SciShow GOT IT WRONG! Reply to The "Lost" Recipe for Damascus Steel, Feat, IPostSwords
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- čas přidán 22. 08. 2024
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SciShow's recent video on Damascus steel gets a lot of fact wrong, and sometimes directly misrepresents the past, and this video is a collaborative effort in setting the record straight, with the help of IPostSwords:
/ ipostswords
SciShow's video on Damascus steel: • Video
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Sources:
1998 foundational paper, also contains the measures of P and S levels in antiques: www.tms.org/pu...
Ethnographic accounts (Massalski, Coomaraswamys, Zosimos): www.academia.e...
Modern reproduction technique of crucible steel in the Persian style: www.researchga...
The oldest crucible steel ever found, 6th to 3rd century BC: onlinelibrary....
2018 Paper that details how solidification structures form and how they determine cementite raft formation and spacing: link.springer....
The Technology of Ancient and Medieval Directly Reduced Phosphoric Iron: bradscholars.b...
From the Soil to the Iron Product - the Technology of Medieval Iron Smelting: exarc.net/issu...
Mike Loads documentary on Wootz Damascus: • The Secrets of Wootz D...
From Bloomery Furnace to Blast Furnace: www.diva-portal...
Making Steel in the middle ages: caidwiki.org/im...
Extra sources online links unavailable:
Early papers by Sherby and Wadsworth that helped pave the way for the field of research:
-Oleg D. Sherby: "Damascus Steel Rediscovered?" Trans. ISIJ, 19(7)1979 p. 381--390. 1980
-J. Wadsworth and OD. Sherby, “On the Bulat - Damascus Steels Revisited”, Progress in Materials Science. 25 1980 p. 35 - 68 1983
Oleg D. Sherby and Jeffrey Wadsworth: "Damascus Steels -- Myths, Magic and Metallurgy", The Stanford Engineer, Fall/Winter 1983-84, p. 27 - 37.
-J. Wadsworth and O.D. Sherby, "Damascus Steel Making", Science , 216 1983, p. 328-330. 1985
-Oleg D. Sherby, T. Oyama, Kum D. M., B. Walser, and J. Wadsworth: "Ultrahigh Carbon Steels". J. Metals, 37(6) 1985 p. 50 - 56.
-Oleg D. Sherby and Jeffrey Wadsworth: "Damascus Steel", Scientific American, 252(2) 1985 p. 112 -120.key
Wait, that collaborator looks familiar.
Indeed it does ^_^
Such great fun working with you mate, thanks heaps for the collaboration!
@@shadiversity lol
"IPostSwords"
Username checks out. He does, indeed, post swords.
@@matchesburn Would've been disappointing if he only posted spaghetti and blankets... (a little Mitch Hedberg reference for you).
A real IPS :o
Legend has it that if you say something stupidly incorrect about the medieval period three times into a mirror Shad will appear and give you an hour long lecture.
Doesn’t sound like a bad way to spend my evening at all.
Brb gonna go talk about fire arrows.
I will test this tonight, thank you
Doesn't work. I said "double bladed axes were the vikings favorite weapon" and the only one appearing in the Mirror was Skallagrim facepalming.
I call bull,tried saying crusaders are the best three times. All I got was a Bible in Latin and a sick tunic.
Blacksmiths in 1899- forging Wootz Damascus Swords
Same Blacksmiths in 1900- HOW DOES ONE CRAFT SUCH SORCERY?!?!?!?!!!!?
lol! The dividing line is probably between 1940-1970 depending on which country you're in. When it's easier to order a load of billets than scavenge your own scrap, new native metals, and forge your own steel, special techniques fade away quick. Other things like wrought iron, which were part of the old steel manufacturing waste stream, forging silicon rich slag into pig iron, dried up. But.. There's decades worth of hobbyist scrap wrought iron sitting in piles here and there, so no real financial demand to make new wrought iron. Similar story with Damascus steel, loads and loads of professional books on in from the 1800s, 1900s, but, not many people were willing to work it. Easier to get a common production steel, then acid etch it to look like Damascus.
That must have been a hell of a new years party at the blacksmith guild i guess 😁
Damascus steel nowadays is reverse engineered from what we know are in old wootz Damascus steel. You still have to watch out for knockoffs using Damascus etched blades.
It actually goes a tiny bit into the 1900s - in 1904 A. Coomaraswamy documented crucible steel production in Mawalgaha
@@armageddonsengineer3182 Exactly. From the depression through the 1960s, Blacksmithing kind of almost died in the US. My father back in the 80s was an apprentice for one of the best blacksmiths from the first generation of resurgence that started to rebuild the profession back almost from scratch. Today my father is a master of steel and bronze work and has trained many apprentices of his own.
SciShow: "Medieval European blacksmiths didn't understand how to regulate carbon content on the steel"
Shad: "Whomst've awakened the ancient one"
I didn't know 36 was so old
The logic gap for so many of there arguements people dont get the difference between "didnt know *how* to do something" and "dont understand *why* something works" you can understand doing X process gives Y result by trial, error and repetition... understanding why the action gives a result is a whole other matter and mostly irrelevant in most cases, if a process gives a result such as a better steel for blade making then they would do that process more..
the fact that we now know its to do with carbon content for example... cool but knowing that doesnt change things really
I love my language but we really need to chill on the apostrophes. They've been out of hand for centuries. Once we got to America it only got worse. Maybe it's a measure of the amount of water between Europe and an Englishman. It's why American English went off the rails, and Australia has gone even further.
Case in point, my favorite word in English: y'all'd've instead of "you all would have"
This made me laugh more than it should have.
@@Alex-dh2cx Whomst've is just a meme lol no one actually uses it.
The original video is no longer up, shad *literally* destroyed it with facts and logic
I saw that video, I really think they were trying to shit on Europeans. This is typical of our current age
@@flamingtoaster6989 That's exactly what it was. It's trendy to put down European history because "colonialism bad".
@@flamingtoaster6989 based
@@VaporeonEnjoyer1 based
@@flamingtoaster6989 Based
We all know the real lost damascus is STICK
But was STICK made in Asia? That's the only way it can be a good weapon.
Damascus stick... Imagine the weight... Imagine the force!
Shad should make a huge, thick damascus STICK.
China made some metal sticks and become the greatest empire at the time.
þe Sticc!
“Most swords would be average quality.”
yes, that is indeed how the concept of average works.
Ya done made me laugh 😂 have a like my dude!
Nah, could be a bimodal quality distribution. ;-)
Most swords could be exceptional quality, but the few stinkers are so bad that they bring down the average.
@@inthefade You're right.
@@Uncephalized exactly what I was thinking
I love how people think that europeans in the middleages didn't know shit about smithing and produced the worst swords, but at the same time plate armour is a european invention, and probably the height of what medieval smithing can achieve.
