When in India "died" wootz?

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by Roland_M

According to old sources in most cases wootz was either hard and brittle or soft and easily to bend (Egerton, Oriental arms and armour).

I know that just a few wootz blades from Persia and maybe the Ottoman empire, were able reach the european toughness and they were extremely valuable..........

I would say, this is the main reason, european steel was much cheaper and had better characteristics from technical point of view..............


The industrial production of european crucible steel begun in the middle of the 19th century............
Roland

Roland, actually crucible steel was known and made in England much earlier than the mid 19th century. So if England had crucible steel since the 1700s why were they still looking for the secret of Indian crucible steel? Perhaps because they thought of Indian crucible steel as being a superior steel, why else?

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