Question on tulwar blade construction
 

Hello to everyone and a happy 2016! :)

I'm posting on behalf of a friend who bought this tulwar recently. The tulwar blade looks like it could either be wootz or sham, but the tip is made from a different steel and shows signs of being heat tempered.

Is this a known construction method for tulwars, and is there a reason for making the tulwar in this manner? Also, is this construction method native to a specific geographic region? Thanks.

The riveted handle with brass washer suggests NW India or ( more likely) Afghanistan.
The blade seems to be wootz.
The reinforced point is for stabbing : rather unusual on tulwars. I have shown a similar one ( also potentially NW India or Afghani) in the topic "Indian short sabers"

Unlike reinforced point on Ariel's tulwar, this one is not designed as such. The blade was broken and the tip was welded as in scarf-welding technique. it is good quality repair and likely an old one.

Alex,
You are absolutely right re. re-welding. The shadows in Pics 1 and 5 fooled me: they gave an impression of a swollen tip. Need new glasses....

knew about the glasses, Ariel ;)

Yes, as Alex says, though I feel it may be a more modern mend.

The pin with washer looks fairly new to me, as it shows no sign of wear,
and the edges of the washer still look very square. Also the peened over pin looks half -peened, not like it would be done originally.
Not looking for fault, but this is as it appears.

Richard.

I think the mend is too good to be modern. I do not know of anyone who can make anything like this, unless someone is willing to give 10 tulwars to repair one:) Also, what's interesting is that there is no loss of wootz pattern near weld line, so someone knew how to control the heat not to destroy the pattern, and that is far above any modern skill IMHO.

I have seen many katar with scarf welded homogeneous steel tips that were heat treated. In those cases it added strength to this area. Haven't seen this on tulwar which makes this one likely a repair. However, the smith was knowledgeable of wootz as they managed the repair carefully, because you don't see much faded pattern at the join which would have required careful control of the heat.

Welding
 

Sorry to not agree with everybody but--- Unlikely to be a scarf joint. A scarf joint is when both ends are cut at an long angle and one side then slides over the other. This method is good for silver braze lead joints and if done neatly is nearly invisible. If you try to weld a scarf it is impossible to get full penetration and only the ends get welded. The blade in question has I think been joined by cutting each side into a v then welding. Pity that the welder has not found a better tip so now there is three different shades on one blade. If I do a weld I try to find a close match and use strips of steel from the replacement bit to use as the welding material Ok, never perfect, it is a repair but much better way than the sad blade being discussed.

A very good bladesmith mended one for me, (pattern -welded blade), and afterwards I could hardly find the join. This was done just a few years ago.
I would like to give the man credit, but he does not want to get inundated with this type of work, so asked me to keep it quiet.

I must respect that, but yes, it Is possible to have someone weld a blade and make an excellent job still.

What made me think the repair above was new-ish is the way the light catches the added piece;
It Appears to have multiple facets (or a bit wavey) on each side, not dead true as the rest of the blade seems to be.
It Is a good join though!!

Richard.

Thank you all for sharing your valuable insights! :)

This is no great problem!

The temperature for laminating such a blade is around 750°C. Wootz will forged at ~800°C.
A modern gas furnace with a temperature control unit can hold the temperature exactly at the preset value.

You can check the sword forum to see modern examples and you will be surprised, how good they are!


Roland

Roland, in theory you're right. In practice, forging new wootz and repairing old is not the same. Once formed, wootz can be affected and even completely diminished by temperatures much lower than stated. and I am yet to see one modern example where wootz was not affected by mending/welding process. Perhaps I am missing the advances of modern technology, and hope a smith like Ric Furrer will comment on how easy it is to perform a mend such as above without affecting wootz structure.

Alex, I understand your opinion and you are right. I forgot the fact, that it was a finished wootz-sword before welding. And it must be indeed very difficult to make this work without destroying the surface and the pattern. Maybe the original blade was thicker and was grinded down after the welding process.


I know some viking-swords which were broken in battle and repaired hundreds of years ago and they are often quite ugly.

Here is a period example of what would typically be called a "scarf weld". The blade is wootz and smaller part attached to the hilt is mono steel.

Estcrh, nice example and fotos. Does scarf weld usually placed closer to the middle of the blade to serve the purpose of making it less likely to snap on impact (I think this is what it was intended for). If so, the example you show also could be a repair, i.e. not originally-intended. What do you think?

Roland, I second your opinion about wootz repair. the smith was able not to affect it at all right near the mend line, and that is quite a feat.

To my opinion the scarf welding mostly have been made by an artist, but what Eric shows is a bit more artistic than most of the scarf weldings I have seen.
However in this case the smith does not seem to have been an artist, but we does not know, if he had to do the repair over night as the battle was not finished yet, and had to go on the next day.

Alex, I have not seen enough Indian blades that have been welded in this way to be able to make any kind of reasonable statement on whether this was planned or a repair. I do know that welds of this type were noted in Viking swords, here is a quote from Swords of the Viking Age, by Ian G. Peirce, Ewart Oakeshott, 2002. Note that the amount of steel projecting from the hilt of Viking age swords were the blade was deliberately scarf welded for strength is said to be from 4 cm to 12 cm (1.57 in to 4.72 in).

Now Eric,

In the cases you just quote above, Do you think these were repairs, rather than a technique used in manufacture?

To me it Sounds like a repair.

I do have one broad-bladed tulwar that was repaired at some time in its working life. Very well done as well. The break is just forward of the centre of the blade.
I will see if I can find a picture.

This is a known technique, and not only for swords.