Not to mention Europeans didn't exactly forget about all the shit the Roman Empire had been developing. It's not like they lacked ingenuity, either, they improved roman siege machines and made better shields and armor, much more adapted to the new times and type of warfare. They knew exactly what they were doing and adapted to change. Not sure why they get so much hate
@@staringgasmask people in the past weren't dumber nor more uncivilised than we are today; and it's annoying that that's constantly misunderstood
@@staringgasmask In the renaissance era, a good part of the intellectual elite started "bashing" their ancestors' era to look even more civilised. They wanted to contrast themselves ("sophisticated, enlightened") to the people of the medieval era ("dumb, uncivilised").
not just smithing but mechanical and technical aspects as well. people get so focused on the products of a civilization they tend to overlook the industrialization and productive capabilities of said civilization.
for example, one civilization might have artistic master who can produce one or two veritable masterpieces a year that can outclass anything else in the world, but if their neighbor can hammer out several pieces of mediocre product in a month that in itself is a much greater feat.
And Europe during the high Middle Ages had something called a water forge which used a series of water wheels to power a massive blast furnace capable of reaching higher heat and pumping out more steel than a conventional hand cranked bellows. And a manufacturing plant full of trip hammers that allowed a couple of black smiths with several apprentices to do the work of 50 old style smiths.
Beware of the cannon .
Because that things also a beast
"We need to stop mythologizing the past in such a way that we can't look at it critically."
This is lowkey one of the most important things Shad says in this video. A lot of content creators in this space should take heed of that message.
Hell, I live in the southern U.S. and around here this point needs to be preached from the mountaintops
@@1980JPA Virginia here. The lost cause stuff acts like the confederacy was a golden era of high ideals and art and stuff and ignores it was just a 5 year war that wrecked our shit, got our boys killed, devastated our economy worse than just ending chattel slavery, and accomplished nothing!
@@rvawildcardwolf2843 EXACTLY 💯 I'm in Georgia, so you could imagine the ignorance that gets spewed around here about some sort of "pride" about that era.
@@1980JPA tbh many group around the world tend to do this when a war is involved, especially since it was at the time technically a "foreign" power invading and subjugating. Not making any moral statements about the north, but it isn't much different than soviet nostalgia and ethnic and cultural conflicts in something like Burma or the eastern bloc.
@@rvawildcardwolf2843 Don't forget the part where the CSA, in rejecting Northern 'authoritarianism', quite quickly went on to act like big ol' hypocrites by becoming at LEAST as authoritarian as the North arguably was, at least by war's end. We here in the South sure love our hypocrisy, don't we? 😂
A medieval soldier comes to a blacksmith: "Hey dude, those swords are soooo expensive, can you cut some corners to make it cheaper?"
Scientists 1000 years later: *wondering why really poor quality steel coexisted with really high quality steel. Didn't the blacksmiths know how to get consistent results?*
The Castilian may literally have ordered 100 high quality spears for men at arms and the like and another 500 lower quality for levy troops and a further 100 poor quality for stores because he didn’t have the budget for 700 high quality swords and otherwise for the same budget could only afford 200 high quality weapons.
You could experience the same today if Aliens invaded and wondered why Chinesium-quality steel was so inferior to regulated tool-steels.
I think it would probably be more like:
Medieval levy: hey, can you make me a sword?
Blacksmith: wtf, I make plows? Why would I know how to make a sword?
Levy: Yeah, but I mean that guy knows how to make swords, and he charges way more than I can afford.
I figured it went more like "Ah shit, kinda skuffed this one, well whatever they won't know the difference."
Absolutely. Realistically if you are not a filthy rich noble after bragging rights, you want the cheapest weapon that does the job and you do not need great steel to kill a man. This is even more true if you are equipping an actual army. The Romans probably had access to better steel from India. They could have imported or reverse engineered that at great expense and equipped their legions with it, also at great great cost. But the resulting vastly more expensive legions would not really have been any better at their job. So most historical weapons that survive are nowhere near best quality metal or even craftmanship, because vast majority of weapons that get manufactured aren't.
This actually holds even to guns. Most weapons that survive from WW1 or WW2 do not have great materials or manufacturing. Oddly enough the weapons that were manufactured in large quantities tend to be ones that used cheapest materials that do the job with least amount of labor or skill to manufacture required. Because it is not just a question of not wasting money. Warfare is generally time-sensitive (having weapons available after the decisive battle is fairly pointless) and pretty much every war participant ever was operating under strict and absolute resource constraints. So a good military weapon is one that can be manufactured fast and cheap without special skills, tools or materials. Because those are the ones you can have when you need them.
You can even see these concerns with jet fighters, battleships or tanks.
"I've folded this steel over 100,000,000 times. It is harder than diamond but flexible like the willow. It is so sharp and strong it can cut through plot armor."
*I've folded this Damascus steel
The phrase "harder than diamond but flexible like the willow" annoys me so much.
@@sebasbot01 folded crucible steel sounds like it could have a cool pattern
@@1810jeff then I have done my job.
It can cut through plot armour??
WE ARE ALL DOOMED
When I was doing my undergraduate studies (History minor...a couple of credits short of a double-major), I had a professor who taught Medieval History who entered the first class session and told us that "If you use the term 'the Dark Ages' at any moment after this, you will summarily fail this class." Her point was well taken; the medieval period was marked with all sorts of technology and culture that was anything but "dark" or unsophisticated.
I think you can use the concept of the "Dark Ages" to accurately reflect to conditions of Europe immediately following the following the fragmentation of the Roman Empire - however this shouldn't be used to apply any sort of value to the regional development. Rather, historical records become a good deal more fragmentary at the time; not because people descended into some backwards anti-intellectualism (quite the opposite occurred through out the period), but rather because the political vacuum left by the Romans left historical writing and chronicling up to hundreds of different groups with varying levels of care given to their records. Some chronicled events quite readily; others not so much. It was a bit of a chaotic time, but hardly stagnant or backwards. Rather, it's just that record keeping was somewhat less standardized than prior or after, largely due to fragmentization of the political structures.
Then what's the history and reason for the term and it's spread and use? Edit. I could buy that Dark just means lack of records in-between two periods
@@chadliampearcy, in no small part the label of the "Dark Ages" came from the Patrons of the Renaissance period who wanted to portray their period of history as being more enlightened and superior as to the ages that came before. We see something similar in the "Enlightenment" where contemporary thinkers want to brand each other as "Enlightened" as opposed to their forerunners.
@@pastorjerrykliner3162 Thank-you for answering my question so promptly! So Renaissance, eh? Got it.
The "dark ages" were dark in some ways. The medieval period had most of the knowledge of Rome but lacked the logistics to take advantage of it a lot of the time. So it was a dark age for logistics.
23:00 - About some 40 or so years ago, when I was in grade school, learning about the Crusades, my teacher told us about an apocryphal meeting between Saladin and Richard the Lionheart. Saladin tried to convince the "Franks" to leave because of their superior martial technology in Damascus steel blades, by cutting a silk handkerchief in midair with his blade. Richard the Lionheart countered by splitting a log in half with his sword. Supposedly both leaders acknowledged the abilities of their counterpart's weaponry and knew that the war was going to be a long, drawn out affair.
