Stuff You Should Know - The Mystery of Damascus Steel

Episode Date: June 22, 2021

Damascus steel and the recipe behind it remained a mystery for many years. But it turns out the key was a bygone ingredient. Listen in to this medieval mystery to learn all about it.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to

believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's the beautiful and illustrious Charles W. Chuck Bryant right there. And there's the equally awesome Jerry Jerome Rowland right

here to my right, about to chow down on some stuff for lunch. You were just cussing her out before we hit record. What are you talking about? And this is Stuff You Should Know. That's right. Disordered edition. Yeah, this was a bit of a mess about Damascus Steel, which is my favorite American gladiator. Oh, that's a good one, Chuck. Pretty good, huh? Yeah, that was great. It's all I could think about. Was it off the cuff? Uh-huh. Okay. It's off the cuff and then I thought about it five minutes before we came in here. That's cool. Let's still count. That's good. It wasn't a real character, right? This is a joke. No, but it sounds like it. It does. Okay. I wanted to make sure we're on the same page. I also wanted to take your joke and mash it into pieces. Sure. Good

job. Thank you. So we're talking today about Damascus Steel, which I was peripherally aware of before this, but I didn't know at all by any stretch. And what it turns out that apparently a lot of people who write about Damascus Steel don't know is that there was a metallurgical mystery that developed over time that was only solved in the 90s. 1990s. Yes, exactly. Thank you. Yeah. That other people have tried and maybe somewhat contributed to. And now finally, thanks to the efforts of these metallurgists who really got involved and tried to figure this out, this mystery has been solved. But it's possible that had they really not taken up this gauntlet and tried to figure out what was Damascus Steel,

we might never have known because even if you rewind all the way back 2000 years ago when Damascus Steel was started in production, they had no idea what Damascus Steel was either. No, it was kind of an accidental find. Yeah. If you look up Damascus Steel on a picture viewer on the internet, you will probably say, oh, it's like those cool swords or knives or guns that have that cool like wavy, watery etching on them. Yeah. Like Game of Thrones even talks about Damascus Steel. Right. Or if you're an interior designer and you're like, I've never seen a sword, it's like the Damascus material that sometimes people use for window treatments. Yeah. That pattern is the same. Yeah. And that's spelled D-A-M-A-S-K. Yes,

but it is based on that. Yes, exactly. Okay. And it is gorgeous stuff. Like if you see a pure knife collector or whatever and you collect like a new knife that says Damascus Steel or a gun that has a cool pattern, that is what we're going to refer to as quote, unquote, Damascus Steel. Right. It is not the original. It's not the OG Damascus Steel. It is something that people have learned to do these days to look like Damascus Steel. And that itself, the technique they used from what I saw was actually based on a pretty ancient technique as well, but it's still not Damascus Steel. Nope. And the reason why anybody would care about Damascus Steel is not just the way it looked, right? Which I think that if Damascus Steel didn't have that very

characteristic watery look to the steel, I don't think people would have taken up that quest to recreate it. No. I think that's really part of its allure that drew the metallurgists in at least. Well, yeah. It's, I mean, we should go ahead and say the allure is a few fold. It is... Well, I was about to. Super cool looking. Yeah. Can't deny it. I won't. But if it's super cool and like your sword breaks on some guy's suit of armor. He's not going to be like, that was a pretty cool sword. I feel bad for you. Let's just call it even. No, you're dead meat. So it is super, super strong and super cool looking. Right. And very flexible for a metal. It's got all of these cool properties kind of all wrapped up into one and it's like this super,

super steel. Super steel. That's exactly what it was and it was produced in the ancient world. We here in the modern world don't like to think of people in the ancient world having better steel than we have. Well, they didn't really. I mean, supposedly modern steel is better than even OG Damascus Steel. I think supposedly is the operative word. Yeah. So, but there was a period in time from at least, I think the first mention in the West that we are aware of comes from like the third or fourth century BCE. Yeah. Where the Greeks, I think Alexander the Great is basically like this stuff is awesome. Yeah. And so it was well known by that time, you know, more than 2000 years ago for being the steel you wanted to use if you were creating a weapon. Yeah. And you know,

