Latest / Stuff You Should Know / The Mystery of Damascus Steel

Transcript

The Mystery of Damascus Steel · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
0:13
Speaker 1: There's the beautiful and illustrious Charles W. Chuck Bryant right there,
0:18
Speaker 1: and there's the equally awesome Jerry Droom Rowland right here
0:22
Speaker 1: to my right, about to chow down on some stuff
0:25
Speaker 1: for lunch. You were just cussing her out before we
0:27
Speaker 1: hit record. What are you talking about? And this is
0:30
Speaker 1: stuff you should know? That's right, the Disordered Edition. Uh yeah,
0:36
Speaker 1: this was a bit of a mess about Damascus Steel.
0:39
Speaker 1: It's just my favorite American gladiator. Oh that's a good one, Chuck,
0:43
Speaker 1: pretty good. Yeah, that was great. It's all I could
0:45
Speaker 1: think about was that off the cuff. Okay, it's off
0:51
Speaker 1: the cuff in that. I thought about it five minutes
0:53
Speaker 1: before we came in here. It's still counts. It's good. Well,
0:57
Speaker 1: it wasn't a real character, right, This is a joke. No,
0:59
Speaker 1: but it sounds like it does. Okay. I wanted to
1:01
Speaker 1: make sure we're on the same page. I also wanted
1:02
Speaker 1: to take your joke and mash it into pieces. Good job,
1:06
Speaker 1: Thank you. So um, we're talking today about Damascus Steel,
1:09
Speaker 1: which I was perfectly aware of before this, but I
1:12
Speaker 1: didn't know at all by any stretch. And what it
1:15
Speaker 1: turns out that apparently a lot of people who write
1:17
Speaker 1: about Domescus steel don't know, is that there was a
1:22
Speaker 1: metal metallurgical mystery that developed over time that was only
1:27
Speaker 1: solved in the nineties that other people, yes exactly, thank you,
1:32
Speaker 1: that other people have you know, tried and maybe somewhat
1:35
Speaker 1: contributed to. And now, finally, thanks to the um the
1:40
Speaker 1: efforts of these metall aregists who really got involved and
1:43
Speaker 1: tried to figure this out, this mystery has been solved.
1:46
Speaker 1: But it's possible that had they really not taken up
1:49
Speaker 1: this this gauntlet and tried to figure out what was
1:52
Speaker 1: Damascus steel, we might never have known, because even if
1:56
Speaker 1: you rewind all the way back two thousand years ago
1:58
Speaker 1: when Damascus steel was started in production, they had no
2:02
Speaker 1: idea what Damascus steel was. Either. No, it's kind of
2:05
Speaker 1: an accidental find. Uh. If you look up Damascus steel
2:10
Speaker 1: on a picture viewer on the Internet, you will probably say, oh,
2:15
Speaker 1: it's like those cool swords or knives or guns that
2:20
Speaker 1: have that cool like wavy watery etching on them, like
2:25
Speaker 1: Game of Thrones. Even talks about Damascus steel, and or
2:30
Speaker 1: or if you're an interior designer and you're like, I've
2:32
Speaker 1: never seen a sword. It's like the damask material that
2:35
Speaker 1: sometimes people used for window treatments. That pattern is the same. Yeah,
2:39
Speaker 1: and that spelled D A M A S K. Yes.
2:42
Speaker 1: But it is based on that yes, exactly, um, and
2:46
Speaker 1: it is gorgeous stuff. Like if you see a if
2:48
Speaker 1: you're a knife collector or whatever, and you collect like
2:50
Speaker 1: a new knife that says Damascus steel, or a gun
2:53
Speaker 1: that has a cool pattern. That is what we're gonna
2:56
Speaker 1: refer to as quote unquote Damascus steel. It is not
3:00
Speaker 1: the original, it's not the o G Damascus steel. It
3:03
Speaker 1: is something that people have learned to do these days
3:06
Speaker 1: to look like Damascus steel, and that itself, the technique
3:09
Speaker 1: they used from what I saw, was actually based on
3:11
Speaker 1: a pretty ancient technique as well. But it's still not
3:15
Speaker 1: Damascus steel now. And the reason why anybody would care
3:18
Speaker 1: about Damascus steel is not just the way it looked, right,
3:21
Speaker 1: which I think that if Damascus steel didn't have that
3:25
Speaker 1: very characteristic watery look to the to the steel, UM,
3:29
Speaker 1: I don't think people would have taken up that quest
3:31
Speaker 1: to recreate it. Yeah, I think that's really part of
3:35
Speaker 1: its a lure that drew the metal or just sin
3:37
Speaker 1: at least. Well, yeah, it's um, I mean we should
3:39
Speaker 1: go ahead and say the allurea is a few fold.
3:41
Speaker 1: It is super cool looking. Yeah, I can't deny it.
3:45
Speaker 1: I won't. But if it's super cool and like your
3:48
Speaker 1: sword breaks on some guy's suit of armor, he's not
3:51
Speaker 1: gonna be like that was a pretty cool story. I
3:53
Speaker 1: feel bad for you. Let's just call it even know
3:56
Speaker 1: you're dead meat. So uh, it is super super strong
4:00
Speaker 1: and super cool looking and very flexible for a metal.
4:05
Speaker 1: It's got all these cool properties kind of all wrapped
4:08
Speaker 1: up into one and it's it's like this super super
4:11
Speaker 1: steel super steel. That's exactly what it wasn't It was
4:14
Speaker 1: produced in the ancient world. We here in the modern
4:17
Speaker 1: world don't like to think of people in the ancient
4:19
Speaker 1: world having better steal than we have. Well they didn't really.
4:23
Speaker 1: I mean, supposedly modern steel is better than even O G. Damascus.