Myth and legend have been handed down for generations upon generations. Historical accuracy and correct technical details have taken a backseat to storytelling and exaggeration, in the attempt to convey the meaning of the lesson being made. I'm glad that you and your channel is a counter balance to that aspect.
The swords of saladin was indeed being called the sharpest sword in the world at the time,the formula is kinda lost and some of them is said coincidence that nano formed by combining those steels with the perfect ratio...it is hard to say,but it has been proved as the sharpest sword based on germany research
Even that sounds more like a teaching moment about balance and harmony. Such as it is with steel. The best raw materials still need good heat treatment to function better than a cheap, but well heat treated piece of spring steel.
Interestingly, a deep dive into Wootz/Damascus/Bulat/Twisted bar pattern welded Damascus a few years ago yielded some devastating facts for the Wootz fanbois. The majority of Wootz swords that have been recovered aren't heat treated properly, if at all. While there is certainly a possibility that the original heat treatment might have been destroyed in a fire of some sort, not only would the fire have to be extremely hot, but it would be unlikely to account for all of them. Meaning that a lot of Damascus swords look pretty, but would never have been effective. One Smith wouldn't share his secrets with anyone but an apprentice, so as it's popularity grew and more people forged it, it seems likely they heat treated it as any old monosteel and it didn't get properly hardened.
The key is always in the heat treatment, not the raw materials. The swords of Pharaoh's and kings were more often meteoric steel than crucible Wootz.
This sounds more like a Frederick II thing to do. Only with more poetry recital. Richard "the Lionheart" only had good propaganda and was an abject failure in just about everything. "Better than John Lackland" is not really that much of an honour. And it was Richard I who kept gallivanting through the Middle East and his Ajevin holdings and bankrupted the realm for John Lackland being left holding the bag.
Winning a crusade by cunning and good arguments is a Frederick II thing. Spending stupid amounts of money to get nowhere but die stupidly is a Richard I thing.
@@bjorn-falkoandreas9472 Richard stopped Saladin just before he was handed a complete victory of the region. It was objectively a success not to mention with his little army, betrayals, and his ally had a heart attack due to old age and wasnt able to make it.
Wow, you can cut that cool handkerchief, now look what my sword can do
"European forging was bad" Toledo blacksmiths rotating so fast on their graves that they started generating electricity
Now that is a grave rave
@@immakarma2516
That happens when Earthquakes hit graveyards and making them Maracas... Yea, just imagine it.
Didnt toledo use damascus ingots from india though?
There are earthquakes in Germany from Augsburg and Nuremberg blacksmiths doing the same...
@@immakarma2516 Should definitely be a thing among necromancers. I have never witnessed. How disappointing.
Shad in this is the embodiment of "I'm not mad at you, I'm really engaged because I like you and it hurts me to hear you say stupid things!"
Absolutely. That's the best way to put it
I need to use that quote somewhere.
Enraged?
(Idk, you might have meant engaged and said engaged. But on the off chance you meant enraged, I will just comment this)
@@superfire6463 I meant engaged, but thank you :)
I hope you don’t mind me taking this quote to use in my next friendly shouting match about guns, politics or anime.
The SciShow’s Damascus sword video is now set to private, a researcher has lost their wings methinks.
To call whoever made that video a "researcher" implies that they did actual research.
@@logicplague It may have been their job title. There's a difference between doing something and doing it right.
@@johndododoe1411 This is very true.
Coupled with them not making a video to set things straight and repudiate their claims, it shows a severe lack of any desire to provide a truthful picture of history.
@@johndododoe1411 propagandist researcher
"Soluble in steel"
This is what I like about science. A concept like solubility, which at first you only think about in water and other solvents, can suddenly be extended to literal molten metal, and it still works.
"Hey, Shad made a video about your video!"
"Oh really? That's cool!"
"It's a long one."
"Oh. Oh no."
Just wait till Metatron gets on their case
Literally what Hank Green tweeted in response to this video.
This guy finishes the video: why do I hear Jojo music?
Shad: zero
I usually watch them while playing mmo.
@@jtbwilliams You got a link to the reply?
‘On average, your average sword was of average quality.’
A Tautology’s truth is certain.
It's worth reminding people though. A lot of people discover a particular thing and then think it's universally true.
Example: In Medieval Europe swords were a symbol of status and power. (True)
Also true: Records of peasant's selling granddad's old sword to other peasants for pennies.
Yeah, that’s an issue that happens often when you use the same word twice with different meanings in the same sentence (ie : on average, statistically speaking, swords were of average quality, as far as performing well enough but not having any exceptional performance).
Reminds me of « a shot has no meaning if it was no meaning » ^^
On average, the average person person can drown in a stream that averages 3 feet deep.
Be careful with averages.
E[E[X]] = E[X]
"Half the people in this world are stupider than the average man. And that guy's an idiot!"
This is definitely a, “And I took that personally” video if I’ve ever heard one. Loved the passion and emotion oozing from his knowledge on the subject. We need more of this.
I can physically feel Shad's blood pressure for the entire duration of his screen time
Shad once more amazes the medical community by having multiple rage induced aneurysms and surviving.
I guess he keeps stopping short of an actual aneurism, though depending on the strength of his blood vessels and his resting blood pressure, he might get dangerously close.
Last time I was this early, Shad was ranting about a stick
m2
Not just a stick , but a _thick_ , _long_ and _hard_ one at that.
Huge stick
Nuke ☢️
Stick to it
Fun fact the words that were written on the sword at 19:56 were in Arabic and thy were "نصر من الله و فتح قريب" "help from Allah (against your enemies) and a near victory"
Heck, even Viking smiths knew how to make swords by forge welding soft and hard steel together, to get a tough spine, and a hard edge.
You say "even Viking smiths," as if Viking smiths we're terrible or stupid.
@@lqg4395
Obviously they were not, however, they were right at the very end of the iron age for Scandinavia, which meant that steel was still very rare.
In fact, the proper Steel Age didn't start until the 1800's, where they had large scale homogenised steel production.
So for a smith to have good steel almost 1000 years earlier, is quite the feat. this is where forge welding came in, and the Viking smiths were good at it.
But they were also some of the last ones to get the technology in their hands. In the early days, Mesopotamia was the area of choice for metallurgy.
Thus, if the viking Smiths had the knowledge, pretty much every other nation had it too, since they were late to the party.
As I recall, isn't the iron ore quality in Scandavia rather poor? That means that the Vikings making quality weapons is similar to the Japanese making quality weapons: They needed to have a good understanding of forging and metalworking to deal with the high levels of impurities in the iron they were working with.
@@coryzilligen790
It was quite the mix.
Most of the iron was Bog-iron, but there were some proper iron mines in Uppsala, with high quality iron ore.