The prehistory of metallurgy in the British Isles by R. F. Tylecote, 1986.
How about this Indian axe, a hard steel edge with the rest a softer metal.

Indian horse head tulwar with wootz blade

The tabar : is it what is called inserted edge? How would it differ from scarf welding?

Mughal Indian horse head sword with wootz blade.

Afghan pulwar sword with pattern welded blade.

Ariel, I am not sure if the edge of the tabar is inserted or welded etc. It used to belong to Runjeet I believe, along with the swords I posted as examples, maybe he knows something more about both methods. Inserting a harder cutting edge into a axe head is another old (viking?) technique.

Runjeets swords do show a pattern were the weld is close to the hilt, with a softer steel being attached to the hilt. The sword originally being discussed is the opposite situation, with the damascus steel attached to the hilt being much longer than the piece welded to the tip of the blade.

It appears that this sword may have been repaired, either in the past or more recently, better pictures would help. There is also the chance that this sword had a hardened tip attached purposely.

Just because this technique is not known to have been used on tulwars does not rule it out completely either. This is an interesting example whatever the purpose of the weld was.

Richard, can you post a picture of the blade? Was the blade snapped and re-welded or was a new piece of steel used?

Eric,

There Might be a photo on this forum from maybe 10 years ago.
If I cannot find the thread, I will take a photo or two.

By the pattern of the blade, the original broken off piece was re-joined.

Actually I had a look at this sword this morning, and the break was just at the end of the fullers, so maybe 9 inches from the tip.

Of course, attaching a hard edge to a softer blade, like an axe, has been common practice for maybe a thousand years, maybe more,

To be honest, unless we see documentation for the type of work we see in the swords above, I feel that some of them are definitely mended broken blades, rather than a recognised technique.
It is usually unsound practice to join two dissimilar metals, and expect them to work and flex together. The exception is the Japanese layering, or the old twisted rod construction where the mass becomes homogenous.
Some of the above blades are coming apart at the join.
Could not this have been spun into a story by those selling such blades in more recent times? We do see a lot of rubbish written.

Yes, we see evidence of joining, but Did they start out that way?
As we still see more old good quality sword blades worked in one piece, the above examples still compel me to think mended. :-)

I will look for that photo now;

Regards,
Richard.

Why would a better piece of steel be attached to a lessor steel as in all of the swords I posted if it was known to cause problems, why not use like steels if these were indeed repairs? Just one of many questions.


Tulwar, early – mid 19 C., most probably from Rajasthan, India.

Indian Tulwar/Talwar with a wootz blade from Gavin (swordsantiqueweapons)

Ah Eric,

I quite agree with joined Wootz blades. The ingots were often too small for a complete blade and so were joined. This was common practice with Wootz.

But joining dissimilar metals sound dodgy at best.
In this, your questions are my questions as well!

I am not a person who has to be right in what I say or think. If I am wrong I am wrong, but it still looks like some of these are repairs carried out with whatever was available at the time, and one Is falling apart...

Best wishes,
Richard.

Cousin of the tulwar known as kirach or karach and it is characterized by the slightly down curving blade with the edge on the concave side and the down curving spine with a false edge.

The primary reason you see a scarf weld that is done towards the handle is due to the difficulty of forging wootz at the longer lengths. To draw out a long blade requires immense skill. You also run the risk of the material being brittle if not controlled perfectly. Plus, you have the expense involved. So it was quite common, as can be seen in the pictures, for the tang and first bit of blade to be a homogeneous steel and then the wootz welded to that. Not only does it make a strong join it is now less prone to being brittle and breaking. When you start getting to the middle of the blade and onward it seems less likely to be manufactured this way and more likely a repair. One observation is that most scarf welds I have seen that are located near the handle are done in an arc or semi circle and not a straight line. While not a blade smith or welder I would think this gives you the best possible join of the two materials.

Very good comment!
If I may add something: some wootz ingots were too small to suffice for the entire blade. That' s why we occasionally see scarf-welded long blades composed of two distinct wootz patterns.
This is admittedly rare and the previous comment covers 99% of composite cases.

Ariel,

That's what I said at the top of this page. :)

Eric,

Here is a poor and old photo of the mended blade, the only photo I have at present. This is a very old mend, as all was covered with the same amount of rust.

The second picture are of the laminations as they showed after cleaning, but these are Not of the break area.
If you wish a close-up of the break I will oblige in due course.

All the best,
Richard.

Sorry Richard:-((((
I typed it early in the morning, got a phone call, ran to work and completely forgot to post it. At the end of the day I found it, did not realize that other people had their say and pushed the button...
No offence or plagiarism was meant.
Glad we agree.
Ariel

Ariel,

Absolutely no offense taken! I was just ribbing you, that's all!
We have known each other too long to give or take offense. :)

best regards,
R.

There are several ways in which to do a scarf weld, but the method shown in post 15 is not one of them, this is an inserted weld.

Scarf welding involves upsetting the ends of the two pieces of material to be joined in order to make them thicker, in the most common method you then forge a taper on these two thickened pieces of material, take the weld, and forge down to size.

The weld is taken by heating both pieces of material separately, then placing the tapered faces together on the anvil. It makes life easier if you have your striker hold one piece of material and you hold the other piece.

The result is a longish tapered weld joint in the finished job when viewed side on.

Some methods use a sort of cup and ball overlap, or some other way of assisting the precise location of the pieces to be welded when you take them out of the fire.

A properly executed scarf weld is a very strong joint.

The axe shown in post 25 does not use a scarf weld, this method of axe construction was quite common in 19th century and earlier axes across the world.