4:27
Speaker 1: Think supposedly is the operative word. So um. But there
4:31
Speaker 1: was a period in time from at least I think
4:35
Speaker 1: the first mentioned in the West that we are aware
4:37
Speaker 1: of comes from like the third or fourth century b c.
4:41
Speaker 1: Where the Greeks, I think Alexander the Great is basically
4:44
Speaker 1: like this stuff is awesome. Yeah, um, And so it
4:47
Speaker 1: was well known by that time, you know, more than
4:50
Speaker 1: two thousand years ago for being the steel you wanted
4:53
Speaker 1: to use if you were creating a weapon. Yeah. And
4:56
Speaker 1: you know, let's go back in time a bit. If
4:58
Speaker 1: you're a swordmaker couple of thousand years ago, you've got
5:02
Speaker 1: your work cut out for you because you don't really
5:05
Speaker 1: know what you're doing yet, Like you don't know what
5:07
Speaker 1: kind of of metal that you're getting. And if you
5:10
Speaker 1: get some iron, iron is going to have other properties
5:13
Speaker 1: in there. But you just kind of have what you have.
5:16
Speaker 1: And the R and D process. If you imagine how
5:18
Speaker 1: long it takes to forge a sword. Then you go
5:21
Speaker 1: out there and swing it and it breaks, You're like,
5:24
Speaker 1: all right, let me try again, but maybe let me
5:27
Speaker 1: try a different uh type of or or different type
5:30
Speaker 1: of iron. And swords are long and their thin, and
5:33
Speaker 1: it's just the very nature of making a broadsword is
5:37
Speaker 1: really difficult. To make it super strong and sharp and
5:41
Speaker 1: all the things that you like not so heavy that
5:43
Speaker 1: you can't even carry it. So they were sort of
5:47
Speaker 1: I mean they were brilliant in one sense that they
5:48
Speaker 1: were figuring this stuff out on the fly, but they
5:51
Speaker 1: were also just sort of victims of whatever materials they
5:55
Speaker 1: had available. So that's what makes Damascus steel so interesting
6:00
Speaker 1: to me is that it was a fluke of nature
6:03
Speaker 1: and it happened to be mined. As we'll see, it
6:06
Speaker 1: was a fluke of nature. It happened to be mine
6:07
Speaker 1: in this one area in South India. Um, and it
6:12
Speaker 1: just so happens that this particular iron ore that was
6:16
Speaker 1: being mined in the area made some of the finest
6:19
Speaker 1: steel the world's ever seen. Yeah. So they called it
6:23
Speaker 1: woots w O O t z steel. And like you said,
6:27
Speaker 1: it was mine near Hyderabad, India, into these two point
6:32
Speaker 1: three to two point five km cakes or ingots by
6:35
Speaker 1: the size of a hockey puck I saw. Yeah. So
6:37
Speaker 1: they would shift these things out and they were mining,
6:39
Speaker 1: and they didn't know like, hey, we've got this secret
6:42
Speaker 1: super metal that you know, no one is going to
6:45
Speaker 1: believe what we're sending them. They were just mining stuff
6:49
Speaker 1: and they sent a lot of this to Damascus in
6:52
Speaker 1: Syria and they made them into swords. And most people
6:55
Speaker 1: think that's probably where the name comes from. Even though
6:59
Speaker 1: some people do say the root word uh Damas and
7:02
Speaker 1: Arabic is watered. Oh, I didn't know that that could
7:06
Speaker 1: have been like one of the things. But my money
7:08
Speaker 1: is on the fact that they sent them to Damascus
7:10
Speaker 1: and the ship it makes sense. Yeah, I mean, I
7:12
Speaker 1: guess it depends on how old the city of Damascus is,
7:15
Speaker 1: but I get the impression it's pretty old. It's not young.
7:17
Speaker 1: But watery steel makes a lot of sense to for
7:20
Speaker 1: that particular type of steel. Maybe it was either way,
7:25
Speaker 1: it was very It was well known outside of the
7:27
Speaker 1: Middle East and West Asia and India um as like
7:33
Speaker 1: the go to steel. But at the time, like you
7:36
Speaker 1: were saying, they don't seem to have understood, um that
7:40
Speaker 1: what they had on their hands was just this incredibly
7:43
Speaker 1: high grade steel, just perfect steel for making weapons. I
7:47
Speaker 1: get the impression that the metal smith's tended to take
7:50
Speaker 1: all the credit for it, where in retrospect, you or
7:54
Speaker 1: I could have taken a lump of woots steel and
7:57
Speaker 1: just hammered it with our elbows, you know, would have
7:58
Speaker 1: turned into like a world class sword, you know, yeah,
8:01
Speaker 1: or at least something you could punch somebody, right, But
8:04
Speaker 1: the metal smith's over the years. Um, kind of circle
8:09
Speaker 1: the wagons and pretended like they had some great secret
8:11
Speaker 1: or technique and maybe even thought that they did. But really,
8:14
Speaker 1: as we'll see, the secret ingredients, we're all in the
8:17
Speaker 1: steel that was being mined from India. Yeah, but also
8:21
Speaker 1: in the technique, which we'll get to as well. But um,
8:24
Speaker 1: but I think that was happenstance more than yeah, then understood.
8:28
Speaker 1: I think, so we know that what they should have
8:30
Speaker 1: done to see if they had the good stuff. They
8:32
Speaker 1: should have dabbed their pinky and it touched it to
8:35
Speaker 1: their tongue, rob their gums with it. Yeah, that's how
8:38
Speaker 1: you know you got the good that's true. All right.
8:41
Speaker 1: So where were we We were in the Crusaders, right.
