How to make a melting FURNACE and CRUCIBLE for WOOTZ steel 

is that a regular red brick or refractory brick 🤔🤔🤔

Thank you very much, always love seeing the making of the steel

Thank you very much for this!!!!! This is the video I have been waiting for!

Thank you for sharing your knowledge with the blade making community. You’ve accomplished better results with recreating a wootz like metal than anyone I’ve seen.

So you allow the crucible to air dry? Does it actually take a whole month, or is it faster? And could you bake it in the oven to speed up the process?

А вопрос про использование ингредиентов для тигля? Слепить то можно, но из чего?

THANK YOU

Geroyam Slava

Thanks 👍

You are make some "true wootz" right now?

3% vanadium ??? No. No way. Maybe 0.003% or 0.03%, but not 3%. A tiny amount of vanadium is enough to change the pattern of a wootz steel, and vanadium is rather rare in ores.

@jeanladoire4141 it's not about the pattern, it's about the properties that the vanadium imbue into the steel. Those swords were known to flex in combat and then come back to being true after each strike. The mine that Salah Ah Din used was found again, and the composition of the ore was determined from samples taken.

@@gra4279 ancient wootz steel didn't have significant vanadium content, it didn't affect the properties of the steel like with modern steels. Larrin Thomas recently made a video on his tests of wootz (following the ancient compositions) and the performances were pretty bad. Hard steel, but very brittle. A lot of ancient wootz swords weren't even hardened, by fear of breaking them. Tiny amounts of vanadium only had effects on the pattern, and not much more

Thanks 👍

Thanks 👍

Thanks 👍

Thanks 👍

… Because a lot of things are rather technical or require skill accrued from practice to do. So you have a simple version, and the actual technical explanation; wait, what’s the complaint again, if there is clearly both being presented? Also, very few things are secret in blacksmithing anymore, anyways. Hell, do you know how dangerous molten steel actually is? Drop that on concrete or anything wet and you have an uncontrolled explosion with shrapnel and molten iron. If you want the technical info, go to blacksmithing forums and not youtube.

@@farmerboy916 I do surf the forums when I am in search of information. The closest I found to an instructional for wootz/crucible steel. Was basically a journal entry cataloging one person's experience working with the metal and how he made cast iron several times. Not how he made it. "I put it some high carbon steel and a low carbon steel to balance it out between 3-5% carbon content. Topped it off with some glass, I prefer champagne bottle. Then I put it in the furnace for a while until it's melted." Yeah very helpful. Thanks. No mention of method, fuel source, or even an actual duration. Now,... Google isn't my friend. Many an hour I have wasted trying to find information. Only for the topic to come up shortly after in conversation and someone will list off a bunch of sources. RU-vid is not the be all/end all of quality information. But sometimes it is the only place to find an explanation. Thanks for the input

@@cameronroberson1114 If you really want the best source out there especially on YT, it’ll probably be Neils Provos. Old videos but good. Admittedly, some of the old thread and forums may have died now, but I suspect there’s more than that. Think about what you’re asking; it’s crucible steel usually done with a closed top, so fuel or heat source technically doesn’t matter a whit (even open top is only going to have so much effect one way or another depending on carbon compared to the atmosphere), and each home constructed foundry is going to have different capabilities and requirements and run differently. Any refined fuel is going to run hot enough for you with enough air, at least in theory. As well, until you break out digital scales and start working with pure or specific known compositions there’s not really any ability to have material consistency between people. As well, what’s your goal? To make good steel and alloy, to make it from scratch for the novelty or for the challenge, to imitate classical wootz/ bulat (and to what degree), to recycle material? Some are much more difficult. With this many variables no one wastes time trying to write a comprehensive guide, you’re going to have to pick a direction and estimate and troubleshoot.

inclusive? i see people sh!t on pattern welded knives/etc all the time and scream "iTs NoT tRuE dAmAsCuS!!". Especially on youtube shorts or shorter form content, maybe their way more inclusive on forums or in real life, but in youtube specifically i see plenty of hate

@@IllNacs … So you see people say something pedantic but true, and say it’s awful because of that? Grow up.

😁👍

👍

Why the glass

@@daveprokop1917 The glass creates an atmospheric barrier to prevent oxidation of the steel while it's molten. Without the glass, the steel will oxidize and lose carbon content.

@@Skinflaps_Meatslapper did not know that. Thank you. Take care

Thanks

Assuming 525g final weight at 7:30 ~33% whole bearings (173g/525g=33.33%) ~58% bearing balls (303g/525g=57.71%) ~9% iron powder (46g/525g=8.76%) It looks like he adds around 2g of graphite at the end, though that's just an estimate. Maybe 0.5%? If you're considering steel strength, you would want around 0.5-1% carbon by weight. The ball bearings he uses are likely 1% carbon already, so you might adjust the recipe he's showing here to have more iron powder and less graphite powder. Glass powder is just flux, enough to cover the top will work. Not precise. The most important things seem to be the use of different sized bearing steel (chromium steel) parts and iron dust to create the wootz pattern, plus a little carbon (graphite). For anyone looking to try this, you might use this recipe: ~90% Chromium steel parts of various sizes ~9.9% Iron powder ~0.1% Graphite powder + Enough glass powder to cover the top

@@N1ck00 Thank you for that break down of the steel. That does help for when I want to do this later. However, I was asking about the crucible itself, not the metal going into it.

Thanks 👍

If you want to get pretty close to the composition of historical wootz steel you might try melting 1 part W2 steel(for the vanadium) to 9 parts wrought iron with enough charcoal powder to get the total carbon content up to 1.5%. The chromium from ball bearing steel is a carbide former, but it will be somewhat different than vanadium, and I don't know how much you would need to use.

@@garethbaus5471 This is fascinating to me - I read the old Pendray articles way back when, but metallurgy is pretty far over my head.

Thanks

Thanks

Thanks

Thanks

👍

materials in stores)

​@@fz-makingknives3663 not finding chamotte clay powder. Thank you very much for the tutorial!

Thanks

Thanks

Thanks 👍