The (reported) trick to Wootz was the separation of high carbon crystaline > structures and milder steel. ... there > are a few folks who claim they figured it out on their own (mostly over in > Russia) in the last hundered years.
There was a write-up about 20 years ago in Scientific American about some Americans that stumbled onto how to make the stuff. It was extremely high carbon steel, somewhere around two percent, and a 15 hour high-heat soak. This gave an iron carbide lattice around ferrite cells. Then the material was forged (no hotter than red) to deform it at least eight to one. That gave it a ferrite body laced with carbide granules. And the classic 'watered' pattern.
-- Carl
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-- Carl West snipped-for-privacy@comcast.net
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