let's go back in time a bit. If you're a sword maker a couple of thousand years ago, right, you've got your work cut out for you because you don't really know what you're doing yet. Like, you don't know what kind of metal that you're getting. Right. And if you get some iron, iron's going to have other properties in there, but you just kind of have what you have. Right. And the R&D process, if you imagine how long it takes to forge a sword, then you go out there and swing it and it breaks. Man. You're like, all right, let me try again. Let me try a different type of ore or a different type of iron. And swords are long and they're thin and it's just the very nature of making a broadsword is really difficult to make it super strong

and sharp and all the things in like not so heavy that you can't even carry it. Right. So they were sort of, I mean, they were brilliant in one sense that they were figuring this stuff out on the fly, but they were also just sort of victims of whatever materials they had available. Right. So that's what makes Damascus steel so interesting to me is that it was a fluke of nature. Right. And it happened to be mined as we'll see it was a fluke of nature. It happened to be mined in this one area in South India. And it just so happens that this particular iron ore that was being mined in that area made some of the finest steel the world's ever seen. Yeah. So they called it Wootz W-O-O-T-Z steel. And like you said, it was

mined near Hyderabad, India into these 2.3 to 2.5 kilogram cakes or ingots. About the size of a hockey puck I saw. Yeah. So they would ship these things out and they were mining and they didn't know like, hey, we've got this secret super metal that, you know, no one is going to believe what we're sending them. Right. They were just mining stuff. And they sent a lot of this to Damascus in Syria and they made them into swords. And most people think that's probably where the name comes from even though some people do say the root word damas in Arabic is watered. Oh, I didn't know that. So that could have been like one of the things, but my money is on the fact that they sent them to Damascus and that's where they made the steel. Sure. It makes sense. Yeah.

I mean, I guess it depends on how old the city of Damascus is, but I get the impression it's pretty old. It's not young. But watery steel makes a lot of sense too for that particular type of steel. Maybe it was both. Either way, it was very, it was well known outside of the Middle East and West Asia and India as like the go to steel. But at the time, like you were saying, they don't seem to have understood that what they had on their hands was just this incredibly high grade steel, just perfect steel for making weapons. I get the impression that the metalsmiths tended to take all the credit for it where in retrospect, you or I could have taken a lump of wood steel and just hammered it with our elbows and it would have turned into like a world-class

sword. Yeah, or at least something you could punch somebody with. Right. But the metalsmiths over the years kind of circled the wagons and pretended like they had some great secret or technique and maybe even thought that they did. But really, as we'll see, the secret ingredients were all in the steel that was being mined from India. Yeah, but also in the technique, which we'll get to as well. Right. But I think that was happenstance more than understood. I think so. Okay. Well, you know that what they should have done to see if they had the good stuff. What? They should have dabbed their pinky in it, touched it to their tongue. Nice. Rubbed their gums with it? Yeah, that's how you know you got the good stuff. Very nice. That's true. All right, so where were we? We were

in the Crusaders, right? The Crusaders get ahold of these things. Oh, right, right. And they kind of did what they wanted to do. Yeah, we should do an episode on the Crusades. No. Okay. Fair enough. I feel like we've talked about this before. Déjà vu. So this is the beginning of the 11th century. They got these swords off the battlefield and there's a lot of lore that surrounds this Damascus steel. Like you could cut a silk scarf that was falling through the air. What about a feather? Could you cut a feather? Cut that feather right in half. What about a hair? You could split that hair right in two, my friend. Long ways? Oh, I thought you just meant... No, I'm talking bug's bunny style. Yeah, you could split that hair. Okay. But all this was lore. It was

really good stuff nonetheless. But there are a lot of like, you know, sort of ancient stories about the properties, like the magical properties of this steel. Right, right. I saw one thing though. I don't think it has anything to do with magic, but I saw it from a metallurgy website. Somebody took a bunch of notes off, I guess, some lecture and I'm not entirely certain what the lecture was, but it was pretty intense. But they said that this would cost about the equivalent of a car today, one of these swords, one of these weapons. So they were highly prized. Wow. So you can imagine the Crusaders coming back to Europe and saying, hey, Smithy, make me something like this. Right. And from what I understand what the Smiths came up with, because they were hamstrung by the

