EXPERIMENTS TO REPRODUCE THE PATTERN OF DAMASCUS STEEL BLADES

A brief review is presented of the microstructure of genuine Damascus blades and previous attempts to reproduce these blades in modern times. New experiments are presented that use two different methods to try to produce steel blades that match the surface patterns and microstructures of Damascus blades. The first method was designed after the proposed reconstruction of Wadsworth and Sherby. These experiments were not successful, and possible reasons for the lack of success are discussed. The second method utilized small steel ingots with compositions modeled after those of genuine blades. These ingots were extremely hot short and subject to graphitization during forging. Techniques were developed to overcome these problems, and the final forged blades show surface patterns and internal microstructures that closely match the genuine Damascus blades.