Where we have ferric material with a carbon content that is below 0.5% we can use cold forging techniques to form it, when we move the material into the black heat to low red those low heats are not going to have much, if any effect on grain structure, and it is not unusual to use low heats on low volume iron smithing work because of the cost savings.
I can quite believe that under this sort of forging the W pattern would still be discernible after working the material.
But at welding temperatures where the surface of the metal is liquefing, or at the very least beginning to liquefy and is then subjected to heavy forging I find it more than difficult to believe that any trace of a W pattern will remain when the work is cold, most especially so after the firescale has been removed.
I still find Weihrauch's reported results very difficult to understand when the observations of smiths who have worked with meteorite all point to the fact that the W pattern disappears under conditions of high heat and heavy forging.
But really, all this discussion of W patterns is a bit beside the point, yes, if we can see a W pattern on a piece of etched ferric material we can probably be reasonably certain that the material is meteoric in origin.
But my question is this:-
is it possible to identify with certainty that iron-nickel material that has been through the process of multiple forge welds and heavy forging is of meteoric origin?
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