iron that they had to work with, they came up with a different technique for creating a type of Damascus steel that isn't true Damascus steel, but became so widespread and basically all Europe had to offer that it became what's known as a type of Damascus steel patterned while the Damascus steel. Right. And that is, you know, it's still strong and it has that nice looking, you know, watery etching or whatever. Right. But it kept them from getting their heads cut off probably. It was good enough. Yeah. I would say. But it's off-market Damascus steel. It's the knights of the round table of Damascus steel, you know what I mean? Sure, because it wasn't that woods. You got to have that woods. Right. But they didn't know that at the time. So because they were able

to form that watery pattern from taking two different kinds of steel, that's what pattern welded Damascus steel is made from, use at least two different kinds, apparently ultimately for the color contrast, because that creates that watery pattern is the two kinds of steel hammered into one another that creates the pattern in that type, which makes it not really true Damascus steel. If you have true Damascus steel, that pattern goes all the way through that Damascus steel blade. Like you could. Oh, really? Yes, you can wear it down and wear it down until you make it through the other side and that water patterns all the way through. See, that is pretty cool. Like it's a part of the the ore itself at that point. Absolutely. That is what differentiates

true Damascus steel from anything else. That's right. And boy, I can't wait to talk about that stuff at the end, how they figured this out. I know. I feel like we've been paying this out tantalizingly. All right. Well, we'll take a break here and we'll talk about some of the efforts over the years to try and figure out what this what the steel was right after this. Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation. If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help this. I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that Michael and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander

each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids relationships life in general can get messy. You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Oh, just stop now. If so, tell everybody everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangeh Shatikler. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get second hand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and

pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, Chuck, this is going so well, by the way.

Should we tell people that we've had some technical difficulties? Might as well. They're probably like, what is wrong with these two right now? Yeah, and we're kind of giggly and we're not drunk. But Jerry didn't bring champagne today. The rare technical difficulties have caused us to have to redo some stuff. We're just not used to that. Usually everything runs like a Swiss watch around here. It's not Jerry's fault though. Swiss army knife with the corkscrew out going right up our butts. That's more what it's like. We got to say though, it's not Jerry's fault. No, we would never blame Jerry for something like

that. It's like the three little pigs. Somebody's been sleeping in our bed, you know? That's what I blame. Somebody got in our studio and touched some stuff. Yes. Well, they're going to be very surprised by the padlock that they encounter next time. Exactly. And you're like, and there's only one key. And I swallowed it. I'm going to have to get it out with the Swiss army corkscrew. All right. So from the beginning, they started to try and recreate this stuff. And you know, like I said, that was during the 11th century. And then it just sort of, it seems like it just continued on throughout the ages of people trying to recreate this.

Yes. But at the same time, they were still able to keep making Damascus steel from India. The quote unquote Damascus steel. Up until depending on, no, no, the real stuff. Oh yeah. Because they had this ingot. Yes. Up until, and I think India was still producing it. Up until depending on you, you ask either the 18th century or the 19th century. Right. Good point. And then all of a sudden, Damascus steel just stops. And all you have is the pattern well that you cannot find true Damascus steel anymore. And it was quite perplexing to a lot of people. It was. And they were making, they were making guns, gun barrels with the stuff. Yeah. Like that's how long it continued. Yeah. And that's, I think that's supposedly what supplanted

Damascus steel in a lot of people's mind, because some people said they didn't even realize that there was a mystery to Damascus steel. They just thought it had been supplanted by advances in steel making. Yeah. So you didn't need Damascus steel anymore. And another explanation I saw was that Damascus steel is actually terrible for rifling in the gun barrel, because that watery pattern would actually hold on to the powder residue. Oh, interesting. And your gun would be likely to backfire. But it would, it was actually very useful in that you could make a gun barrel, which is long and narrow. Right. From this Damascus steel, because that's the special kind of steel that stays strong, even when you're elongating it. Right. And I mean, let's be honest,

