by vinceguidry on 6/21/2019, 11:32:53 AM
by rmbryan on 6/21/2019, 11:59:30 AM
Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle has about 35 enjoyable pages on this process, if anyone's interested.
by hardlianotion on 6/21/2019, 12:44:33 PM
There's a highly entertaining account of the uses and properties of Wootz steel in Neal Stephenson's The Confusion, part of his Baroque Cycle.
(edit - beaten to it - see below)
by eyeball on 6/21/2019, 11:45:40 AM
Hour documentary on wootz:
by dsfyu404ed on 6/21/2019, 11:37:35 AM
The illustrative picture on that article is absolutely useless without a scale of some sort. The feature look small, like maybe on the order of a weld bead but it might be on the order of mill scale but under massive magnification and I have no way to tell.
by L_226 on 6/21/2019, 1:45:02 PM
Here's Niels Provos (author of bcrypt) attempting to make Wootz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9j9vUGi0QA
by mrec on 6/21/2019, 11:59:17 AM
Nitpick: it's Wootz steel, not Wootz's steel. It wasn't named after someone called Wootz.
by wrong_variable on 6/21/2019, 11:44:02 AM
India prior to the Brits, should be a case study in how to integrate places like the Rust Belt in US, Afghanistan into global trade.
Each village was an autonomous unit of production that traded directly with nearby villages, silk road and through merchant ships with the world. ( In some cases they had their own local currency ! )
A single village could be directly linked to markets in Europe and China, or form part of a supply chain of villages to larger markets. Shenzen is similar being a SEZ, allowing it to trade directly with any unit across the globe.
It is kinda ironic that we went from a more libertarian trade system to a more restrictive one, as technology helped the state exert more control.
Places like the Rust belt can't directly trade with Kenya, they have to go through hordes of middle men.
Same thing happens in inner India, even though its filled with excess cheap labor in close proximity.
by bostonpete on 6/21/2019, 11:12:57 AM
It seems like a link to a random Wikipedia page should be accompanied by an explanatory comment...
One of the things that threw me off when watching forging YouTube videos like Alec Steele was that he would take on these historical projects like Renaissance weaponry but using super-modern power hammers and such. But they actually had power hammers in the Renaissance, Wikipedia calls them trip hammers. They didn't appear in Europe until the Middle Ages, but similar devices were used in China 2000 (!) years ago.
The things you can do with just water, wind, and wood are incredible.