The high quality iron was used for weapons, while the bog iron was used for everything else - From horseshoes to ploughshares
Also, the Vikings started on using steel too, not just Iron. And one way to make a steel blade stronger, was to have a tougher (and flexible) iron core, with steel edges, for a harder edge.
@@Grumpy_old_Boot Ulfbehrt.
Mother: Are you doing your work?
Me while watching Shad: Yeah this is history
Mother: "WHAT? Are you kidding me? Where did you got that from?"
It is both history and about history
This stuff is straight out of the college-level materials science class I did.
My 7yr old daughter now understands that Shadowversity is like going too school, so sometimes she watches with me because they can be so informative... only she can't figure out why the teacher sometimes spends so much time laughing about big thick girthy sticks...
Watches original video: ohhh Shadiversity will have a field day with this
Sees length of this video: it was worse than I could have imagined...
I DID NOT REALIZE THAT
ok I'll do an assignment while watching, we reached podcast territory boys
I've seen so many people talk about the mythical qualities of the "lost" damascus steel and Everytime I tell them that it was likely crucible steel with vanadium mixed in they tell me I'm making things up.
@1810Jeff
It’s amazing to me that modern humanity even knows what happened 10 years ago. Everyone is so willing to accept and defend misinformation without a second thought lol
I wonder is SciShow will answer.
@@CoruptedJester Well 9 years ago the world ended by the prophecies of Nostradamus (Who did not predict the end of the world but apparently did) so of course we don't know much about the old world from a decade ago.
Great video. Scishow appears to be regurgitating a crummy Popular Mechanics article. I wonder if it is better to think of "damascus" as a term that describes an aesthetic and not a material. For example, not all wootz was referred to as damascus, only the patterned variety of which there are relatively few examples to survive into modern times given what must have been the thousands of tons of wootz that was made all over India for more than a millennia until production stopped during the peak production of wootz damascus not even 200 years ago. One could take an ingot of wootz capable of producing the watered silk pattern, split it in half and give one to a smith familiar with the thermal cycling and forging techniques needed to make 'true damascus' and the other half to a smith unfamiliar with those processes. The first would make a blade with the watered silk damascus pattern in it and the other would not. Both blades are chemically identical - the same material. I also note that pattern welded steel would not be called damascus without proper finishing and etching to reveal the pattern. Even though the material is identical prior to and after etching only the etched steel would be recognized as 'damascus'. The term 'damascus' was also, apparently, applied to swords that were decorated with jewel encrustations, engravings or etched, etc. "Damascus" was used in ancient times to describe a specific type of cloth that originated in China because of the fabric's decorative pattern. Without ambiguity and for several hundred years the term has described pattern welded steel in gunsmithing and blademaking both in practice and in literature validating the term's use in that case as much as in any other historical instance. In my humble opinion.
You'd like 'The making and selling of wootz, a crucible steel of India ' by Bennet Bronson from Archeomaterials, 1986. It doesn't usually circulate online, I had to ask a librarian for a PDF. It addresses alot of mythology regarding damascus and wootz, lists about a dozen manufacture recipes from historical texts as late as the 18th century and so on. Some of it has probably been challenged since publication but the guy was a healthy skeptic.
I heard the secret was adding .005% - .01% vanadium or something like that. The leaves fed to whatever blood they were adding or wood chips or something and all the magic spells turned out to be vanadium. Places that also had it were iron mines like Maharashtra, Karnataka and Odisha. None of this is from me just what I've heard.
One of the many things i dislike about Scishow is that they have become too biased towards left wing views. Ths other one is that many times they teach basic kindergarden stuff.
@@Thunderblock7889 Could you give an example of the Sci Shows "left leaning bias"?
Oh it gets worse with them. Their show is theoretical science not experimental science. Those morons will read scientific paper and try to explain it, but, they will leave out details they don't find relevant, that not how science works every detail is important in understanding the theory being tested. [Explanation on "theoretical science" - use prior knowledge, math and theories to explain the thesis statement. "experimental science" - you step outside to test it multiply times to prove or disprove the theory]
@@jayeisenhardt1337 apparently the leaves add hydrogen and that has some effect on the end product. I think it lowers the melting temp if I remember correctly.
I have no idea about medieval technology or smelting but watching shad lose every marble he could possibly lose is thoroughly entertaining. 10/10 vid 👌
I was beginning to worry how much longer he'd go before remembering to take a breath.
look up the phrase water forge. they used a series of water wheels to not only power the bellows for the blast furnaces had mentioned, which beat other forges not only in heat, but volume of meatal smelted, but also powered a manufacturing plant full of trip hammers of varying weights and speeds so a handful of master smiths with several apprentices could consistently put out several times the output of an individual smithy.
TLDR, around the 1200's to 1300's Europe was already starting to go from small individual blacksmiths to small scale industrialization.
Shad Fact: Shad once caught and shattered a virbranium sword with his teeth.
this is some saitama stuff
He never tried this feat with a damascus/wootz sword, though.
I heard he used a stick to cut silk.
So that is with he is banned from Wakanda...
Chuck Norris called, he asked where he can hire Shad as a body guard.
"WHAT?! Are you kidding me? Where the heck are you gettin' that from!"- A much more verbose way of saying "Citation needed!"
I can hear his blood pressure rising.
I just imagine Samuel L. Jackson looking over his shoulder angrily and saying "Excuse me motherf****r?"
Yeah I don't know much about anything much but "European blacksmiths didn't know you need to control carbon content or temperature" seems pretty suspect.
Tom Scott? Is that you?
You mean an Australian way of saying it?
I love it how Shad gets so worked up to tear the BS apart. Probably not good for his heart, but so much fun to watch 😂
I think does his heart better because he’s venting and not holding it in.
39:23 My friend and I used to intentionally heat up our metal art projects with a cutting torch, to give it the blue/purple/gold coloration when we were in welding school, during high school.
I don't think we were taught that. We just figured it out ourselves. I actually gave my friend tips on how to do it properly, because he would heat up an area too quickly and turn it gray again. At which point you either have to use a grinding wheel or a wire wheel, and start all over again.. You have to slowly heat it up all over, keeping the torch away from the metal at a little bit of a distance. Kinda like trying to slowly roast a marshmallow into a gooey state without burning it.
I did this to my new exhaust manifold on a small scale when welding on a label, now I have a blue headers that lasted a week until I turned the engine on
You know Shad is serious when he's wearing his real armor.
Yea hes ready to fuckin fight
There is the real and the fake real armor. I wonder wich one he actually wears.
@@vast634 in this video he's wearing his real armor.
Maybe the real armour was friendship
Because he’s going into battle.
Fun fact: The reason why Wootz Damascus Katanas were never made is because they would be so sharp that they would slice through the fabric of the universe as well time.
Presumably all the ones that were made did exactly as you said, and thus erased themselves from history, and thus were never made.
