" J.D Verhoeven and Alfred Pendray reconstructed methods of production, proved the role of impurities of ore in the pattern creation, and reproduced Wootz steel with patterns microscopically and visually identical to one of the ancient blade patterns.
Reibold et al's analyses spoke of the presence of carbon nanotubes enclosing nanowires of cementite, with the trace elements/impurities of vanadium, molybdenum, chromium etc contributing to their creation, in cycles of heating/cooling/forging. This resulted in a hard high carbon steel that remained malleable [25]
There are other smiths who are now consistently producing Wootz steel blades visually identical to the old patterns.[26]"
I'm not sure what more you would want :)
IE the article claims " Anyone claiming to be making authentic Wootz/Damascus these days is delusional".
Regardless of technique, this is almost certainly wrong.
The end result is almost certainly authentic wootz/damascus, even if the technique is different.
and the technique may not be different anyway. The point of that research in the first sentence was basically "it's unclear they did anything that special, it seems to mostly be due to local impurities" (A short summary is here: http://www.thetruthaboutknives.com/2017/06/knifemaking-legen...)
In particular, a very low percent of vanadium impurity produces the pattern (see https://insa.nic.in/writereaddata/UpLoadedFiles/IJHS/Vol42_4...) and the other properties are due to other historical impurities that would have been found in the area it was produced.
" J.D Verhoeven and Alfred Pendray reconstructed methods of production, proved the role of impurities of ore in the pattern creation, and reproduced Wootz steel with patterns microscopically and visually identical to one of the ancient blade patterns. Reibold et al's analyses spoke of the presence of carbon nanotubes enclosing nanowires of cementite, with the trace elements/impurities of vanadium, molybdenum, chromium etc contributing to their creation, in cycles of heating/cooling/forging. This resulted in a hard high carbon steel that remained malleable [25]
There are other smiths who are now consistently producing Wootz steel blades visually identical to the old patterns.[26]"
I'm not sure what more you would want :)
IE the article claims " Anyone claiming to be making authentic Wootz/Damascus these days is delusional".
Regardless of technique, this is almost certainly wrong. The end result is almost certainly authentic wootz/damascus, even if the technique is different.
and the technique may not be different anyway. The point of that research in the first sentence was basically "it's unclear they did anything that special, it seems to mostly be due to local impurities" (A short summary is here: http://www.thetruthaboutknives.com/2017/06/knifemaking-legen...)
In particular, a very low percent of vanadium impurity produces the pattern (see https://insa.nic.in/writereaddata/UpLoadedFiles/IJHS/Vol42_4...) and the other properties are due to other historical impurities that would have been found in the area it was produced.