the people wielding those guns, we're like, this is pretty boss. It is, but I also think, you know, if I'm on the battlefield, I want the guy who's just, who only cares about the function of his gun, not the guy who's admiring what his gun looks like. You know what I mean? Like when you're walking through the old gun market, you want the guy that's like, she's ugly, but she shoots straight. That's right. Yes, the guy from Jaws. Is that Quint? Yeah. So this one guy, there was a Russian metallurgist named P. Anasoff. And he thought that he had it all figured out. They called it, he called it Bulat. And he even said, in no uncertain terms, our warriors will soon be armed with Bulat blades. Our agricultural laborers will till the soil with Bulat plow shares.

Bulat will supersede all steel. And he didn't, it didn't work. He wasn't able to recreate it. No. And he actually was part of this initial wave of scientists. I think his metallurgy was really developing. Because we said before, the ancients had, it was all just intuition and technique. And they knew what, you know, they were doing, but they also couldn't be like, oh, it's because of this that's happening on a microscopic level. Right. Of course, they didn't have microscopes and know about chemistry. You can thank Anton Van Leeuwenhoek for that. That's right. But as metallurgies started to develop, as science itself started to develop as a field, that was a sub-discipline that really

kind of came around. And one of the things they tried to figure out was what was the deal with Damascus Steel. It was one of the first things they really applied their mind to. And Michael Faraday actually, who is the guy who crosses over from this episode to the other one today, he was the son of a blacksmith, very famous scientist, the father of electricity. He tried his hand at figuring out what Damascus Steel was. And what everybody kind of had a suspicion was, is that this steel had more carbon than your average steel, but there had to be some secret ingredient. And so it kind of became trendy in the first half of the 19th century among metallurgists and scientists in general to figure out what that secret third ingredient was.

Yeah. And there were a lot of attempts. I think Faraday thought it might have been silica and aluminum or aluminum to him. In the 1820s, Jean Robert Brent at the Paris Mint did a six-week study in the trial. And I think he did about 300 experiments. He was trying to reproduce this woods unsuccessfully. I think he tried platinum, gold, silver, copper, tin, zinc, lead, bismuth, manganese. He was close there. Uranium, arsenic, and boron. And then that Russian even tried diamond. Yes. It's like, let me throw some diamond in there and see what that does. Why not at this point? I think somebody melted it on a kitchen sink. And the whole time, they were still hearing about this lore. I think by this point, they didn't,

they knew if these stories that came out of the Middle Ages certainly were not true, but there were stories about cooling it in dragon's blood. Oh yeah, I love these. About quenching it in dragon's blood, when you cool it down. Or red medicine or green medicine is what they called it. There was also one I saw where you're supposed to quench it in the urine of a goat that's been fed nothing but ferns for three days. Is that real? It's real. I mean, it's not real obviously. No, but I can't tell if you're making it. No, no, no. I wish I were that clever. That was pretty good. That sounded like a U joke. Thanks. Oh, a U joke? No, okay. That's sheep. Right. Let me see. It had to have been heated until it glowed like the rising sun in the

desert and then cooled to royal purple and plunged into the body of a muscular slave to transfer the strength of that person into the sword. So obviously in the 1800s, they know all of this is hogwash. Right, but over the thousands of years that Damascus steel had been produced, like these are the lower that kind of developed around it, right? Yeah, I mean, and they wanted to keep this stuff a secret. That's one of the reasons, aside from running out of that original woots. Right. Another factor was the fact that they didn't, you know, spread this around. You wanted to, if you knew something like this, you wanted to keep it in the family, I think. Well, that's what a lot of people thought. So you have a whole, like the whole world is just

confused about Damascus steel and will be and was until this episode comes out where we finally explain the deal. But there were different camps running around. Like we said, some people were aware that Damascus steel just wasn't around anymore and that something had happened. Other people just thought it was supplanted by increasingly better technology. Right. So what other people thought and the most interesting idea to me was that the Smiths who created these incredible blades, like you said, kept it in the family and then just some generation failed to tell the next generation the secret was lost forever. Right. And that is really like up the Damascus steel alley that is shrouded in mystery and secrecy and magic and dragon's blood and

fern eating goats that pee all over the place, you know. Right. Yeah. And that's that, so it's really interesting, but no one knew exactly what was going on. They just knew that nobody was making true cast domestic Damascus steel anymore. That's right. Should we take another break? All right. This third act, you guys just get ready. It's going to knock your socks off right after this. Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation. If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help this. I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously. I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael, um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that Michael and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander

each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids relationships life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get second hand astrology. And lately I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and

pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. So everyone's trying to make this stuff. Everyone's trying to recreate it.

