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Question about the 2,000 year old sword the smiths in India never let cool
I read in a metallurgy book that wootz crucible steel from India was slowly cooled over many hours instead of being quenched right away, and that slow cooling is what let the carbon form those patterns. Some guys I know say slow cooling makes soft steel and you have to quench for a hard edge, but the old blades clearly held up in battle for centuries. Do you all think we should be cooling our crucible steel slow like that, or is quenching still the right call for a working blade?
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ross.terry27d ago
Did you ever try forging a piece of that slow cooled steel and see how it moves under the hammer? I played with some wootz style stuff a few years back and the trick for me was slow cooling the puck, then forging it in a low heat range, then only hardening the very edge with a quick quench. The body stays soft and holds the pattern, the edge still gets hard enough to cut. If you quench the whole thing you lose the banding and it gets brittle, so it is not either or, it is both in the right spots.
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