8:44
Speaker 1: The Crusaders get a hold of these things, and they
8:47
Speaker 1: kind of did what they wanted to do. Yeah, we
8:50
Speaker 1: should do an episode on the Crusades. No, okay, fair enough.
8:55
Speaker 1: I feel like we've talked about this before. Uh so
8:58
Speaker 1: this is the beginning of the eleventh century. They got
9:00
Speaker 1: these swords off the battlefield, and there's there's a lot
9:04
Speaker 1: of lower that surrounds this Damascus steel, like you could
9:08
Speaker 1: cut a silk scarf that was falling through the air.
9:11
Speaker 1: What about a feather, because you cut a feather, cut
9:13
Speaker 1: that feather right in half. What about a hair? You
9:15
Speaker 1: can split that hair right into my friend long ways?
9:19
Speaker 1: Oh I thought you just met No, I'm talking bugs
9:22
Speaker 1: bunny style. Yeah, you could split that hair. Um. But
9:25
Speaker 1: all this was lower. It was really good stuff. Nonetheless,
9:28
Speaker 1: but there are a lot of like you know, sort
9:29
Speaker 1: of ancient stories about the properties, like the magical properties
9:33
Speaker 1: of this steel. Right. Well, I saw one thing, though
9:36
Speaker 1: I don't think it has anything to do with magic,
9:38
Speaker 1: but I saw it from a metallurgy website. Somebody took
9:43
Speaker 1: a bunch of notes off I guess some lecture, and
9:45
Speaker 1: I'm not entirely certain what the lecture was, but it
9:48
Speaker 1: was pretty intense. But they said that this would cost
9:52
Speaker 1: about the equivalent of a car today. One of these swords,
9:55
Speaker 1: one of these weapons. So they were highly prized. So
9:58
Speaker 1: you can imagine the Crusaders coming back to Europe and saying, hey, smithie,
10:02
Speaker 1: um make me something like this. And from from what
10:07
Speaker 1: I understand, what the smith's came up with, because they
10:09
Speaker 1: were hamstrung by the iron that they had to work with,
10:15
Speaker 1: they came up with a different technique for creating a
10:18
Speaker 1: type of Damascus steel that isn't true Damascus steel, but
10:22
Speaker 1: became so widespread and basically all Europe had to offer
10:26
Speaker 1: that it became what's known as a type of Damascus
10:30
Speaker 1: steel pattern well to Damascus steel, right, and that is
10:34
Speaker 1: you know, it's still strong and it has that nice
10:37
Speaker 1: looking you know, watery uh etching or whatever. But it
10:43
Speaker 1: kept them from getting their heads cut off. Probably it
10:46
Speaker 1: was good enough, yeah, I would say, but it's off
10:48
Speaker 1: market Damascus steel. It's the knights of the round table
10:52
Speaker 1: of Damascus steel, you know what I mean? Sure, because
10:55
Speaker 1: it wasn't that woots. You gotta have that woots, right,
10:58
Speaker 1: But they didn't know that at the time. So because
11:01
Speaker 1: they were able to form that watery pattern from taking um,
11:05
Speaker 1: two different kinds of steel, that's what pattern well, the
11:09
Speaker 1: Damascus steel is made from use at least two different kinds,
11:12
Speaker 1: apparently ultimately for the color contrast. Because that creates that
11:18
Speaker 1: watery patterns, the two kinds of steel hammered into one another.
11:22
Speaker 1: That creates the pattern in in that type, which makes
11:26
Speaker 1: it not really true Damascus steel. If you have true
11:28
Speaker 1: Damascus steel, that pattern goes all the way through that
11:33
Speaker 1: that Damascus steel blade like you can, Yes, you can
11:36
Speaker 1: wear it down and wear it down until you make
11:39
Speaker 1: it through the other side. And that water patterns all
11:41
Speaker 1: the way through. See that is pretty cool, Like it's
11:43
Speaker 1: a part of the the or itself at that point.
11:46
Speaker 1: Absolutely that is what differentiates true Damascus steel from anything else.
11:51
Speaker 1: That's right, And boy, I can't wait to talk about
11:53
Speaker 1: that stuff at the end. How they figure this out?
11:54
Speaker 1: I know, I feel like we've been paying this out tantalizingly.
11:58
Speaker 1: All right, well, we'll take a break here and talk
12:00
Speaker 1: about some of the efforts over the years to try
12:03
Speaker 1: and figure out what this uh what the steel was?
12:05
Speaker 1: Right after this? Okay, chuck, this is going so well,
12:39
Speaker 1: by the way, Uh, should we tell people that we've
12:43
Speaker 1: had some technical difficulties as well? They're probably like, why
12:46
Speaker 1: is wrong with these Yeah, and we're kind of giggly
12:48
Speaker 1: and we're not drunk but dry. Didn't bring champagne today.
12:52
Speaker 1: Rare technical difficulties have causes to have to redo some stuff.