The answer is it's kind of right under their nose, but it's not because it's not under their nose, because this stuff had been gone for a long time. It dried up. That Wootz dried the W up and was gone. And then I think it was, when was this in the 1960s that a guy named C.S. Smith and he was a metallurgist, the chief metallurgist of the Manhattan Project. He wrote a paper about Damascus Steel. And again, this is the 1916s and said this stuff was lost to history and a bunch of people tried over the years to recreate it. He kind of laid down the gauntlet. This is a metallurgical mystery guy. Yeah. And it seemed like it sort of kicked off a renewed interest here in the mid-20th century. It definitely did. It became kind of like the, I don't want to say holy grail, because

it's just so cliche, but it is pretty accurate among metallurgists to figure out Damascus Steel and to recreate it too. I think that's fair. So there were many attempts. Like we said, there had been previously many attempts back in the 19th century, but I think in the 70s, a pair of Stanford researchers really kind of thought they had cracked this. And as I was saying at the outset of this episode, they weren't entirely wrong. They just didn't complete the thought. They thought they had, but they didn't. They figured out one very important part and they actually did it by accident. They were looking up ways to make metal that is much more shapeable, but still equally strong. Because you had said these early Smiths were, they knew some metals

were strong. Some metals were hard. Some metals would break easily, but you could fold them into shapes or whatever. These guys were looking for a kind of metal that was extremely strong, but also shapeable. And they came up with this super plastic metal. And somebody said, I think this is kind of similar to Damascus Steel. Yeah, their names were Dr. Jeffrey Wadsworth and Dr. Oleg Sherby. The Sherbs. Yeah, that's a good movie name. Dr. Oleg Sherby. So yeah, in trying to find this super plastic metal, they found something that I think someone at one of their presentations, a swordsman,

stood up in the movie version from the crowd and said, hey, this is very much like Damascus Steel, which was very rich in carbon. And they went, what, carbon? Or did they already know it was carbon? Surely this was not the reveal, right? They knew that this high carbon content was making their steel super plastic. And I think the swordsman, Zoro, will call him, said, Sherbs, I think that Damascus Steel also was high in carbon. And I think maybe the super plastic thing is what you guys have stumbled on here is the secret to Damascus Steel. So let's go write a paper based on this Randall Stranger's thoughts. Yeah. And because, I mean, his name is Zoro, he carved a Z in my chest.

When we say a lot of carbon, between one and two, about 1.5%, which doesn't sound like much, but regular steel has a fraction of 1% of carbon. So it's a lot for a sword. Yeah, I think anything over 0.7 or 0.78%, rounded up 0.8% is considered ultra high carbon steel. Okay. So really not much, like you said, but as you add this carbon, it does start to give the metal different properties. And in particular, with Damascus Steel, it turns out that Wootz, that Wootz alloy was a hyper eutectoid ferrocarbon alloy. Ew. I saw that word. It had so much carbon in it that it changes the eutectic point. The eutectic point is the temperature where all the different materials that make up the alloy

just separate. They're different materials. They're melted apart. They're no longer together. This has so much carbon in it that the melting point is actually after the eutectic point. So this stuff can kind of fall apart either after the melting point or before the melting point. I can't remember, but it has to do with that. Right. And we'll get to the other secret property, but there was also a technique involved in that to create this Damascus Steel, to forge a sword, compared to other ores, you were hammering at a relatively lower temperature than you would normally. That was the other thing that the Sherbes and Wadsworth were saying was it has to do with this. But again, a microscopic metallurgical level, what they came upon was we think that the

