How does the "dragonglass+steel=dragonsteel" theory work?

[falcotron]

2 hours ago, Romaine3 said:

Nope, that wouldn't be dragonsteel. You know how some bladesmiths fuse metals like gold into their blades for decorative purposes? How is that done any idea? And what did you think about the dipping the steel into dragonglass powder part of my last post? Wouldn't it be absorbed into the steel that way after heating the billet in the forge? 

The cheapest way to do decorative blades is plating. That leaves the blade still usable if you need it, but that's because the gold basically just falls off at the first shock, so you wouldn't use it except in emergencies. And that wouldn't work for obsidian anyway.

I'm not sure how they make those blades that have fake-Damascus-style water patterns with gold and steel mixed together (I'm actually kind of curious now; I'll have to look it up…), but I assume that it's at least as bad as the swords with pure steel fake-Damascus-style patterns, which is pretty bad.

If it was actually absorbed into the steel, it would probably weaken it pretty badly. With modern super spring steels, you put the silica in very early and then gradually mix it out, because it's the core that you want to be springy, not the edge. I think you'd just get garbage iron if you mixed silica in during the last cooling. But maybe it would be different with magical silica; who knows? Or maybe it would even be worth weakening your steel in exchange for giving it magical properties?