12:56
Speaker 1: We're just not used to that or not. Usually everything
12:59
Speaker 1: runs like a Swiss watch around here, Swiss army knife
13:04
Speaker 1: with the corkscrew outgoing right up our butts. That's more
13:07
Speaker 1: what it's like we gotta say that it's not Jerry's fault. No,
13:11
Speaker 1: we would never blame Jerry for something like somebody. It's
13:13
Speaker 1: like the three little pigs. Somebody has been sleeping in
13:15
Speaker 1: our bed, you know, that's what I blame. Somebody got
13:18
Speaker 1: in our studio and and touch some stuff. Yes, well,
13:21
Speaker 1: they're gonna be very surprised by the padlock that they
13:23
Speaker 1: encountered exactly. And you're like, and there's only one key,
13:27
Speaker 1: and I swallow, I'm gonna have to get it out
13:30
Speaker 1: with the Swiss Army corkscrew. Alright. So from the beginning
13:33
Speaker 1: they started to try and recreate this stuff. And you know,
13:36
Speaker 1: like I said, that was during the eleventh century, and
13:38
Speaker 1: then it just sort of that. It seems like it
13:41
Speaker 1: just continued on throughout the ages of people trying to
13:43
Speaker 1: recreate this. Yes, but at the same time, they were
13:46
Speaker 1: still able to keep making Damascus steel from India, the
13:50
Speaker 1: quote unquote Damascus steel up until depending on no, no,
13:53
Speaker 1: the real stuff. Oh yeah, because they had this ingod
13:55
Speaker 1: yes up until um and I think India was still
13:58
Speaker 1: producing it up until depending on you ask, either the
14:00
Speaker 1: eighteenth century or the nineteenth century, right, good point. And
14:03
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, Damascus steel just stops and
14:07
Speaker 1: all you have is the pattern. Well that you cannot
14:10
Speaker 1: find true Damascus steel anymore. And it was quite perplexing
14:16
Speaker 1: to a lot of people, it was. And they were
14:18
Speaker 1: making uh, they're making guns, gun barrels with the stuff.
14:22
Speaker 1: That's how long it continued. Yeah, And that's I think
14:25
Speaker 1: that's supposedly what supplanted Damascus steel in a lot of
14:28
Speaker 1: people's mind, because some people said they didn't even realize
14:32
Speaker 1: that there was a mystery to damascus stell. He just
14:34
Speaker 1: thought it had been supplanted by advances in steelmaking, so
14:38
Speaker 1: you didn't need Damascus steel anymore. And another explanation I
14:41
Speaker 1: saw was that Domascus steel is actually terrible for um
14:45
Speaker 1: rifling in the gun barrel because that watery pattern would
14:49
Speaker 1: actually hold onto the powder residue and that your gun
14:53
Speaker 1: would be likelier to backfire, but it would. It was
14:57
Speaker 1: actually very useful in that you could make a gun
15:00
Speaker 1: barrel which is long and narrow from this Damascus steel
15:03
Speaker 1: because that's the special kind of steel that stays strong
15:07
Speaker 1: even when you're elongating it, right, And I mean, let's
15:11
Speaker 1: be honest, the people wielding those guns were like, this
15:14
Speaker 1: is pretty boss. It is. But I also think, you know,
15:18
Speaker 1: if I'm on the battlefield, I want the guy who's
15:20
Speaker 1: just who only cares about the function of his gun,
15:24
Speaker 1: not the guy who's admiring what his gun looks like.
15:26
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, Like when you're walking through
15:28
Speaker 1: the old gun market, you want the guy that's like,
15:30
Speaker 1: she's ugly, but she shoots straight. That's right, Yes, the
15:34
Speaker 1: guy from Jaws. Is that Quint? Yeah? Uh so this
15:40
Speaker 1: one guy there was a Russian medal are just named
15:42
Speaker 1: p Anasoft and he thought that he had it all
15:47
Speaker 1: figured out. They called it. He called it blat. And
15:50
Speaker 1: he even said and no, in certain terms, our warriors
15:53
Speaker 1: will soon be armed with bulat blades. Are agricultural laborers
15:57
Speaker 1: will till the soil with bulat plows airs, Bulat will
16:01
Speaker 1: supersed all steel. And he didn't. It didn't work. He didn't, No,
16:07
Speaker 1: And he actually was part of this initial wave of scientists.
16:11
Speaker 1: I think as metallurgy was really developing, because we said,
16:14
Speaker 1: before the ancients had it was all just intuition and technique,
16:19
Speaker 1: and they knew what, you know, they were doing, but
16:22
Speaker 1: they also couldn't be like, oh, it's because of this
16:25
Speaker 1: that's happening on a microscopic level. Right, of course, they
16:28
Speaker 1: didn't have microscopes and no chemistry. You can thank Anto
16:32
Speaker 1: Van Levin Hook for that, that's right. Um. But as
16:37
Speaker 1: metallurgy started to develop, as science itself started to develop
16:40
Speaker 1: as a field, that was a sub discipline that really
16:42
Speaker 1: kind of came around. And one of the things they
16:44
Speaker 1: tried to figure out was what was the deal with
16:47
Speaker 1: Damascus steel. It was one of the first things they
16:49
Speaker 1: really applied their mind to. And um, Michael Faraday actually
16:53
Speaker 1: who is the guy who crosses over from this episode
16:56
Speaker 1: to the other one today. He was the son of
16:58
Speaker 1: a blacksmith, very him a scientist, the father of electricity. Um.
17:03
Speaker 1: He tried his hand at figuring out what Damascus steel was.
17:06
Speaker 1: And what everybody kind of had a suspicion was that
17:09
Speaker 1: the steel had more carbon than that your average steel,
17:12
Speaker 1: but there had to be some secret ingredient. And so
17:15
Speaker 1: it kind of became trendy in the first half of
17:18
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century among metal or just in just scientists
17:21
Speaker 1: in general to figure out what that secret third ingredient was. Yeah,
17:25
Speaker 1: and there were a lot of attempts I think in
17:27
Speaker 1: that UM. I think Faraday thought it might have been
17:30
Speaker 1: silica and aluminum or aluminium to him. Oh yeah. In
17:36
Speaker 1: the eighteen twenties, Jean Robert Brent at the Paris Meant
17:44
Speaker 1: did a six week study in the trial, and I
17:46
Speaker 1: think he did like three experiments he was trying to
17:49
Speaker 1: reproduce this woods unsuccessfully. I think he tried platinum, gold, silver, copper, tin, zinc, lead,
17:59
Speaker 1: this manganese he was close there, uranium, arsenic and boron,
18:04
Speaker 1: and then that Russian even tried diamond. Yes, it's like,
18:08
Speaker 1: let me throw some diamond in there and see what
18:10
Speaker 1: that does. Why not at this point, like I think
18:12
Speaker 1: somebody melted down a kitchen sink. And then the whole
18:16
Speaker 1: time they were like still hearing about this lore. Like
18:19
Speaker 1: I think by this point they didn't, you know, they
18:22
Speaker 1: knew if it came out of like these stories that
18:24
Speaker 1: came out of the Middle Ages certainly were not true.
