I'm wanting to give this pattern Damascus at try as I really like how it looks. I can't however find much on how to build it up past that it 5-6 multi bar. 

So my questions are these. Best / good layer count. This I'm willing to play around with a bit. Next, is this a high twist rate for the bars, or slower like a Turkish twist. 

 

Any advice is much appreciated 

May I commend to your attention: http://lanktonmetaldesign.com/lmd-v1/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/combined-sutton-hoo.pdf

Scott made a replica of the Sutton Hoo sword that is currently in the British Museum with the remains of the original.

from what I have seen,  stack thicker layers in center of bar and thinner in outer and a looser twist than the turkish

Mr. Powers that is one of the more interesting reads I've had in a while. Thank you  very much.  Should be of great help to me. Especially with the pictures. 

Mr. Sells, thank you. It's a starting  point. I've got just enough material on hand without a name on it to give an experiment a go. 

My main take on it after talking with Scott was the low layer counts, and the top/bottom pieces (almost double the billets used as one might suspect.)   Scott was the bladesmithing demonstrator at one Quad-State. (As was Al Pendray and Ric Furrer in various years...)

Also  you might be interested in another work: "Das zweischneidige Schwert der Völkerwanderungszeit" Elis Behmer;  my copy is dated 1939, I don't know if it has been reprinted.  (Also as is typical of works from ultra nationalistic periods/places, while the pictures are superb, some of the interpretation is suspect.  If you don't read German you are A-OK!)  

Have you searched under Migration Era Swords ?

Any thought of carburizing wrought iron and doing it "old school"?  Of course even Scott took more than one try to get everything *perfect*.

Great read Thomas, thanks for the link! Took a bit of a bite out of my recent paleontology reading but fit right in with the legendary Viking swords reading. 

Frosty The Lucky.

My German is very very rusty. Took a few years in high school half a lifetime ago. I do better with Russian these day. I will look into the title though. Despite the political ideology  of Germany at that time, the teutonic thoroughness was very prevalent at the time. It should  be a very in depth  read. 

 

I've "started" looking into & researching the migration era, but I would say that I've got real knowledge as yet. Granted I've draw out a langseax I'd like to get to at some point. 

 

I'd not thought about carbuizing. I'd very much like to get into bloomery though. Spent a good chunk of winter reading / researching & gathering materials. A good source of local iron has been the hold up. May just end up having to break up old brake drums. I'd much rather find some iron sand or bog iron. 

 

I've got to xxxx many interests. I feel like I never get anything accomplished. 

BRAKE DRUMS ARE NOT IRON ORE!  Scale from around your anvil is.

Put a fishing magnet in a plastic bag and sift through dirt, sand, etc. till you start accumulating black sand. When you have a bunch just remove the bag and you won't have to fight to get it off the magnet. 

If you have rain gutters put a magnet in a bag under the down spout and hose the crud out of the gutter. The black "sand" stuck to the magnet in the bag is meteorite iron.

Frosty The Lucky.

I know. Its just wishful thinking. I've got a 5  gallon bucket I've been slowly filling.  I'm simply  impatient.

Frosty, I've no idea if you're pulling my leg or not. 

If you are impatient---have you asked the members of BAM to save it for you?

17 minutes ago, fleur de lis said:

Frosty, I've no idea if you're pulling my leg or not. 

Which one, drag the magnet through dirt or mine the roof gutters? 

Both your legs are unstretched. The first I heard about how much meteoric material lands on the average roof was reading an article about chemically analyzing Hally's comet by collecting dust from rain gutters. The control samples extended for months both sides of the Orionid meteor showers so they could graph the %s. 

I don't recall how many hundred tons of space dust hits Earth daily but it's a LOT. 

Frosty The Lucky.

 

1 hour ago, ThomasPowers said:

If you are impatient---have you asked the members of BAM to save it for you?

I feel thoroughly stupid now. This idea has never once crossed my mind. 

10 hours ago, Frosty said:

 I don't recall how many hundred tons of space dust hits Earth daily but it's a LOT. 

I couldn't find a definitive answer on the daily amount. Too many conflicting results.  According to a Cornell University study it's78,000 tons yearly so approximately 213 tons daily.