That tells me obviously such a Katana was created and then used and this paradoxical destroyed its own creator before they could create this katana
It would also muddy up the hamon which as we all know is the metallurgical representation of the wielders fighting spirit.
@@MaeljinRajah the true story of the cursed blade, Mura Masa!
A 'Subtle Knife' you could say.
"its nuance funnily enough, because reality usually is".... this is now my theme for life
damn
I notice how you still seem to respect SciShow. I have a question. If they were this laughably wrong in an area in which you're educated, then how do you know they aren't just as laughably wrong in areas where you aren't?
Anyone who has watched them for an extended period of time will know they are.
@@dirtpounder Also they made the video private instead of saying "we were wrong"
Scishow is a crap. I stopped watching them a long time ago. Shad is too soft on these guys.
Like basic biology. 👀
Best question :)
Middle ages: Has blacksmiths start a literal arms race turning people into tanks through steel and making them nigh-invulnerable against anyone not using similar armor.
Scishow: BLacKsMIThs didNt' kNoW HOw tO sTEeL
They actually didn't. Their weapons were so dull that it made the armor appear to be nigh-invulnerable. Because as we know European swords were big heavy unwieldy clubs and knights just beat on each other until their crummy steel crumbled into pieces.
All of the quality European archaeological finds were actually planted by aliens to obfuscate the metallurgical arts and to help maintain the Wootz Damascus secret.
IKR.. It's soooo Middle Ageist..
@@Adam_okaay Has us in the first half.... :'D
@@Adam_okaay
Katanas would have cut through the plate armor like butter. Which is also why Westerners couldn't invade there until they built nuclear bombs.
obviously the european blacksmiths were all frauds, who mail ordered their wares from sweatshops in the middle east :D
Eventually someone is going to make a video about shooting Damascus steel nunchucks from a longbow using a reverse grip, and Shad's head is going to literally explode.
while drinking ale.
Don’t forget the longbow’s arms being made out of katana with blades made of a billion times folded metal.
Why could I imagine Joel Sprange able to do that.
Don't forget the boob armor.
As a D&D DM, you just inspired a brand new weapon for my campaign...
Once upon a time ago, I used to like scishow, until I couldn't help but notice how much they let politics effect the science they try to tell you.
Scishow: "which is something European swords couldn't-"
Shad, popping up behind him mid-video: " *I have several objections* "
A long Shadiversity video is as much a sign of a brutal teardown as a sub-two minute Lock Picking Lawyer video.
I'm glad someone else knows about him. The moment I see one of their short vids pop up on my feed I think "Oh boy, another lock to put on my dont buy list"
ahh a person of educate presence. anything past 2 min. on LPL might have a fighting chance
@@ericeaton371
Either that or it's so bad they take a second to roast it.
My favorite parts are when Shad gets so flustered he stops speaking English for a few seconds.
sub-two minute Lock Picking Lawyer video's are interesting because they have a quality of "almost not worth making a video about."
Europe: apparently can't make steel
Also Europe: has units literally covered in steel.
I still pop back to this video occasionally, both to remind myself that even SciShow can be alarmingly wrong, and to enjoy Shad going bananas at the falsehood.
Like, absolutely bananas. It brings joy to my heart.
"european blacksmiths didn't understand either."
*Milan would like to know your location.*
I love the idea of just the entire city of Milan showing up at this guy's house like "I HEARD YOU TALKING SMACK!"
@@hyjinki4886 "we testina! Va a ciapà i ratt!!"
@@hyjinki4886 I'm pretty sure Milan was a duchy with capital city in Milan... So now imagine entire country showing up to someone's house
European blacksmiths definitely know how to do it. They just don't understand why it needs specific series of actions. Yes, they definitely know that baking iron before smelting will result better steel. However, they didn't understand why removing sulfur makes better steel. They might not even know that baking remove sulfur content. Knowing instructions how to do is not the same as understand why instructions required certain actions.
the people who spent the entirity of their history smacking eachothers shit with swords since they found out what bronze was didnt know how to make swords. ok at this point it must be intentional.
The reason European swords wouldn't cut silk in mid-air is because the silk was way to expensive to just slice up with your sword.
I mean you ain't wrong
There's no reason a well sharpened arming sword couldn't cut silk, or a human hair for that matter. The edge geometry on most European arming swords, hand and a half and longswords was lenticular, like two apple seeds laid back to back with the points facing outward. It's a four-way hollow grind, and as such is capable of being no less sharp than a straight razor that shares a similar edge geometry. It's a matter of good heat treatment and good angles on the bevel that allow you to cut finely, but the finer the edge the more likely it is to chip when the edge clashes against another sword or hard surface.
Katanas can have a very fine edge because you use the soft and flexible spine to parry and redirect, not the edge. A different style of fighting entirely, and you optimise your weapon for the style you fight in.
As an aside, in the tenth century, Ulfbert swords were pattern welded to give hard edges and a soft core, so the Katana isn't unique in being differentially hardened, or swords only being monosteel prior to modern times.
Back in my schooltime we had a teacher that owned an historical blacksmith (think somehow about 1850, so not medival). He offert to do an additional course on blacksmithing with real forging in it.
First thing we learned there is how to deal with the charcoal to get the sulfur out of it to not have it later on in the steel. Maybe that's what they confused with when they state the "problem of carburization" at 29:34. Also you need to be aware of burning the carbon in the steel on that point when the iron is still not liquid but to hot to hold the carbon. But that's the opposite of carburization.
That is one of the things that bugs me the most in the show Forged in Fire. They ALWAYS call pattern welded blades “Damascus.” I bet none of them have any idea what the origin of it really is, or have ever heard the term “wootz.”
Shad: "You can sharpen anything - Well, any steel, I mean."
Me: "I think you need to watch a video about making knives out of spaghetti."
And Chocolate
Wasn't he the same person that basically made a wooden knife? I mean, the person probably read Shad's book (kidding, but it'd be fun if that was sorta true, but its likely not) and thought, "Hey, you know what would be cool? A sharp knife... made of wood!"
@@cocodojo Joerg used some super hard wood and made a knife out of it, strong enough to dent car doors significantly
@@tylerphuoc2653 Sounds like ironwood. Not even joking, stuff got the name because it's ridiculously hard and dense.
Is that crazy Japanese guy who make any knives of anything?
Everyone keeps talking about the pattern-welding of steel, while here I am with a nerdy obsession for blued steel. My only regret is that blued steel doesn't glow when orcs are near.
Alas, the recipe for Gondolin Steel has been lost.
How do you know? Have you ever tried to put blued steel near an orc?
@@raistlin3462 comment of the day.
Blued steel is lovely - especially blued and gilt
Meh, Blued Steel, Le Tigre, Ferrari, Magnum... they all look the same.
Looking at Shads' face as he goes along I reckon his temp is going up high enough to act as a blast furnace... Always fun to watch his channel..