18:26
Speaker 1: But there were stories about about cooling it in dragon's blood,
18:32
Speaker 1: about quenching it and dragon's blood liking when you cool
18:35
Speaker 1: it down or red medicine or green medicine is what
18:38
Speaker 1: they called it. There was also when I saw where
18:40
Speaker 1: you're supposed to quench it in the urine of a goat,
18:43
Speaker 1: that's been fed nothing but ferns for three days is real.
18:47
Speaker 1: It's real. I mean it's not real obviously, but no,
18:50
Speaker 1: but I can't tell if you're making it up. No, no, no,
18:52
Speaker 1: that I wish I were that clever. That was pretty good.
18:55
Speaker 1: That sounded like a you joke. Uh oh, a you joke. No, Okay,
19:02
Speaker 1: that's sheep. Right, Um, let me see. They had to
19:06
Speaker 1: have been heated until it glowed like the rising sun
19:09
Speaker 1: in the desert, and then cool to royal purple and
19:12
Speaker 1: plunge into the body of a muscular slave to transfer
19:16
Speaker 1: the strength of that person into the sword. So obviously,
19:20
Speaker 1: in the eighteen hundreds they know all of this is hogwash, right,
19:23
Speaker 1: But over the thousands of years that Domascus steel have
19:26
Speaker 1: been produced, like these are the lower that kind of
19:28
Speaker 1: developed around, right, Yeah, I mean, and they were. They
19:31
Speaker 1: wanted to keep this stuff a secret. That's one of
19:33
Speaker 1: the reasons. Aside from running out of that original woots.
19:37
Speaker 1: Another factor was the fact that they didn't, you know,
19:40
Speaker 1: spread this around. You wanted to if you if you
19:43
Speaker 1: knew something like this, you wanted to keep it in
19:45
Speaker 1: the family. I think, well that's what a lot of
19:47
Speaker 1: people thought. So so you have a whole like the
19:50
Speaker 1: whole world is just confused about Damascus Steel and and
19:54
Speaker 1: will be and was until this episode comes out where
19:57
Speaker 1: we finally explain the deal. But there were different camps
20:00
Speaker 1: running around, Like we said, some people were aware that
20:03
Speaker 1: Domeascus steel just wasn't around anymore, uh, and that something
20:06
Speaker 1: had happened. Other people just thought it was supplanted by
20:10
Speaker 1: increasingly better technology. Um so what other people thought, And
20:15
Speaker 1: the most interesting idea to me was that the smiths
20:19
Speaker 1: who created these these incredible blades, like you said, kept
20:23
Speaker 1: it in the family and then just some generation failed
20:27
Speaker 1: to tell the next generation. The secret was lost forever.
20:30
Speaker 1: And that is really like up the Damascus Steel alley
20:35
Speaker 1: that it shrouded in mystery and secrecy and magic and dragons,
20:39
Speaker 1: blood and furn eating goats that p all over the place,
20:43
Speaker 1: you know, And that's that's so it's really interesting. But
20:46
Speaker 1: no one knew exactly what was going on. They just
20:50
Speaker 1: knew that nobody was making true cast domestics Damascus steel anymore.
20:56
Speaker 1: Should we take another break? Alright, this third act, you guys,
21:00
Speaker 1: just get ready, it's gonna knock your socks off right
21:02
Speaker 1: after this. All right, So everyone's trying to make this stuff.
21:35
Speaker 1: Everyone's trying to recreate it. The answer is, uh, it's
21:40
Speaker 1: kind of right under their nose. But it's not because
21:43
Speaker 1: it's not under their nose because this stuff had been
21:45
Speaker 1: gone for a long time, dried up that woots, dried
21:50
Speaker 1: the w up and was was gone. Uh. And then
21:55
Speaker 1: I think it was when was this in the nineteen
21:59
Speaker 1: sixties that a guy named CS Smith and he was
22:03
Speaker 1: a medal or just the Chief Metal or just the
22:05
Speaker 1: Manhattan Project. He wrote a paper about Damascus steel and
22:09
Speaker 1: again this is the nineteen sixties, and and said this
22:12
Speaker 1: stuff was lost to history and a bunch of people
22:14
Speaker 1: tried over the years to recreate it. He kind of
22:16
Speaker 1: like laid down the gauntlet like this is a this
22:19
Speaker 1: is a metallurgical mystery, guys. Yeah, and it seemed like
22:21
Speaker 1: it's sort of kicked off a renewed interest here in
22:24
Speaker 1: the mid twentieth century. It definitely did. It became kind
22:27
Speaker 1: of like the I don't want to say Holy Grail
22:31
Speaker 1: because it's just so cliche, but it is pretty accurate
22:33
Speaker 1: among metal or just to figure out Damascus steel and
22:37
Speaker 1: to recreate it too, I think it's fair. So there
22:40
Speaker 1: was there were many attempts. Like we said, there had
22:43
Speaker 1: been previously many attempts back in the nineteenth century. But um,
22:48
Speaker 1: I think in the seventies a pair of Stanford researchers
22:53
Speaker 1: really kind of thought they had cracked this. And and
22:55
Speaker 1: as I was saying at the outside of this episode,
22:58
Speaker 1: they weren't entirely raw. They just didn't complete the thought
23:03
Speaker 1: they thought they had. But they didn't. They figured out
23:06
Speaker 1: one very important part and they actually did it by accident. Um.
