bulat steel made by Petrovich Anosov

There is nothing to say that this steel is really Russian. In fact the name suggests that it is Persian. It is thought that Bulat steel is made in the same way that Wootz steel is made. All thought there is know way to know for sure because the way to make Wootz steel has been lost along with its brother Damascus steel, And the maker of Bulat steel Pavel Anosov never really told how he made his steel.

Bulat steel was lost at the beginning of the 19th century Petrovich Anosov was a student of the Damascus steel. He studied them for over ten years. He was believed to be able to recreate this steel in 1838. Petrovich Ansosv steel Bulat steel was very popular in the making of cannons. But when the Bessemer process was made it kill Petrovich. This process was able to create the same steel for much less money. Potrovich started at the Saint Petersburg Min Cabet School in 1810. This is where he first saw a Damascus Steel sword in a case. This sword grabbed is attention.

Then seven years later he went to the factories of Zlatoust mining region in the Urals. There he became the inspector of the weapon decoration deportment. Once again he came in contact with another Damascus steel sword. One big different is this sword was a European copy and not even close to the equal of the sword from the Middle East. This sword was just one of pattern welding. At this time Petrovich Ansosv chose to give making Damascus steel a try for himself. He had been working on some Quenching techniques and gave it a shot. Now again no one knows if he truly duplicated Damascus steel but he did eventually make a methodology the very much increased the hardness of his own steel.

What make these steel so good is the structure of the components. so carbon steel has two componets. It has pure iron, and cementite, or iron carbide. Cementite is very very brittle. In fact on the Brinell hardness test it would score a 640 this is brittle. scoring 200 on the test is ferrite. So when you work these two together and then very slowly cool them to allow cementite to precipitate as micro particles between the ferrite crystals and then arrange in a pattern. carbide is dark and the steel is grey. This is what make the pattern on true Damascus steel. Another big part of making Bulat or Damascus steel is Ceramic. This is what is thought to make this steel so sharp. It breaks down in between 600 and 1100 C and goes into the ferrite and carbon.

This steel is very hard to make and really can only be made by a master sword maker. These swords are some the sharpest and beautiful in the world.