Article

2005-06-06 Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Steve 2005-06-06 10:01|| || Front Page|| [10 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Transform the arab identity to what? Assad needs to get out more and talk to people, including his own! Somebody should tell Assad that in the eyes of many, the Arab identity is just that - a negative reactive mass that acts, often in violent, cruel, and unthinking ways! I heard that critique from none other than a Syrian friend!

Posted by Tkat 2005-06-06 10:33|| 2005-06-06 10:33|| Front Page Top

#2 Sounds like there wont be a reign of Assad III.

Posted by Cyber Sarge">Cyber Sarge 2005-06-06 10:45|| 2005-06-06 10:45|| Front Page Top

#3 This from a guy so concerned about the "Arab Identity" that he allowed the secret of the world famous 'Damascus steel' to be lost. All the families that made it died out without passing the secret along, and his daddies' government just shrugged. If there was anything uniquely Syrian in the world, it was that.

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-06-06 10:53|| 2005-06-06 10:53|| Front Page Top

#4 Sounds like news of the outside world is becoming an irritant to Assad,Kim Jong,and pretty much all the Ayatollahs, try as they might to keep their people like mushrooms.

Posted by bigjim-ky 2005-06-06 10:59|| 2005-06-06 10:59|| Front Page Top

#5 he allowed the secret of the world famous 'Damascus steel' to be lost

ummm ... that's pretty well been known to the West for several hundred years ....

Posted by anon 2005-06-06 11:20|| 2005-06-06 11:20|| Front Page Top

#6 The ultimate objective of all this is the destruction of Arab identity

Yup, your identity is so powerful we must take action against it!!

Not.

Posted by anon 2005-06-06 11:21|| 2005-06-06 11:21|| Front Page Top

#7 "Arab identity", even as a basic concept, dates to around the First World War.

Hardly a "tradition"...

Posted by mojo">mojo 2005-06-06 11:34|| 2005-06-06 11:34|| Front Page Top

#8 "Arab identity"

You mean like herding camels and goats in the desert?

Go for it, Assad-baby. You first.

Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut 2005-06-06 11:43|| 2005-06-06 11:43|| Front Page Top

#9 It's self-destructing. When your identity incorporates mindless intolerance, repression, graft, and pointless violence against itself and the outside world without having a productive, creative output, there is no future. No need to lift a finger to finish off the identity since it's been set on self-destruct or, at the least, self-mutilate, for a long time.

Posted by Tkat 2005-06-06 11:45|| 2005-06-06 11:45|| Front Page Top

#10 What about Lebannon Baloney?

/yes I know.

Posted by Shipman 2005-06-06 11:49|| 2005-06-06 11:49|| Front Page Top

#11 the secret of the world famous 'Damascus steel'
You mean this secret?
Method of making Steel in the style of Damascus
Start out by forging six thin plates of iron, exactly identical in all respects. Let us suppose that they are each a pouce (an inch) wide, a ligne (1/12 inch) thick, and 12 inches long. Then forge five thin plates of steel, identical in form to those of iron, making in total eleven thin plates. The more plates one uses, the finer the material will be. Stack these plates one atop another, but be sure to put each steel plate between two of iron, which means starting and finishing with an iron plate. This is how it must be done, no matter how many plates one uses. This should become clear from Figure 1.[In the figure] each thin plate is numbered from 1 to 11, and under each number one sees a letter that designates the material: A for Acier (steel) and f for fer (iron).
Once all this is properly arranged, grasp all the plates with a tongs. Clamp the handles of the tongs with an "S" as shown in Chapter 12. Place this stack in a moderate fire. Raise the temperature so that all the plates heat uniformly through and through, but do not allow any of them to burn. To this end, turn the packet often in the fire, without removing it, and then let it rest in the fire a little while. The plates that are in the center will not heat up as fast as those on the outside, mainly because the latter receive heat directly from the coals, while those in the center receive none except from their neighbors. Finally, when the whole thing is uniformly hot, moderate the pumping of your bellows, "sand" [i.e. dust with flux] the material at least twice after each heat, and forge it squarely, working it down to a thickness of 8 or 9 lignes (2/3 to 3/4 inch) on a side. After this is done, heat the material up to a bright red, but not quite white, and clamp one end in the vice, as shown in Figure 2.
With stout tongs twist the material from one end to the other, as evenly as possible, so that it resembles a screw, as shown in Figure 3.
Now it is necessary to flatten and forge it out to a width of 9 lignes (3/4 inch) and a thickness of 3 lignes (1/4 inch). After this fold it in two [the long way], in the manner shown in Figure 4.
All this work, up until now, is for nothing other than to form a strong tenacious covering, such that no effort or power can break it apart. The plates of soft iron are thoroughly welded, married, and entwined with the ones of steel, forming together an extremely tough material, more tough than either component. The iron and steel are well bonded together, and the individual particles of each are very small. However, it is not possible for this material to be given a really fine cutting edge. The "veins" of iron that wind throughout prevent it. Make, therefore, a thin plate of good German steel 9 lignes wide, Figure 5, (that is, the same width as the covering), and at the very most 2-1/2 lignes thick; its length must be equal to that of the covering which has been folded in half.
Put this steel plate between the two sides of the covering. Then forge weld the whole assembly. Do not overheat the billet. Avoid striking it too hard. Use only the face of the hammer. Shape the surfaces squarely, so that the steel remains always in the center of the billet, because upon this depends the quality of the cutting edge. Then draw out the billet to the length and width which you require.

