Talk:Pattern welding

message: I have added a photo of my sword, showing the mokume-gane patten in the blade. Colorful pictures are always nice. Zaereth (talk) 22:18, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Photo 

message: In the History section we have the statement "The earliest known use of pattern welding in Europe is from an 8th century BCE sword" followed in the same section by "The technique first appeared about 300 BCE".  The intervening text meanders from Europe to Asia but the remainder of the second quotation places it back it Europe.  Things look a bit disjoint and contradictory, and with no references to support the History section I'm at a loss to sort out the apparent confusion. Can anyone help? -- Timberframe (talk) 14:59, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I will check my sources to see what I can find, but it may be a week or so. From what I recall, the earliest "steel" swords were actually forged from metorites, and produced very intricate crystaline patterns. After that came Wootz steel, a combination of wrought iron and pig iron, which was not steel in the modern sense, but combined the two irons in a laminated structure to utilize the extreme hardness of one, and the extreme softness of the other. This began to lead to the Damascus swords, which spread across China to Japan, and across Asia. It took a lot longer to come up with a good steel smelting process in Europe. Small quantities of steel were always a happy by product of smelting iron, and were often used to make such things as nails and small tools. These of course were forged together to make swords, which produced the "piled" structure common in the Merovingian blades. However, let me do some research to verify this information. Zaereth (talk) 16:36, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Heres a place to start Iron and steel in ancient times Vagn Fabritius Buchwald Published by Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, 2005 , 9788773043080. I've been looking at google books,this ones got good stuff on northern Europe.J8079s (talk) 02:21, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks! That looks like an excellent source. I'll read through that also, and see if together we can come up with a better time line. I think it's worthy to note that the smith was at the forefront of the ancient arms race, and every attempt was made to improve upon previous designs. It's almost impossible to classify any one technique to a particular area, but may be easier to understand where they originated, and how they spread and developed. Zaereth (talk) 23:03, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Here is another good source; The microstructure of steels and cast irons  Madeleine Durand-Charre Springer, 2004 , 9783540209638. Its got a great history section.J8079s (talk) 14:29, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. I'll check it out. It appears that from what I've been reading so far that the Europeans were creating swords in the Merovingian style long before Wootz steel was invented, but there was not much development afterward, until good steel making processes came about. It seems that in Europe, more attention was paid to getting and using the right kinds of steel. In Asia, more focus was paid to creating an internal structure that would make up the inferiority of the more common forms of iron. I'm still working on it, though, but my spare time is very limited here in the summer. Thanks for your help. Zaereth (talk) 06:52, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Earliest example