I enjoy this channel very much! I spent about 7 years of my youth working in foundries, much of it on a furnace crew. 2800 degrees F to melt iron is at least 600 degrees too high. As I recall, hypo-eutectic is around 1900 degrees with hyper-eutectic being around 2200. Much over 2800 and we had to worry about the refractory bricks and cement breaking down.
The problem with mythologizing the past, as Shad points out, is that you discount the skill and knowledge of the people living at that time. This is how we end up with misconceptions like “the pyramids had to be built by aliens” or “Spices were used to cover rotting meat since people didn’t know how to preserve food.”
I find it odd that we get these competing myths about the past. One the one hand people in the past were idiots who didn't understand anything, but on the other they had these crazy secret super materials (Damascus, Greek fire, etc.) that nobody today knows how to recreate (even though we definitely do).
Spices were used to get limp men hard.
Also, you can totally eat rotting meat. It's fine. It's gross. But it's fine.
@@HaHa-gy5vg And to show off wealth. Even as said spices were already disintegrated dust by the time it reached western Europe.
@@alekssavic1154 Yeah, that last part is probably because once there's so much hype around a super material, even when we do find the real thing it's not good enough to be the stuff of legends, so instead of concluding the myths might have been embellished we assume there must be an EVEN MORE AWESOME version of the material out there that we just haven't discovered the real one yet.
Kind of reminds me of something I've heard about the myth of Eldorado once.
Sorry, Shad, you're wrong. It's called woots Damascus because when you successfully create it you go "Woot!"
Who are you, who are so wise in the ways of history?
Haha wootz 😂
Well dang now I gotta follow your CZcams channel to to make sure shad is right
@@TheRealDaveMatthews ducks and witches floating...can I have my shrubbery already
I tip my hat to you, Danny.
You (Buying a quality sword): This blade has been marred by a chip!
Blacksmith's apprentice (points to his master): The one who smelted it dealt it.
"For much of history, we just didn't have the technology to do that."
The Iron Age would like to know your location.
I love how Shad has become a sort of historical content cop.
Scishow: EUROPEAN SMITHS DON'T SMITH
Audience: thou hast goofed, sir.
Shad: WEEE WOOO WEEEE WOOOO
Big stick energy
_WHAT WE DO HERE IS GO BACK_
Right...lol I missed these rants lol 😂😂
It's a tough job, but someone has to do it
You've never seen someone attempt to cut free-hanging silk with a sword? Be the change you want to see in the world, Shad.
Do it
Dew it
I hope Shad does this...
Free-hanging silk: world's most dangerous weapon
Kevin Costner did.....like a twat
Damascus can make itself seem so good cause it raised its Charisma stat (also explaining why it's such a pretty metal)
50:52 - I just want to point out for those who don't realize - the primary person behind the rediscovery of how to make "wootz damascus steel" was AL PENDRAY - a humble Florida blacksmith and farrier who worked on the process for decades. 40+ years of experience, curiosity, intelligence, ingenuity, dedication, and true craftsmanship enabled Al to work it out.
World renowned metallurgist J.D. Verhoeven, and retired Nucor Steel Vice President W. E. Dauksch both got involved later, and helped Al Pendray nail down the minute details of the metallurgy, and exactly what was going on at a microscopic level (the dendrites, role of vanadium, etc.).
I have a PhD in high medical arms and armor and I work at a prestigious collection in NE USA. Thank you so much for making this video, it was been driving me insane
"Medical arms"?
@@jpdemer5 Probably an uncorrected typo.
what school did you go too?
Yes it is a typo that I was too lazy to correct. I went to Columbia University is New York, as well as Harvard University, University of Wisconsin. I also spent many years working for The Royal Armories and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
@@jzbayer1 You should make some youtube videos and share your expertise! I'm gonna quietly subscribe to you in case you do some day.
"Europeans couldn't make steel"
The Celts: "And we took that personally."
Thank you for this meta comment
European steel was actually really high in quality. I don't know how people can actually believe that kind of stuff
@@DefinitelyNotEmma They hate everything European. Racism works through ignorance, so don't be surprised that these snakes in the grass exhibit both.
@@DefinitelyNotEmma I think many people who haven't properly researched history just think of the flimsy props they've seen in movies, and just have those images pressed in their mind. Most people haven't handled properly made swords, their only experience is seeing things like the History Channel and maybe manipulating weak props or cheap decorations, which would only reinforce the idea of historical weapons and armor being weak.
Would that be pronounced kelts or selts? Asking for a friend.
I don't get how you were ever a fan of sci show, it's always been like bottom-feeder Wikipedia article reading content farm bullshit. You can literally do this debunk to almost any video they've ever made.
I always find your rebuttal vids so blasted informative. Maybe it forces you to dig deeper, who can say. Thanks again from an avid fantasy reader and aspiring author and metalirgist
If they did look up Wikipedia, they sure didn't read it properly. The Damascus steel page says "However today, the difference between wootz steel and pattern welding is fully documented and well understood."
Sadly even one of the founders of wikipedia states it is no longer a reliable source of information in part due to various institutions and individuals monopolizing and controlling the information as well as abusing algorithms. To many smaller sources are squelched as well.
There’s an entire CZcams channel dedicated to a guy making razor sharp knives out of literally anything that normally wouldn’t be considered sharpen-able...
@@ssholum ...also, I want to send him all of my knives to sharpen. 😆
Pasta.. sharpest kitchen knife ever made out of pasta... genius! Dude should move to London, he'd make mountains of cash!
First video I watched from Kiwami Japan was when he made a knife out of jelly, my mind was blown. That jelly knife was shaper than any of the knives in my kitchen (at the time at least, I learned from him and other sources how to properly sharpen knives and bought decent entry level equipment to do it)
Like milk!
I LOVE THAT CHANNEL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Tofu knives FTW!!!!!
I'm European and I can't understand why they hate and underrated so much our medieval history.
There's always this trend to push up to a legendary/mithological status the weapons, traditions and history of Asia.
I honestly think that this is an unprofessional and silly way to study history, in my opinion we should study history and traditions of each continent without this distorted filters.
I've always wondered if the "cutting silk mid-air" was a urban legend thing introduced by the 1992 movie "Bodyguard"
I'm too young to remember if there was talk of this before hand so who knows. I wouldn't be surprised tho.
I was thinking the same thing.
Sometimes I enjoy the wisdom of my 43 years
I heard a bladesmith in the 1990s actually pulled this off with an utterly tricked out blade that would have bee totally useless in any sort of practical.use
@@robertlehnert4148 it did have a practical use, as a shear/scissor for silk! :p
Subtitles: "proper Tabasco steel"
The true flame blade
Flame-oil coating, +2 fire damage
You can also make armor out of it to get fire resistance, very useful against dragons
@@chaoticreckless6909 Just make sure you've got appropriate underwear on.
the subtitles also said something about iron sauce.
Nerevar would be proud
Yes, Sci Show missed the obvious: there wouldn't have been an Iron Age without the technology to produce iron.
You don't make iron. Iron is an element. You make steel. From iron.