23:09
Speaker 1: They were looking up ways to make metal that is
23:13
Speaker 1: much more shapeable but still equally strong, because you had
23:17
Speaker 1: said these early smiths, where you know, they knew some
23:20
Speaker 1: metals were strong, some metals were um hard, some metals
23:23
Speaker 1: would break easily, but you could fold them into shapes
23:26
Speaker 1: or whatever. They these guys were looking for a kind
23:28
Speaker 1: of metal that you that was extremely strong but also shapable,
23:32
Speaker 1: and they came up with this super plastic metal. And
23:35
Speaker 1: somebody said, I think this is kind of similar to
23:38
Speaker 1: Damascus steel. Yeah. Their names were Dr Jeffrey Wadsworth and
23:43
Speaker 1: Dr o Leg Sherby the Sherbs And that's a good
23:48
Speaker 1: movie name. Dr o Leg Sherby, Uh so there, Yeah,
23:52
Speaker 1: And trying to find the superplastic metal. They found something
23:54
Speaker 1: that I think someone at one of their presentations a
23:57
Speaker 1: swordsman stood up in the movie version from the crowd
24:02
Speaker 1: yeah and said, hey, this is uh, this is very
24:06
Speaker 1: much like Damascus steel, which was you know, it was
24:07
Speaker 1: very rich in carbon. And they went, what carbon or
24:13
Speaker 1: did they already know it was carbon? Surely this was
24:15
Speaker 1: not the reveal, right, they knew that this high carbon
24:19
Speaker 1: um content was making their steel super plastic. And I
24:24
Speaker 1: think the swordsman Zoro will call him, said surebs Um,
24:30
Speaker 1: I think that Damascus steel also was high in carbon,
24:33
Speaker 1: and I think maybe the super plastic thing is what
24:35
Speaker 1: you guys have stumbled on. Here is the secret to
24:38
Speaker 1: Damascus steel. Yeah, so let's go write a paper based
24:41
Speaker 1: on this Rando Stranger's thoughts. Yeah, and when, because I
24:44
Speaker 1: mean his name is Zoro, he carved in z in
24:46
Speaker 1: my chest. Um, when we say a lot of carbon
24:50
Speaker 1: between one and two, about one point five, which doesn't
24:53
Speaker 1: sound like much, but regular steel has a fraction of
24:57
Speaker 1: one percent of carbon. Yeah, so it's a lot for
25:00
Speaker 1: a sword. Yeah. I think anything over point seven or
25:06
Speaker 1: point no point seven eight percent rounded a point eight
25:09
Speaker 1: percent is considered ultra high carbon steel, So really not
25:13
Speaker 1: much like you said. But but as you add this carbon,
25:18
Speaker 1: it does start to give the metal different properties it
25:22
Speaker 1: UM and in particular with UH, with Damascus steel, it
25:28
Speaker 1: turns out that that woots, that that woots alloy was
25:32
Speaker 1: a hyper u tectoid ferro carbon alloy, which means that
25:37
Speaker 1: that word, it had so much carbon in it that
25:41
Speaker 1: there is um it changes the EU technic point. The
25:44
Speaker 1: EU technic point is the temperature where all the all
25:47
Speaker 1: the different materials that make up the alloys just separate
25:51
Speaker 1: their different materials. They're melted apart, they're no longer together.
25:55
Speaker 1: This has so much carbon in it that the melting
25:59
Speaker 1: point is actually after the U tecnic point, So this
26:02
Speaker 1: stuff can kind of fall apart either after the melting
26:06
Speaker 1: point or before the melting point, I can't remember. But
26:08
Speaker 1: it has to do with that, right and UM and
26:12
Speaker 1: we'll get to the other secret property. But there was
26:14
Speaker 1: also technique involved in that to create this Damascus steel,
26:18
Speaker 1: you know, to forge a sword compared to other ores,
26:21
Speaker 1: you were you were hammering at a relatively lower temperature, yeah,
26:26
Speaker 1: than you would normally. That was the other thing that UM.
26:29
Speaker 1: The Sherbs and Wadsworth, we're saying was it has to
26:33
Speaker 1: do with this, but but on again a microscopic metallurgical level.
26:37
Speaker 1: What they came upon was we think that the true
26:41
Speaker 1: secret who's they gotta shot him out? Sherbs, Well, no,
26:45
Speaker 1: I'm still on them. I'm still on them. So Shrubs
26:48
Speaker 1: and Wadsworth said, we think that there's has to do
26:51
Speaker 1: with these carbides that are forming. And so carbides are
26:55
Speaker 1: a it's like iron and carbon mixed together, and in
26:58
Speaker 1: particular what this form is called cementite. And these cementites
27:03
Speaker 1: are forming as spheres and as you hammer and heat woots,
27:09
Speaker 1: these iron carron iron carbides, spears align themselves just so
27:15
Speaker 1: with the shards of iron to create this really strong
27:19
Speaker 1: but also really resilient type of steel. Yeah, and this
27:24
Speaker 1: is something that you're looking at under a microscope, and
27:27
Speaker 1: that is one of the problems and one of the
27:29
Speaker 1: reasons that it was so hard to figure this out
27:31
Speaker 1: over the years is that in order to do that,
27:34
Speaker 1: you have to take one of these blades and cut
27:36
Speaker 1: it into sections and put it under a microscope. And
27:39
Speaker 1: these were like rare collectible. So yeah, people weren't coming
27:42
Speaker 1: off of them very not much. I mean, there were
27:44
Speaker 1: a few museums donated some pieces. And then there was
27:47
Speaker 1: this guy, Henrie Moser, who was a collector. I think
27:51
Speaker 1: he had two thousand damask blades, and he donated two
27:55
Speaker 1: daggers and four swords in the nineteen twenties to a
27:59
Speaker 1: guy name uh z s h O k K. So
28:03
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say shook, okay uh And so that that helped, obviously,
28:09
Speaker 1: but but even hard to get ahold of this stuff
28:11
Speaker 1: to to cut it up and put under a microscope,
28:13
Speaker 1: and that's problem one. But then even when you put
28:16
Speaker 1: it under a microscope, you're like, what, Okay, I kind
28:19
Speaker 1: of understand what I'm seeing, But then how do I
28:21
Speaker 1: how do I recreate this? And even more to the point,
28:24
Speaker 1: how did these ancient Smith's two thousand years ago create this?
