Talk:Pattern welding
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I am not sure that the technique described is exactly what I remember from a lecture I attended at MIT in the late 1960's, which was given by the British museum expert (I do not remember his name right now) who named the technique. It seems to me that one of the points was the all the layers did not have to be the same metal. I know that this is true for the Jappanese sword, but I seem to remember that the Viking examples used a harder metal in the center for the edge and a tougher metal in outside layers. I also believe that a prominent professor of metalurgy in the audience responded by describing some similar examples from an Asian tradition. Sorry this is all so vague, but I do not think that the definition of pattern welding should exclude using layers of dissimilar metals.
Are you sure you want allowance for different metals, and not just different alloys? As far as I know (although I know much less than I'd like about swordsmithing), pattern welding is exclusively a technique for ferrous materials (iron and some of the various steels). Peter Knutsen 06:06, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
"Today the Japanese katana is still considered by many to be the best sword ever produced" Can we please get a cite for this. These are classing weasel words. The Japanese smiths acheived great results with some pretty poor grade steel using only manaul labor (whereas Eurpoeans waited untill the water-wheel powered tilt hammer and bellows before attepting the huge amount of mechanical work that goes into pig iron). I also don't think pattern welding ended as described. The same techniques were still used to homenize pig iron into steel, but the all the layers were of the same alloy, so there is no visible patttern to bring out. 12.10.223.247 03:27, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