true secret... Well, who's they? You gotta shout them out. Sherbes. Well, no. I'm still on them. So Sherbes and Wadsworth said, we think that it has to do with these carbides that are forming. Right. And so carbides are a... It's like iron and carbon mixed together. And in particular, what this forms is called cementite. And these cementites are forming as spheres. And as you hammer in heat, woots, these iron carbide spheres align themselves just so with the shards of iron to create this really strong, but also really resilient type of steel. Yeah. And this is something that you're looking at under a microscope. Right. And that is one of the problems. And one of the reasons that it was so hard to figure this

out over the years is that in order to do that, you have to take one of these blades and cut it into sections and put it under a microscope. And these were like rare collectibles. So... Yeah. People weren't coming off of them very easily. Not much. I mean, there were a few museums donated some pieces. And then there was this guy, Henri Moser, who was a collector. I think he had 2,000 damn-ask blades. And he donated two daggers and four swords in the 1920s. That was nice of him. To a guy named Z.S.C.H.O.K.K.E. So I'm going to say Shoka. Okay. Or Shoka. And so that helped, obviously. But it's hard to get a hold of this stuff to

cut it up and put it under a microscope. And that's problem one. But then even when you put it under a microscope, you're like, okay, I kind of understand what I'm seeing. But then how do I recreate this? Yeah, exactly. And even more to the point, how did these ancient smiths 2,000 years ago create this? Luck. So they figured out, yes. So they figured out that the iron carbides are definitely a big part of it. And Wadsworth and the Sherbes took a victory lap. But then CS Smith. 1981-ish, right?

Yeah, something like that. But then CS Smith, the metallurgist from the Manhattan Project, who I get the impression he's kind of like this metallurgy god. He's like, I don't think that's it, everybody. I don't think this is the true explanation. And so it remained unanswered for another decade or so. Right. And he checked in with the other metallurgy god on his right, Mr. Bruce Dickinson. Sure. And he said, make it so. That's right.

So then these other dudes came along, John D. Verhoeven from the University of Iowa, and then a smithy from Florida named Al Pindre. And they spent I think like four or five years again, like running all these trials, trying to figure out what this last little secret sauce was. Yeah, because so this is what he was up against, if I just may interject real quick. He was saying, was it one of the components making up the slag? Was it something being extracted from the crucible walls, the little pot you melted in? Was it the type of iron used to make it? Was it the time or temperature used to heat the molten metal? Was it the cooling rate? He had all these questions. He did not know what it was.

He just knew that Wadsworth and the Sherps had not answered it yet. Right. Every time you say Wadsworth and, I want to think of the Muppet Show guys. Was that there? No. I don't think it was Wadsworth, but it was something like that. All right. Man, it was Berg, not Bergdorf. Bergdorf and Goodman. It was Macy's and Gimbal. We'll figure it out. Oh goodness. Somebody's screaming out there. I know. I think it was Walmart and Woolworth. That's it. That was them. I know. Well, we don't look stuff up on the show.

It's just a long standing rule generally, right? Yes. Because it's rude. It is. Because we're actually sitting in front of each other for a change. We're talking. We're having a conversation for Pete's sake. So, I mean, I feel like you should announce it since you're the one who kind of... No. Really? You got this. I just wanted to interject that one thing about all the confounding factors that it could have possibly been in that this guy's applying science to this. All right. So, what they found out was what happens on that level was something that's

called a micro-segregation, which is a chemical separation of alloy elements on very small scales of low levels of carbide forming elements. And they had a list of five things. Vanadium, our newest best friend, Molly B. Yeah. Was on the list. Yeah. It's so funny how like this come up like three or four times. I know. I never even knew it existed until like a month ago. Chromium, manganese, and neobium. And what they found out was the winner overall, ladies and gentlemen, was Vanadium.

Yes, the chemical element V. With a little bit of manganese, they said that has something to do with it. Yeah. But mainly Vanadium, I think as low as 40 parts per million is actually effective. And that was so close to vibranium, I was like, I got really excited. I was like, oh man, is it vibranium? Of course, that's not real. No. What's it from? Really? Yeah.

