Old Damascus steel knives part 2

Swords

A major problem in conducting scientific experiments on Damascus wootz steel is the inability to obtain samples for study. Such a study requires that the blades can cut into sections for microscopic examination, and small amounts must be sacrificed for destructive chemical analysis. A rare example where museum-quality Damascus Wootz blades were donated to science was reported in the 1924 document by Zschokke. A famous explorer and collector, Henri Moser studied, amassed a collection of some 2,000 sheets of Damascene and He donated two daggers and four swords to Zschokke for study. The Moser collection is now displayed in the Historical Museum of Bern, in Switzerland, and the remaining pieces of the four swords of the Zschokke studio remain there. Recently, Ernst J. Kläy of the Bern Museum donated a small sample of each sword for further study that was carried out.
This article presents the results of a study of these four samples. In addition, four additional Wootz Damascus sheets, all thought to be a few hundred years old, have been purchased and are included. Therefore, all the blades studied here are more than two centuries old and were presumably made of Wootz steel. These leaves are known as authentic Wootz Damascus leaves to differentiate them from the reconstructed Wootz Damascus blades made by the technique developed by the authors.

Zschokke Swords

 Zschokke identified the four swords in his study as swords 7-10, and the same code is used here. The swords had an original width of around 30 mm. The samples provided were approximately 18 mm wide by 88 mm long and contained the cutting edge. The surface of the samples is refinished by polishing with fine SiC papers and then etching in ferric chloride. The contrast on the surface of the sample has been improved by the application of ferric chloride with repeated rubbing of a cloth.
The pieces are cut from one end of each of the samples with a fine diamond saw. A length of 2 cm was cut for the chemistry analysis studies, and a sample of length 8 mm was used for the analysis of the microstructure. Chemical analyzes were performed using emission spectroscopy on a calibrated machine at Nucor Steel Corporation.


Sword 8 is hypoeutectoid and, therefore, can not be a true Damascus Wootz steel, because such steels will not form Fe3C particles when cooling. Metallographic examination confirmed this expectation and revealed that the pattern of the surface seen in this sword   was due to ferrite bands in a perlite matrix. Therefore, this sword will not be considered to be an authentic sword of Damascus wootz in the following discussion.
 The surface micrographs and the cross sections of the three remaining swords are shown in  The micrographs of the surfaces are, in effect, conic sections across the bands observed in the micrographs of the section views, and, as it was expected, the widths of the bands expand in the surface views
 The three Damascus wootz spades all the spaced band screen in the range of 40-50 mm. Sword 7 contains graphite stringers not shown in the micrographs. Sword 10 contains a mixture of large and small particles in the bands. Sword 9 shows the most distinct bands in the micrographs and also appears to give the most attractive damascene pattern . The bands are the most distinct, because this sheet contains the smallest amount of particles that are between CFe3 the carbide strips. Interestingly, however, Zschokke classifies the damascene quality of the four swords and reports the 10th sword as "the most beautiful and the most precious of the four." Three other museum quality blades were sectioned, 8 and the carbide stripes look similar to Sword 9, being more distinct than in blades 7 and 10 and without the large particles of sword cementite 10.
Rockwell C hardness data were taken along the center line of the cross sections of all four swords in order to characterize more completely. A large variation in hardness was found . The hardness correlated with the micro structure of the matrix. The structure of the blade die was subjected to a transition from the pearlite in the fine tip to a divorced eutectoid ferrite + cementite at the fat end (thickness = 3-4 mm). These structures are consistent with recent kinetic studies of the eutectoid reaction in hypereutectoid steels. Studies show that in two-phase steels (+ Fe3C austenite), the divorced eutectoid transformation (TED) dominates at slow cooling rates and the reaction Perlite dominates at higher cooling speeds; the TED is favored as the density of the Fe3C particles in the austenite transformation increases. Therefore, the matrix microstructures indicate that the blades were with unbalanced perlite near the cutting edge of faster cooling cooled by air. The predominance of the DET matrix structure in swords 7 and 10 probably results from the greater amount of inter-band Fe3C present in these swords.
  
Note: This is part 2 in part 5 series.

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