@@RiskOfBaer you can't use iron as it's mined. It has to be processed into a useable form.
@@lorisewsstuff1607 No tools needed. Obvisouly we used magics via wizards to forge the metal and bend it.
@@lorisewsstuff1607 you can't use any metal in it's ore form, ore has to be refined. Clever clogs.
@@SgtByrd93 Exactly.
Now consider the sci show topics you've watched that weren't in your area of expertise, and how you assumed that what sci show was saying was accurate and well researched. I love sci show, but they are entertainers with a severe agenda that colors what they cover, and they manner in which they cover it.
fun fact this is sometimes called Gell-Mann Amnesia and was coined by writer Michael Crichton
That was the exact video that made me question how much due diligence was practiced for the research. It kind of felt like it was deliberately false
I've watched a few of their videos in the past where they've blatantly got information incorrect. Doesn't help that the original founder also made up fake things in the past.
I’m glad Shad mentioned that the steel is not the only important part of a good sword . The grind, the balance, the geometry (such as longitudinal and distal taper) and the temper all are important aspects.
You may as well call him Shad "there are many factors that influence sword quality"-iversity at this point, with how many videos he's brought this up in. :P
Pointing out these sorts of things is his specialty.
Ultimately metallurgy would be low on my priority list for deciding a sword I'd use to draw blood with
Scischow: Starts a sentence with 'It is said...'
The entirety of Wikipedia: "I'm going to stop you right there."
[by whom?]
czcams.com/video/OP8PCkcBZU4/video.html
this vid is an old favorite and tells the truth of wootz its loss, and rediscovery. when made correctly it was amazing. RIP Master Pendry i live less than 100 miles away, wish i had the chance to meet you.
SciShow Space is the only one that looks at sources at least *a little*. The rest can be disregarded.
@@VikingTeddy reminds me of PBS Space Time. Pretty much the only thing from PBS CZcams channels worth watching. And almost none of it is for people who aren’t legitimately interested in the subject. It’s not exactly an easy subject lol.
I saw this video pop up in my recommended a while back. I took one look at the title, laughed, then scrolled right past it. Glad to see somebody else saw it as well.
I like how SciShow so confidently asserts things and then are proven wrong. How the hell does that happen...did they post a redaction.
Yeah, the intro is exactly what I imagined Shad would react to that part.
Not just the initial intro, but that entire rant about pattern wielding =/ Damascus. It's honestly been a massive annoyance to me that people (like Alex Steele) keep acting like the two are exactly the same.
We actually know that European swords COULD cut silk in mid-air, because it is a common "sword feat" that is mentioned many times in sources. Just ask Matt Easton. :)
Been subed for years. Saw your video about your channel dying yesterday. Realized I had not seen you on my feed in a while. Wanted to let you know, this video was just recommended to me.
I really like all the details you brought up here and the structured and well-researched way you present them!
Although it is perhaps a bit of a rant video, it feels like one of your best!
"European blacksmiths didn't understand how to control the amount of carbon in the metal and the temperature"
-said someone who clearly didn't re-read how blacksmithing works
It is know that some vikings used to put bones in the iron because magic and that created an early form of steel.
@@turefgh4695 yep believing that the spirits of the animals bones will empower the weapon but in reality did make a kind of primitive steel no great steel but was slightly better than the raw iron swords of the era
@@turefgh4695 my understanding is correct, vikings had kinda shit tech outside of the marine stuff all in all... which makes sense as they were traders as well, they put the effort into the boat that takes them everywhere and then can just buy or steal it....
haha get it... ste---al, cause it's steel, and their stealin it. HA...!
@@jakedill1304 Ha...Ha... Get Out
@@thesurvivlist5440 Only after you give me your stuff and womenfolk and someone who can read it all to me... and three mules...
I'll take Donkeys in substitute but f--- you if I ever fall for subbing zebra's again... worst month ever.
This is the nerdiest dis-track I've ever listened to and I love every second of it
I always thought that the pattern of true damascus steel is so fine because they folded their stack way more than anyone today would and of course with a special choice of steels. But learning that this pattern can be produced in the crucible, using just the right ingredients, amazes me even more.
Funny how he mentions his new and old content aren’t getting pushed to his subscribers and suddenly I’m now getting all of his content from like two years ago😂
"Didn't know how to make Metal weapons"
Wow God must have made a miracle with all that Plate Armor in museums, clearly thats the only explanation.
probably just a fashion fad.
Shard plate obviously
I mean sure, for the rich but let's face it shit didn't get real until we got spoons made out of metal.. just goes to show that we're always going backwards and that the old days were the good ones, go through five or six plastic spoons per Frozen burrito they're always snapping off if I only could source me one of those old antique metal ones I could you know probably save a bunch of money despite the cost.
@@jakedill1304 how do you not have metal spoons?
@@riverroulette792 because of my glass teeth... they scratch them to easy and I want my spoons perfect for bending... there not for eating and besides spoons are shit anyways... ain't nothin you can do with a spoon you can't accomplish with a good ol one two combo of fork and crazy straw...
Can't shoot cocaine up your butthole with a spoon... CAN YOU?
Check and Mate.
“It’s so hot to melt iron” Yes, but that’s not as hot as you imagine. The temperature to make stoneware pottery is just as hot (2284-2165). Reaching those temps with wood-fired kilns was regularly happening in the medieval period without trouble, and potters were able to judge the temperature accurately for glazes by sight. So, there’s no reason to believe that medieval blacksmiths had no idea how to reach those temperatures. The refractory bricks were available, and the understanding of fire and temperature was also there. This Damascus steel is “too hard” conversation focuses so much on one technology, it’s like they forget all the other stuff people made in that period.
(2284-2165) .. i hope you are just american and not talking about 1/3 the heat of the sun ;DDD
@@Smeiksmeiksmeik Haha yes Fahrenheit. 1303 in C. 200 degrees more to reach the hottest melting point of iron. Charcoal burns at 1260C. Add a little bit of a flux (like limestone) and you can get that temperature down into ancient Roman melting temperatures. Once you start making coke (like the ancient Chinese did) you get into the industrial revolution in Europe. But there were other fluxes and furnace technologies in Europe to make pattern welded steel/iron blades like the langsax in the 10th century. That is pretty much the same technique used in the katana (and as I understand it, Tang Dynasty swords).
Yes, but those temperatures Still don't melt unrefined iron ore. Melting glass and glazes works as you mention by adding fluxes, that reduces their melting temperature, rather than increasing the temperature of the kiln. Many common refractories melt around the temperatures of ~1500°C, so it is a serious difficulty to make furnaces for those temperatures with medieval tech.
Also, blast furnaces work in the same way. They did not avhieve those extreme temperatures, they reduce the melting point of the ore feedstock by progressively removing oxygen and then infusing the melt with carbon. Cast iron has a lower melting point than steel, which has a much lower melting point than iron ore
@@Sirrangi for damascus steel, wootz they did use blast furnaces.