You're not into the Marvel or the MCU, are you? No. Okay. What's it from? Vibranium is the fictional alloy in Wakanda. Oh, okay. For where they make their weapons out of that? Yeah. And that's what Captain America's shield is made from vibranium. Okay. That's why it's so tough.

Got you. Did he get that from Wakanda? He got the vibranium from Wakanda. Oh, that's neat. Yeah. They share. I like it. I've noticed here or there in the Marvel Universe, sometimes it almost seems like there's like crossover between characters.

That's weird. That's a great example of it. Yeah. It's almost like they had it all plotted out. I see. Well, it's funny. Another Marvel shout that there's this company in Sweden making this new Damascus steel and they give it all these like, you know, sort of Viking names. One is called Thor. One is called Loki. One is called Fern eating goat pee.

Right. But they're just, you know, they're trying to increase sales by naming it something super cool. Yeah. And they make fake Damascus steel. It's like stainless steel with the pattern blown on to it. Yeah. Basically using powder. This is, they figured out finally true Damascus steel, which is just absolutely wonderful. Yeah. Vibranium.

It's that little bit of, now I can't remember, it's vanadium, right? Yeah, vanadium. Those are carbide forming elements. Right. So it is the carbides. You do have to start off with ultra high carbon steel and apparently the ancient Indian Smiths created that alloy by putting a little bit of charcoal in there, maybe a little bit of wood in with the iron.

Yeah. So it would absorb a lot of carbon from it. It just so happened that the iron ore that they were starting off with had some vanadium in it. And that is ultimately what created that amazing watermark pattern, but also gave it its strength and survivability in battle. Yeah. And I'm hoping someone out there makes Damascus steel daggers and sent us one. Oh, that'd be neat. I want a Damascus steel dagger.

Somebody, I can't remember who it was. They remember they sent us knives. I still have my filet knife. You had the chef's knives? Yeah. Those are gorgeous. Amazing. Whoever sent that, thank you again.

I cannot remember your name as years ago, but thank you. Yeah, as many years ago. You got anything else? I got nothing else. And I'm still seeing that we recorded this episode successfully. That's all that matters. Eventually. Yeah, it is.

Well, if you want to know more about Damascus steel, go to your local gas station. They probably have something that looks like it. It's probably not real. Probably not. But you can look at it and say, oh, that's what they're talking about. I got it. And since I said I got it, it's time for listener mail. All right.

I'm going to call this, this is the most recent email in my inbox. Thanks. Hey, guys. I'm writing to tell you about numerical palindromes. You dismissed them as being quite unexceptional. And while I agree that alphabetic palindromes are much more complicated and difficult, I have to tell you I'm obsessed with palindromes on the odometer of my car. OK.

I can see how that could be fun. Looking up, recognizing a palindrome on your old odometer. Yeah, I guess so, sure. I actually shared two cars with my husband. And when I got in and saw that the odometer read 33934, I actually gasped. Today, I was able to resolve my stress in that car, as you see. Oh, is that a palindrome, though? 33934?

33934. Oh, oh, oh, OK. Does it involve subtraction? Because if so, that's not a palindrome. I think this person just missed the palindrome because they share a car with her husband. Oh, gotcha. That makes sense. That makes sense.

Today, I was able to resolve my stress in that car, as you can see. Once again, I particularly enjoy ones with 8s and 0s or 6s in opposition to 9s. Sure. Like 26092 or 85158. Yeah, there's something satisfying about seeing those numbers, I think. It's nice and round. Plus 9 is unlucky in Japan. Oh, it is?

Yeah, 9 and 4. If you can imagine rotating it around on its central number, there's always another cooler balance number on the horizon, even if it isn't a perfect palindrome. I hope I have elevated numerical palindromes a little bit for you. A little bit. Chow for now. That is from Robin Van Gessel in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, North America.

Beautiful town. Planet Earth. Thanks a lot, Robin. Appreciate that. Really appreciate the chow as well. That was very nice. Nice ad. Good send-off.

Super 80s throwback. And if you want to get in touch with us like Robin did, you can send us an email too. Wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, and send it off to StuffPodcastsatihartradio.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts on my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast,

Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app,

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