28:29
Speaker 1: So they figured out, yes, so they figured out that
28:31
Speaker 1: the iron carbides are definitely a big part of it.
28:33
Speaker 1: And Wadsworth and the Srubs took a victory lap. But
28:38
Speaker 1: then C yeah, something like that. But then C. S. Smith,
28:42
Speaker 1: the metallurgist from the Manhattan Project, who I get the
28:44
Speaker 1: impression he's kind of like this metallergy god. He's like,
28:48
Speaker 1: I don't think that's it. Everybody I don't think this
28:50
Speaker 1: is the true explanation. And so it remained unanswered for
28:55
Speaker 1: another decade or so, and he checked in with the
28:58
Speaker 1: other metallergy god on his right, Mr Bruce Dickinson, and
29:03
Speaker 1: he said, make it so, that's right. Uh So then
29:06
Speaker 1: these other dudes came along, um John deve Verhoeven from
29:11
Speaker 1: the University of Iowa, and then a smithy from Florida
29:16
Speaker 1: named al Pendre, And they spent I think like four
29:20
Speaker 1: or five years again like running all these trials trying
29:23
Speaker 1: to figure out what this last little secret sauce was. Yeah,
29:26
Speaker 1: because so this is what he was up against. I
29:28
Speaker 1: fight this may interject real quick. He was saying, was
29:31
Speaker 1: it one of the components making up the slag? Was
29:33
Speaker 1: it something being extracted from the crucible walls, the little
29:37
Speaker 1: pot you melted in? Was it the type of iron
29:39
Speaker 1: used to make it? Was at the time or temperature
29:42
Speaker 1: used to heat the molten metal? Was at the cooling rate? Uh?
29:45
Speaker 1: He had all these questions. He did not know what
29:48
Speaker 1: it was. He just knew that Wadsworth and um the
29:51
Speaker 1: Sherbs had not answered it yet. Right. Every time you
29:54
Speaker 1: say Wadsworth and I want to think of the Muppet
29:56
Speaker 1: show guys, was that there? No, I don't think it
29:59
Speaker 1: was Wadsworth, but it was something like that, right, It
30:04
Speaker 1: was not Bergdorf, Bergdorf and Goodman. It was we'll figure
30:13
Speaker 1: it out. Oh goodness, somebody screaming out there. I think
30:18
Speaker 1: it was Walmart and wolver Worse that was them. Uh well,
30:22
Speaker 1: we don't look stuff up on the show. It's just
30:24
Speaker 1: a long standing role generally, right, Yes, because it's rude
30:28
Speaker 1: because we're actually sitting in front of each other. Uh so,
30:33
Speaker 1: I mean I feel like you should announce it since
30:35
Speaker 1: you're the one who kind of no, really you got this,
30:38
Speaker 1: all right? Just wanting to interject that one thing about
30:40
Speaker 1: like all the confounding factors that it could have possibly
30:43
Speaker 1: been in that this guy's applying science to this, all right.
30:46
Speaker 1: So what they found out was what happens on that
30:48
Speaker 1: level was something that's called a micro segregation, which is
30:52
Speaker 1: a chemical separation of alloy elements on very small scales
30:56
Speaker 1: of low levels of carbide forming elements. They had a
31:00
Speaker 1: list of five things. Vanadium our newest best friend, Molly
31:06
Speaker 1: b Yeah, I was on the list. It's so funny,
31:09
Speaker 1: how like that's come up like three or four times. No,
31:11
Speaker 1: I never even knew it existed until like a month ago. Chromium, manganese,
31:15
Speaker 1: and neobium. And what they found out was the winner overall,
31:21
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen, was vanadium. Yes, the chemical element V
31:26
Speaker 1: with a little bit of manganese they said, that has
31:27
Speaker 1: something to do with it, but mainly vanadium. I think
31:30
Speaker 1: as low as forty parts per million is actually effective.
31:34
Speaker 1: And uh, that was so close to vibranium. I was like,
31:38
Speaker 1: I got really excited and I was like, oh, man,
31:40
Speaker 1: is it vibranium. Of course that's not real really, Yeah,
31:46
Speaker 1: you're not into the marble at the m c U,
31:48
Speaker 1: are you. Okay, what's it from? Vibranium is the fictional
31:54
Speaker 1: alloy in uh Waconda, Okay make their weapons out of that. Yeah,
32:00
Speaker 1: and that's what Cap Captain America shield is made from. Vibranium.
