelting
of laterites that developed by the weathering of ultrabasic rocks
(dunites and peridotites) that are usually ophiolite complexes (slabs of
upper mantle that that been thrust up to the surface). There are large
exposures of nickel- bearing laterites in Indonesia and the Phillipines,
and these are assumed to have been smelted by bloomery processes to
produce the iron-nickel alloys used in these blades, of which the kris
(keris) is the best known.
Daniel Tokar wrote:
> Hello:
> I am metalsmith and forge patternwelded steel. 32 years of making
> things using all types of metal.
> You need to narrow your question. 40 generations of smiths in
> thousands of locations will not be using the same material or methods.
> Everything makes a difference, ore , flux , fuel, working methods. I
> can start with the same raw iron and end with very different results .
> Main reason you don't find swords made from homemade iron is the
> cost. A good patternwelded sword takes about 100 hours work to make
> {not using modern tools}, digging ore , making charcoal, running the
> bloomery, refining the raw iron, you can more than double that time.
> People like original methods, they just don't like paying for them.
> I am in the Eastern part of the U.S. , so anything made here is
> unlikely to match up with ores in Europe. Learning to forge would help
> you to understand the variables.
> Good Luck
> Daniel Tokar
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