@@Smeiksmeiksmeik modern arc funaces achieve up to 3500 °C. that will not destroy earth or something. the ca. 6000°C u refer to as the sun temperature is actually the sun surface temperature. it is much hotter inside, about 15 million °C in the core
This is may just be me experiencing flashbacks of death-by-powerpoint from college. But SciShow's style of putting full text of what they're saying on screen has thrown me off of their videos.
Fun fact about wootz steel, the initial puck extracted from the crucible is actually incredibly brittle due to the amount of porosity in the metal. It only gains its rigidity after multiple heats and gently hammering the metal until it somewhat congeals. In fact, pattern welding was common amongst wootz steel blades due to how frequently the steel would crack.
I like how everyone just knows things like this summon Shad.
"Shad's been missing in the wilderness for days." "Quick, somebody put up a video with blatant misinformation about medieval European swords!"
@@kevlarandchrome
The funniest part is I can imagine that working.
@@clayxros576 Indeed.
@@kevlarandchrome Shad immediately pops out of the woods with a collection of sticks and rocks to analyze.
@@zach7372 "Shad! We thought you were dead!" "What? No, but I have found fifteen ways this piece of flint is more effective than nunchucks!"
I think SciShow just took down that video cause I saved it and now it’s deleted on my playlist, and it isn’t showing up on their channel 😂
Yep, they took it down within the last hour. They just couldn't handle the truth!🤣
Huzzah!!
@@ronweber1402 Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!
@@flame3642 It's not old it came out a couple days ago.
They couldn't handle the assault of truth raining down from Shad's /MACHICOLATIONS!!!!/
writing this as i watch
1: many times vikings and the like had to make what is known as blister steel to get carbon defusion in to small bits of high quality wrought iron... the way they did it was in a clay form... they packed charcoal (pine charcoal) and iron in clay and heat that up in the last stage/part of the blommery melt...
2: the way they removed silica and impurities from the tamahagane was to put water on the anvil and steam blast the impurities out of the surface of the steel since the impurities dont stick to the steel very good (im talking about alloy bonding) and that is why the steel is folded so many times... to get all the impurities out you need ALOT of surface area for those impurities to "pop out" from... in modern smithing we only use water to blast scales off the steel... but back then it was actually a refinement technique..
3: about the "temperature to forge at" .... wrought iron is so much harder to forge and needs to be at or near welding point at all times when forging... much harder to do than plain modern pure steel... or even crusible steel... since wootz/clusible steel often got baked/rosted for about 40 hours at forging temperature... to make a shell of low carbon steel around the high carbon crusible steel to prevent cracking during forging... so when the low carbon jacket has been made it can almost be forged at any modern forging temperature..
4: thank you fellowminded nerd... ive been trying to resolve this issue in the knifemaking world for so long... but everytime i mention it i get hammered by tons of people that live in there fantasy world were wootz (REAL DAMASCUS) gets forgotten... and that is sad... if you want to know steps/knifemaking processes please just say.... ill be happy to assist... knifemaker through the past 10 years (main profession not hobby)... and im one of those people that can recommend a specific alloy for the work inviroment and use simply by the alloying components...
5: sorry for the rant for those that got this far
p.s. if you want to see a person making modern wootz please look up FZ making knives here on YT
What you're experiencing here is the Galman Amnesia Effect. "What I think is usually fairly well researched." because they aren't covering your area of expertise. Then when they do cover an area in which you are knowledgeable, you see they really have no clue what they're saying, but you forget that the moment they go back to talking about something you don't understand as well. This is mostly a news phenomenon when you read a paper and think "I know this area, and this is entirely wrong." then flip the page to an article on Syria and believe it despite knowing how incredibly wrong they were on other topics.
Apparently the Scishow episode on Damascus Steel no longer exists.
I call that a tip of the hat.
Those moments when Shad speaks faster, higher, and louder are just another reason I love this channel.
There are way too many variables in silk. The source material, the way it was processed, when it was harvested, how long it was kept in a raw state. Then there is the weaving of the silk itself, the dying and curing process which can also impart corrosive effects that can cause either more softness or more coarseness, depending on what the intended end-use is. The age of the silk product, how long it's been in use, how has it been cleaned. Etc, etc...
Not to mention all the variables with the sword that ostensibly cuts it
Thank you for opening my eyes on Woots (Damascus Steel) as well the Blast Furnace! Thanks a lot for the very detailed explanation!
I would be upset with SciShow but actually this whole process of recognizing how wrong people can be and taking the time to really tear down false premises, mythologized thinking, poor reasoning, etc.. is a great reminder to everyone that we can all get things wrong and that it's important to do your research!
And it is how real science and engineering is done. Those who demand perfection from their science and tech advisors will inevitably fall behind those who allow mistakes to be made. It's also true that "happy accidents" is how many breakthrough discoveries have been made.
another important thing to note is that the presenters over on sci-show are "science communicators" and as such do not typically do the science themselves, meaning so much can be "lost in translation".
Herd mentality. You see this in loads of things Obvious one's are climate alarmism, green energy, capitalism being a zero sum game, Clovis first
When the premise is wrong then people go down that route with out questioning it at all.
"Everybody knows that " 😂 don't take anything as a given.
We all get caught out.
like this one I just presumed Damascus steel was just steel with a pattern because every other video I've seen suggested it was. Delighted to have seen this video.
Theramintrees is a great channel if you want to learn about that aspect of reality.
@Markle2k you're right. But it raises the question of what pseudoscience and science really are.
To bring your point home about being able to sharpen any steel to a good edge: People used to shave with bronze razors.
People shaved with muscle shells and rocks too. Many things can be sharp
@@jeffhreid I am totally gonna try this...
jeffhreid named two very hard and brittle materials. Great job
Turns out shaving isn't a very physically demanding activity and light and brittle blades can do a satisfactory job. ;)
@@kayakMike1000 It's been two days - you still alive?
That was highly entertaining, watching you get really animated is fun, presenting actual facts is also way better.
It's unfortunate that many (MANY) people believe that smart photography, good lighting and slick presentation makes 'opinions' true fact (particularly when 'spoken with authority')
I read somewhere that spring steel was tempered in lead or tin bath (molten obviously) depending on how flexible it needed to be (I think a history teacher 45 or more years ago?)
Using that method you can have less skilled apprentices turning out weapons under supervision of a master craftsman while the smiths can keep forging away..
After all, taking six months or a year to make a single Katana type blade isn't really feasible when you need hundreds or thousands in a hurry
Favorite silk cutting story, is the one where Richard the lionheart, was challenged by a Arabian war lord during the crusade. The challenge was to prove the lethality of their blades, the Arabian warlord dropped a piece of silk and cutt it with his sword before it hit the ground, so Richard lay a iron/steel bar on top of two bricks, swung his great sword down "cutting" the bar in half. Then he and the warlord laughed and drunk into the night.
That's actually kind of wholesome. :)