A blade made from damascus material can never break, save only by forcefully bending it back and forth many times. Therefore it makes a strong knife. And if one tempers this knife to the color of red copper, after having hardened it at a cherry color, one would be able to cut iron very readily with it, without the edge chipping, provided however that one made the edge a bit thick and rounded. But if one is making this knife to cut food at the table, and one does not wish to show off with it, one should give it a little finer cutting edge, which requires no more than tempering it to a gold color, instead of red copper color. Then one will have a good tool which will cut well, and which will keep a good edge for a long time.

Must be a real secret, I only find 213,000 hits on Google.

Posted by Steve ">Steve 2005-06-06 11:53|| 2005-06-06 11:53|| Front Page Top

#12 "Damascuc steel" was called that because it was sold to the west from there. It was made further east.

Like silk.

Posted by mojo">mojo 2005-06-06 12:23|| 2005-06-06 12:23|| Front Page Top

#13 I have a double barrel 14 ga. shotgun made in Belgium in 1842 that has Damascus steel barrels. Yes, Ship, it is a muzzle loader.

Posted by Deacon Blues">Deacon Blues 2005-06-06 12:25|| 2005-06-06 12:25|| Front Page Top

#14 Got me a 10 gauge Ithaca double, breech loader. It has Damascus barrels as well, a beautiful gun.

Posted by Steve ">Steve 2005-06-06 12:42|| 2005-06-06 12:42|| Front Page Top

#15 Syrian President Bashar Assad has said ... technological revolution sweeping the region and the world is helping ... to undermine and crush the Arab identity.

Adapt or die.

Posted by gromgoru 2005-06-06 13:25|| 2005-06-06 13:25|| Front Page Top

#16 Crushed by technology. Man, that's gotta hurt worse than being blinded by science.

Posted by BH 2005-06-06 13:32|| 2005-06-06 13:32|| Front Page Top

#17 DB taker a picture of it, maybe for other blog. I'd like to see that. What goes into the cartridge? Same question for Steve. Can the shot nbe varied much?

Posted by Shipman 2005-06-06 13:56|| 2005-06-06 13:56|| Front Page Top

#18 Mine is a very old black powder antique, no way I'd fire it.

Posted by Steve ">Steve 2005-06-06 14:34|| 2005-06-06 14:34|| Front Page Top

#19 From the 1771 article found by Steve:

If men did not seek so often to pinch pennies on that which is useful, all the while making huge expenditures on useless ornamentation, then instead of having a sheath knife worn at one's side whose blade cost not even (2 pounds), but whose mounts cost 60 (pounds); one might instead have a blade which cost 60 (pounds), in mounts which cost (2 pounds).

Hey, sounds like my father wrote this !

Posted by Carl in N.H. 2005-06-06 14:39|| 2005-06-06 14:39|| Front Page Top

#20
Damascus Steel was of Indian origin

The Key Role of Impurities in Ancient Damascus Steel Blades

Posted by john 2005-06-06 15:27|| 2005-06-06 15:27|| Front Page Top

#21 yeah the 'Damascuc steel' can be found centuries before it was common in the middle east in Northern Europe and in Asia. The Indian's had something similar and better which they called wootz steel

Posted by robi 2005-06-06 16:01|| 2005-06-06 16:01|| Front Page Top

#22 Let me clarify. The Mona Lisa is very simple, really. Just canvas and paint. Anyone could reproduce it with a pain-by-numbers kit. Or even easier, they could just make a digitized copy of it as good as the original. "Damascus steel" at its height was not the shotgun barrel product, it was works of art in steel. While metallurgically, one can reproduce a DS blade even at a microscopic level, the artistry of its production has been lost. Compare that to a hand made samurai sword compared to a high-quality knockoff, which is equally accurate, even at the microscopic level. Japan honors its sword craftsmen at the national level, whereas Syria ignored them and they died out. The Japanese understand and appreciate the high art involved, whereas the Baathist Syrians did not.

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-06-06 18:09|| 2005-06-06 18:09|| Front Page Top

#23 I wouldn't say that the art of Damascene steel has been lost---rather that the art as practiced by the Syrians has been made archiac and obsolete. Quaint, even.
Modern "Damascene" blades made by Hungarian and Dutch smiths incorporate metallurgy of braided steel and powdered bi-metal infill that greatly exceed traditional Syrian blades in the consistency of the edge, the tensile strength of the blade, and corrosion resistance throughout.

And the ladder-lock pattern of cable twisted thirteen times per foot before stamping is shore purty. :)

Posted by Asedwich">Asedwich 2005-06-06 23:22|| 2005-06-06 23:22|| Front Page Top

#24 Of course if you use a modern shell in a damascus steel shotgun, the barrel will explode; quite the metaphor, eh?

Posted by regular joe 2005-06-07 00:00|| 2005-06-07 00:00|| Front Page Top

18:26 Thineger Ebbeth3695
18:26 Thineger Ebbeth3695
18:26 Thineger Ebbeth3695
18:26 Thineger Ebbeth3695
18:26 Thineger Ebbeth3695
18:24 Thineger Ebbeth3695
18:24 Thineger Ebbeth3695
00:00 regular joe
23:56 JosephMendiola
23:56 Flealing Angang2925
23:52 Frank G
23:44 Rafael
23:44 Asedwich
23:42 gromky
23:31 mac
23:22 Asedwich
23:06 3dc
23:02 Alaska Paul
22:59 3dc
22:56 eLarson
22:55 Darth VAda
22:55 Alaska Paul
22:53 Frank G
22:53 True German Ally