wootz blade welded back together
 

This blade is on an Indian shamshir and shows a high level of workmanship in the fact the blade has been welded back together. No doubt an important blade to someone at one time and the weld job, while the seam is quite evident, practically no loss of pattern which shows a high level of heat control.

Would this still be as practical as it was before the break? Thanks for sharing.

how strong is it?
 

Hi, Rick
Have you run this question by our Wisconsin "Wootz-meister", Ric Furrer?

Otherwise, a little experimentation may be in order. How about you bring the shamshir to our next get-together at Timonium, and I'll scrounge up a large pumkin and some of those bamboos wrapped in straw mats for you to cut. A large gentleman and accomplished golfist like yourself should generate a pretty powerful cutting stroke...

S. Al,

Probably not practical but obviously done because the blade held a certain level of importance. It has nice mounts and must have been a family heirloom or been important enough to warrant welding it back together with a good amount of precision.

Philip,

Mr. Furrer commented that it looked as though the weld had been done with iron? I am afraid I do not recall exactly though. However, I am up for the pumpkin challenge. I am sure a few quick lessons from a martial artist, good hip rotation like in the golf swing, and I bet it cuts through that stuff no problem! :D

As with a similarly welded blade we saw in the past (a Confederate hanger), I wonder why you think this weld is a repair, rather than a part of the original production? Carbon steel has often traded in small portions, and wootz is no exception; I have seen several blades so welded out of two ingots. The weld appears to be scarfed (joined on a slant to increase the surface area of the joint); yes?

made that way?
 

Here we have a finely-made shamshir blade with a weld joint roughly midway between guard and tip.

If wootz blades were "sometimes" made in segments because of small quantities of material available, we would see more specimens assembled in this same way. I've come across hundreds of wootz swords which I've owned, restored for customers, seen in private collections, and studied in museums, and this is just one of a couple that have these midpoint weld joints.

Also, the blade is otherwise of quite fine quality, and the welded area aside, quite beautiful. Something like this would have been made to order for someone who could afford it, and was not a munition grade weapon issued to common soldiery. Economy would not have been a factor in the manufacture of a shamshir such as this.

Steel smelters in the Near East were perfectly capable of producing ingots sufficient for blades of impressive size -- Persian sabers with massive 35+ inch blades, made of a single ingot, are not uncommon.

Occasionally, one does encounter specimens of Indian talwars of lower quality, with a welded joint at the forte, generally a couple of inches ahead of the hilt. The forte/tang section, and the remainder of the blade, are of different pieces of steel; this can be seen from the texture and color of the two areas. On the contrary, the shamshir seen in this thread appears to be made of the same type of wootz. Also, the weld joint on the talwars is always close to the hilt, and in my experience is not found midway towards the tip as is the case of this shamshir. There is no comparison between the quality level of these talwars and the shamshir which is the subject of this thread.

R and S.Al,
FYI: I had an unfortunate accident where the wootz blade was dropped and broken in half. I have a friend in Damascus, Syria who has a small shop. He is specializing in refitting shamshirs and re-creating silver scabbards, crossguards, hilts, etc. He was able to weld the blade together in a perfect fashion, so one has to look very closely to be able to see the connection line. The blade was wootz, and no pattern distortions were visible after the blade was re-etched. There are also several others in Damascus who can do the same type of work, and who routinely weld broken blades together, however not as well.

Hi Rick,

This is very nicely done, although as mentioned earlier, the strength could not have been the same. Thanks for showing:).

First, I am very curious as to any traditional welding procedure that would not lose material from the blade; a forge-welded blade would need to be entirely resurfaced. Second, any modern method I'm familiar with would tend to require a full retempering (with ordinary steel; bulat is more delicate in this regard; yes?), so I'm curious about this whole subject. Interesting that if such midpoint welds are very rare, it seems strange that such appear A/ on other types/nationalities of swords (ie. the Confederate hanger), and B/ on my brother's only tulwar, by odd coincidence (it's a bulat one, too). I don't think it is at all usual or maybe possible to carry out any sort of traditional "true" (ie non-solder) weld with a hilt in place, BTW; this seems an unrealistic conception that is repeatedly encountered.
As to scarf welds attaching tang to blade at forte, they are by no means at all unusual, nor a mark of low quality (though such is often misattributed out of an industrial respect for homogeneity); nor is it seen only on "Eastern" blades, but in Europe as well. Commonly (by members of industrial societies with certains prejudices concerning preindutrial/nonindustrial production) attributed as an economy, this was probably done to increase strength on a hard-part/soft-part theory/conception. I'm not sure either that it would follow that using two pieces of wootz/bulat was a matter of economics (it seems the stuff traded by weight; yes?), but of, perhaps, simple availability. Still there seems no positive indication of repair as opposed to original production weld, IMHO.

