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A comment on The companies that bring us knife steel. Parent comment

Re:The companies that bring us knife steel by pjc50 on Thursday October 08, 2020 @08:11AM (#24718362)
There is a lot of mythology in this area about steel folding, which acts to even out the amount of carbon in the steel and remove impurities as slag. The corresponding Western process is "Damascus steel" and you can still get decorative "damascening" (which is often just faked on the surface).

The blog I would refer people to is https://acoup.blog/2020/10/02/collections-iron-how-did-they-... (in general as well as that post); I don't think they've covered katanas specifically but they are great on detail.

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Re:The companies that bring us knife steel by Raphmedia on Thursday October 08, 2020 @09:29AM (#24718917)
You can get actual Damascus items too, not merely the cheap decorative version.

For example, there is this smithy that is local to me: https://www.darksword-armory.com/medieval-weapons/elite-seri...

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Re:The companies that bring us knife steel by antiterra on Thursday October 08, 2020 @09:44AM (#24719043)
From your link:

> also known as pattern welded steel swords

Pattern welded steel is not the same thing as the ‘original’ Damascus steel from 1000+ years ago.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wootz_steel

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Re:The companies that bring us knife steel by Raphmedia on Thursday October 08, 2020 @11:48AM (#24720246)
In that sense, I agree. I mainly wanted to highlight that there are "Damascus"-style products that are more than regular steel with laser etched patterns.
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Re:The companies that bring us knife steel by btreecat on Thursday October 08, 2020 @09:55AM (#24719114)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel
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Re:The companies that bring us knife steel by readams on Thursday October 08, 2020 @09:48AM (#24719067)
Nobody makes actual Damascus steel. Layering multiple steels and forge welding them is not how Damascus steel was made.
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Re:The companies that bring us knife steel by Raphmedia on Thursday October 08, 2020 @11:47AM (#24720235)
In that sense, I agree. I mainly wanted to highlight that there are "Damascus"-style products that are more than regular steel with laser etched patterns.
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