Thread: Iwasaki Tamahagane Information

Originally Posted by Steve56

I would guess that you're correct about the crucible, remember that Hitachi made a iron sand steel that was manufactured by modern methods. I'm reasonably sure Hitachi steel wan't forge-folded by hand. Maybe they copied whatever Iwasaki was doing?

Cheers, Steve

More likely that this is a common process. Iwasaki was unlikely to be the first to think of this because it just makes sense. Folding is a very inefficient way to get rid of bloomery slag and inclusion. Plus, tamahagane starts out witha very high carbon content (the stuff for edge sections in any case) but after all the folding and forge welding, the carbon drops substantially if done by traditional methods. Mike Blue once told me that about 60% of tamahagane is lost as forging scale this way, and the carbon content drops from 1.4 to 0.7 to make sword grade steel.