This is the way! In Star Wars, the professional space badasses known as the Mandalorians
make their amazing armor out of a rare and super strong alloy known as Beskar- Mandalorian Steel.
This incredible metal is nearly indestructible, and resistant to lightsabers, blaster bolts,
and the suave charms of Giancarlo Esposito. But such a metal is totally fictional,
right? There can’t be anything like that in real life…. WRONG! Today on Nutty History, we’re going
behind the scenes of the REAL LIFE Beskar Armor that inspired the Mandalorian-- Damascus Steel.
In Star Wars, Beskar is a unique metal found only on one planet- Mandalore, in the Mandalore system,
home of the Mandalorians and their ruler, the Mandalore. What these guys lack in imaginative
names, they make up for in fighting skill and badass armor. Beskar is the Mandalorian word
for the indestructible steel they make their armor from. In this galaxy, steel is an alloy, which is
a metal you make by combining two or more metallic elements. The idea of the indestructible metal is
common in fiction for looking at you, Wolverine. And often based on the very real Damascus Steel.
Throughout history, various techniques have been used to try and get the perfect ratio of iron to
carbon to create the strongest possible steel. The exact recipe of the alloy which is a combination
of two metallic elements is key. Of all the various types of steel that have been created,
the most famous and sought after is probably Damascus Steel. It was both strong and flexible,
able to keep a razor sharp edge and yet would not break under pressure.
In ancient India, they used what’s called the Crucible method to produce steel. You
remember how in season 1 that badass Mandalorian armorer lady needed her super space forge to
melt the Beskar they got from Werner Herzog and there was that fight where she totally threw a
stormtrooper into the forge and he like basically vaporized and it was so frikkin’ awesome!?
Ahem. When making Damascus steel, you first need to melt down your iron ore,
and a regular fire won’t cut it. You use a clay container to concentrate the heat, and get a super
hot temperature- about 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit or so- to melt the iron so you can make your steel.
This container is called a Crucible. And you thought it just meant that weird witch play by
Arthur Miller we all had to read in High School. After you’ve got your iron, you need carbon. No,
not Carbonite- carbon. For carbon, you use organic material. In India they used various plants,
such as bamboo, as carburizing agents. Carbon is essential to steelmaking,
Carbonite is essential for capturing Han Solo to deliver him alive to Jabba the Hutt.
The steel ingots produced in India were known as Wootz steel and were traded across India and the
Middle East, including to the Syrian capital city of Damascus. There, the blacksmiths that
forged them into steel products would etch the metal with acid, creating weapons and armor that
had a distinct, wavelike rippling pattern. Look familiar? Not only does this wavy pattern show
up on Star Wars’ Beskar, it shows up in fiction on the magical Valyrian Steel from Game of Thrones.
Let me emphasize that neither Nutty History nor Damascus Steel is in any way responsible for
season 7. During the crusades, Christian soldiers told stories of the remarkable weapons and armor
of their Saracen opponents. Their swords were said to cleave straight through shields,
and their armor was light yet durable compared to the thick, heavy plate armor of the Christians.
Walter Scott tells of a meeting between the Christian King Richard the Lionhearted and the
Saracen leader, Saladin. King Richard, showing off, used his heavy broadsword to cut a mace
in half. In response, Saladin drew his Damascus Steel sword and passed it through a silk cushion
“with such little apparent effort that the cushion seemed rather to fall asunder than be divided by
violence” So the Saracens were presumably chopping people in half like anime swordsmen, pausing with
stoic indifference as their enemies slid apart. Swords forged by Damascus Steel were said to be
able to slice through gun barrels, feathers in midair, and even other swords. If Pedro Pascal
walked into a Blacksmith shop in Syria circa the 1600’s, and said “I need to stab a robot to death,
help me out,” a Damascus Steel weapon would be the way to go. As you might imagine with something so
awesome, a lot of legends formed around Damascus Steel to explain its incredible properties.
One story said that a Damascus blade had to be plunged into the body of a slave,
so that the slave’s strength would transfer into the sword. Another tale said that after the steel
was forged, it had to be quenched, or cooled, in dragon’s blood. Obviously, both of these ideas are
both gross and untrue, but they persisted because we actually don’t know how to make Damascus Steel.
In Game of Thrones, magic swords made from Valyrian Steel are superior to all others,
but very rare because the society that created them was destroyed in a cataclysm. Similarly,
the secret to making true Damascus Steel has been lost to history. The exact method was a closely
guarded trade secret, so relatively few people ever knew how to make the steel. Because the steel
had to be shipped so far, any lengthy disruption in trade routes caused production to stop,
and the secret technique was forgotten around the beginning of the eighteenth century.
Today, the precise method that was used to make the wootz steel with just the right amount of
carbon is a mystery. Naturally, Damascus Steel was highly prized and many people over the centuries
have claimed to know how to make it even if they didn’t. The wavelike pattern on the steel can
be faked, or created in other ways on steel that doesn’t have the same strength. This is
why the Mandalorian doesn’t get his armor off of Craigslist, but the attempts to recreate the lost
process of Damascus Steel actually led to other advances in metallurgy. Scientists have attempted
to reverse engineer the process by taking samples of true Damascus Steel and analyzing
them with modern methods. One theory behind their remarkable properties is that the plants
used in the crucible process caused naturally occurring carbon nanotubes to form in the metal.
The elasticity of carbon nanotubes absorbs and distributes kinetic energy, so today scientists
are developing ways to use them in bulletproof body armour. The next step is presumably blocking
laser bolts and lightsabers, after we invent those. If this theory about the creation of
Damascus Steel is accurate, then we actually had a kind of nanotechnology in the iron age!
Though modern weapons and armor might technically be superior to Damascus Steel, the legend of the
metal endures. The allure of the sharpest sword or the strongest shield inspires fiction and real
world science even today, but we may never know the exact way that the legendary steel was forged.
If you happen to figure it out, you should totally show people how and when you do, be sure to tell
them, “this is the way.” What do you think? What’s the coolest part about the Mandalorians armor?
Do you think we’ll ever figure out Damascus Steel, be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments and
let us know what kind of nutty videos you’d like to see next. Thanks for watching Nutty History.