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Here is a citation of the original article:

Nature 444, 286 (16 November 2006) | doi:10.1038/444286a; Received 24 July 2006; Accepted 25 October 2006; Published online 15 November 2006
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Bonitomio,

I hope I do not create excess pain, but this is not a laminated blade. What you see is an etched superficial pattern. It is a fine old blade, without doubt.

Chris, that personal communique with TI is very informative. It's a very good thing when the company is willing to explain some of the features of their product and not hide behind proprietary...

There are two main methods to achieve the pattern. For a very basic image, think of plywood made up of many layers. You only see the outer wood grain layer until you cut down into the board at an...

Hmm. Chris, the photos you posted are ladder pattern welded steels. A very fine pattern, 600 layers or higher, but modern pattern welded steel nonetheless. The old TI blade pictured is not wootz. ...

Tom, sadly I never visited the Wikipedia article, or the Samurai Sword Shop. The Sword shop article really only has one item wrong and that is the concept of oroshigane. It took me a long time to...

I did find a reference to some stuff called XBOND. Apparently someone obtained or made a plate with titanium on one side and S30V on the other and made some knives from it. There really wasn't any...

I agree with you that modern pattern welded steels can be quite beautiful. But I have a couple questions in return...



I'd like to know the source of this information. It is incorrect or you...

These are good questions Deckard. Re-read my earlier comment about comparing monosteels to PW steels. For similar carbon content, using similar heat treatment methods, and the same edge geometry, a...

My German language skills are much weaker than your english. However, I do speak Hammer and Tool fluently. :) I've never had any difficulty understanding a German (or any other national) smith...

Mparker has already provided a good portion of the correct answer. If you mean "lost to the west" as the USofA. Well the USA didn't exist in the dark ages, and the Europeans never really lost the...

LeeringCorpse: gird up your loins. I have to dispel several myths that you've accumulated. Most of these have been addressed in multiple sites on the net. I would suggest that your study is not...

And after all that, we try to do silly things, like play with the patterns. And hope they turn out looking good in the end.

Buddel's summary is a good one. There are so many things that can go wrong making it, that you are paying for the smith's education (and mistakes). When it goes right, it is beautiful.