32:06
Speaker 1: Did he get that from Wakonda? He got the vibranium
32:09
Speaker 1: from Waconda. Oh that's neat. Yeah, I like it. You know,
32:13
Speaker 1: I've noticed here there um in the Marvel universe. Sometimes
32:16
Speaker 1: it almost seems like there's like crossovers between characters. That's
32:20
Speaker 1: a great example of it. Yeah, it's almost like they
32:22
Speaker 1: had it all plotted out. Uh, well, it's funny. Another
32:27
Speaker 1: marvel Um shout that there's this company in Sweden making
32:30
Speaker 1: this new Damascus steel and they give it all these like,
32:34
Speaker 1: you know, sort of Viking names. One it's called thor one,
32:38
Speaker 1: it's called Loki, it's called fern eating goat peek. But
32:43
Speaker 1: they're just you know, they're trying to to increase sales
32:46
Speaker 1: by naming it something super cool. Yeah, and they make
32:48
Speaker 1: fake Damascus steel. It's like stainless steel with the pattern
32:52
Speaker 1: blown onto it. Yeah, basically using powder. This is this
32:56
Speaker 1: is they figured out finally true Damascus steel, which is
33:00
Speaker 1: just absolutely wonderful. And it's it's that little bit of
33:05
Speaker 1: now I can't remember, it's vanadium, right. Those are carbide
33:09
Speaker 1: forming um elements, So it is the carbides. You do
33:14
Speaker 1: have to start off with ultra high carbon steel. And
33:17
Speaker 1: apparently the ancient Indian um uh smith's created that alloy
33:23
Speaker 1: by putting a little bit of charcoal in there. Maybe
33:25
Speaker 1: a little bit would in with the iron so it
33:27
Speaker 1: would absorb a lot of carbon from it. It just
33:30
Speaker 1: so happened that the iron ore that they were starting
33:33
Speaker 1: off with had some vanadium in it, and that is
33:36
Speaker 1: ultimately what created that amazing watermark pattern, but also gave
33:40
Speaker 1: it its strength and survivability in battle. And I'm hoping
33:45
Speaker 1: someone out there makes uh Damascus steel daggers and send
33:51
Speaker 1: us one. Oh that'd be neat. I want to Damascus
33:54
Speaker 1: steel dagger. Somebody I can't remember who it was. Remember
33:57
Speaker 1: they sent us knives. I still have my Filet knife,
34:01
Speaker 1: the chefs knife. Those are gorgeous, amazing. Thank you again.
34:05
Speaker 1: I cannot remember your name as years ago, but thanks
34:07
Speaker 1: many years ago. Uh you got anything else? I got
34:11
Speaker 1: nothing else? And I'm still seeing that we're we recorded
34:14
Speaker 1: this episode successfully that eventually yeah, uh well, if you
34:18
Speaker 1: want to know more about Damascus Steel, go to your
34:21
Speaker 1: local gas station. They probably have something that looks like it.
34:24
Speaker 1: It's probably not real, probably not, but you can look
34:27
Speaker 1: at it and say, oh, that's what they're talking about.
34:28
Speaker 1: I got it. And since I said I got it,
34:31
Speaker 1: it's time for listener mail. All right, I'm gonna call this.
34:36
Speaker 1: Uh this is the most recent email in my in box.
34:40
Speaker 1: Hey guys, I'm writing to tell you about numerical palindromes.
34:44
Speaker 1: You dismissed them as being quite unexceptional, and while I
34:47
Speaker 1: agree that alphabetic palindromes are much more complicated and difficult
34:50
Speaker 1: that to tell you. I'm obsessed with palindromes on the
34:53
Speaker 1: odometer of my car. Okay, I can see how that
34:56
Speaker 1: could be fun looking up recognizing a palindrome on your
35:00
Speaker 1: old Yeah, I guess so, sure. Uh. I actually shared
35:06
Speaker 1: two cars with my husband, and when I got in
35:08
Speaker 1: and saw that the odometer read three three nine three four,
35:14
Speaker 1: I actually gasped. Today I was able to resolve my
35:17
Speaker 1: stress in that car, as you see. I would is
35:21
Speaker 1: that a palandrum though, oh, okay, just involved subtraction, because
35:28
Speaker 1: if so, it's not a palant I think this person
35:31
Speaker 1: just missed the palindrome because they share a car with
35:34
Speaker 1: her husband. That makes sense. Today I was able to
35:38
Speaker 1: resolve my stress in that car, as you can see.
35:41
Speaker 1: Once again, I particularly enjoy ones with eight and zeros
35:44
Speaker 1: or six is in opposition to nines like two, six, nine,
35:49
Speaker 1: nine two or eight eight. Yeah, there's some satisfying about
35:53
Speaker 1: seeing those numbers. I think it's nice and round plus
35:55
Speaker 1: nine is unlucky in Japan, Oh it is? Yeah, okay,
36:00
Speaker 1: nine and four If you can imagine rotating it around
36:03
Speaker 1: on its central number, there's always another cooler balanced number
36:05
Speaker 1: on the horizon, even if it isn't a perfect palindrome.
36:08
Speaker 1: I hope you have. I hope I have elevated numerical palindrumes.
36:11
Speaker 1: A little bit for you, A little bit chow for now.
36:14
Speaker 1: That is from Robin van Guessel in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada,
36:19
Speaker 1: North America, beautiful town, Planet Earth. Thanks a lot, Robin.
36:22
Speaker 1: Appreciate that, really appreciate the chow as well. That was
36:25
Speaker 1: very nice. Nice ad could send off super eighties throwback
36:29
Speaker 1: uh and uh. If you want to get in touch
36:32
Speaker 1: with us like Robin did, you can send us an
36:34
Speaker 1: email to wrap it up spanking on the bottom and
36:37
Speaker 1: send it off to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com.
36:43
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of I heart Radio.
36:46
Speaker 1: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
36:49
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.