When I was a kid I thought collecting meteorites off the roof was the coolest thing ever. I had a mason jar about a third of the way full that I used for a science presentation in the fourth grade;-) IIRC it didn't take long at all to collect either but I had a magnet at about fifteen downspouts at family and friends places.

 Thanks for reminding me of that frosty it made me smile.

    Pnut (Mike) 

May want to divide the tons per day by the area it is scattered across.

I am just guessing but I suppose it's only counting material falling on land. I didn't have time to dig much further. I'm at work right now. I'm not sure  if they are estimating strikes over water also. I have to read the rest of the study later.

I'm betting it's a guesstimated average over who knows how long. The little 10m meteor that exploded over the Bearing sea a couple months ago was estimated at 1,500 tons but I don't know how they know what it is. (was?) I don't know if they got a good enough look as it hit atmosphere to do a spectrographic but the video is from a satellite so maybe.

The best rain gutter collector I saw was a head slapper for me, someone just put plastic buckets under the spouts and let the water overflow and meteor settle. The college profs had all sorts of elaborate magnetic traps so nothing would get away. I'd laugh but I didn't think of a bucket either so . . .

I still wish we had rain gutters. <sigh>

Frosty The Lucky.

It's definitely an estimate or someone had a very busy schedule counting all the micrometeorites that fell on Earth that day. Talk about a terrible Monday. I think I would have called in sick. ;-)

Oh it'd be a team effort, you'd have to get someone to count all the meteors everywhere on the same day. Wanna bet the Chicxlub meteor didn't strike on a Memorial weekend Friday? That'd be a calendar reset, you betcha!

Frosty The Lucky.

OK lets be the first to start spreading the rumour that Chicxlub actually occurred at a Mayan "Long Count" cycle reset date! (It was written on the Stela Arcturus by the Velocipede Raptures of the day....I think I lost sanity points just writing that...)

Recent intensive study of the Clawneiform on the Stele has revealed significant details of the days and dates effected. Think daylight savings is a hassle? 

Frosty The Lucky.

Dear Frosty,

I think the magnetic trapping of dust washed off roofs is a great idea BUT I'd be concerned with the assumption that all dust that falls out of the sky which has enough iron in it to respond to a magnet is of meteoric origin.  Magnetic minerals such as magnetite when eroded to a small enough size can be swept up as dust and carried high into the atmosphere.  Here in the western US we can have increased and early snow melt because of dust from the Gobi Desert in Central Asia falling out over the Colorado Rockies.  I think microscopic analysis of the dust particles could separate the terrestrial origin fragments from the extra-terrestrial.  I would expect the meteoric bits to be rounded/spherical and the erosional minerals to be more angular.  That might not be true in all cases but that is the assumption with which I would start.

Also, IIRC, only about 40% of meteorites are of nickle-iron composition.  Most are stony with some of mixed composition.

I have always wanted to drag a magnet through the roadside dirt near Meteor Crater in N. Arizona to try to recover the remains of the iron rain from that strike.

Thomas, DO NOT start the Chixilub/Long Count rumor.  There are way too many people out there who would believe that instantly without calculating it out.  It is one of those things which sound too credible.  BTW, did you see the news report within the last couple of days that they have discovered fossils in North Dakota which have impact debris with them and evidence of a seismic seiche in the Cretaceous Interior Seaway?  It ties down the date of the impact pretty closely.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

The dating of tektites from fossils in the Hell Creek Formation in ND date the Chixilub impact to 65.76 million years BP.

Yes I've seen those.  Raton, NM, USA has a good exposure of the iridium layer in a couple of places.

George: differentiating meteoric from terrestrial dust is pretty easy with a little equipment and the k now how. IIRC Chondritic meteors out number metallic but don't quote me. I think a boy could get in trouble running a magnet around Meteor Crater Park, even outside the boundaries.  I want to talk Deb into visiting Meteor Crater one of these snowbird seasons. I think I was maybe 10 when we visited on vacation. 

As instrumentation gets better dating objects gets more precise and tektites have a hard reset date on their calendars.  

Frosty The Lucky.