That is a good point Tom perhaps hinting at a parade or show weapon.

nice blade...

if you think about it.... what are pattern welded swords. ? they are a large sandwich/series of welds... and they are not concidered to be a sub standard..... so a single weld, if done right.... would be very good and hold up to much stress !

in this case....wootz welds at a low temp ( due to its high carbon level) ... if over heated, you may lose more pattern .... but this weld was done nicely.....

after welding the blade should be normalized a couple time to reduce grain size..... and return its toughness..... small grain is tough... large grain can be very problematic

i'm not sure how this weld was done.... but i would suppose it is a lap weld... as you need extra material in the weld area.... so you can forge the sword back to shape with a similar cross section...

just my opinion
Greg

Greg
You're spot on in your comments about what would ensure a sound weld on a piece such as this.

I'm also amazed at the ability of the smith who did this weld joint, he certainly knew how to control his temperature. There are enough wootz blades out there whose blades are intact and in one single piece from forte to tip, which nonetheless show melding of the carbide networks (resulting in patches of gray) in areas due to overheating.

I polished the blade that's shown in this post. The joint is lapped a little ways. When it was sent to me by its owner for repair, I could see a patch of cross-hatching and remains of a clumsily-executed gold onlay inscription panel (reading "Iran" on a sword of typically north Indian workmanship). Though not apparent at the time, this decoration was put right over the weld joint. (an odd place for an inscription cartouche, on Indian and Persian blades they are almost always at the forte, about 4-6 in. ahead of guard) The sword's owner, realizing that the gold work was not original to the blade (it didn't match the rest of the decor in terms of quality and age), requested that it be polished over, and that's when the weld joint was discovered.

good call... I would have done the same and polished out the cartouche... -
the weld line tells a story ... with a sharply beveled scarf on both sides.. this is abit harder weld to make... i'm positive that there was more than one smith working on this... one smith pull the tip out and places the bottom scarf on the anvil and the master would pull the hilt piece out and line up the weld and set it.. (you have such a very short time to line up the weld.... I try to get things lined up and set in under 3 sec). then both would work the weld in time...... tap ...Bang.. tap .... Bang... etc
-- experience and talent to weld it that nicely

yesterday i forgewelded a pair of broken wrought iron tongs...the handle had snapped.. much different material ... but still it gets interesting when your trying to get two parts of the handle to line up ....when they are at a white welding heat... then grab a hammer to set it...

if i were to guess... wootz would probably weld at a brite orange to very low yellow heat..... not sure what you'd use for flux... borax gets nice and bubbly at a brite yellow heat ( the weld temp for lotsa tool steels and too high for wootz)...
-- hmm... wonder what they used for flux ?

Greg

flux
 

Greg,
What a pleasure to hear from someone on this thread with hands-on experience in actually making blades! Having done only basic blade forging myself (my focus is on polishing), I can't comment on the type of flux that smiths used in working in wootz. There are two occasional contributors to this forum who are well-versed in these crystalline damascus steels, Ann Feuerbach and Ric Furrer. Ann, as you might know from previous threads, has done extensive field research into wootz manufacture from the historical standpoint, and Ric is one of the few smiths who are actually making their own wootz, and doing it damn well. I hope that either of these experts will notice your comment and chime in here.

Borax (initially brought from Europe) came into widespread use in the Far East from the 18th cent. onwards, although the cultures in this area did pattern-weld, not wootz. Prior to that, rice straw ash was commonly used. This info was passed along to me by Francis Boyd, an accomplished smith working in Berkeley, CA. Perhaps you guys are acquainted?

both Ann and Ric are great people

the sand fluxs i've tried work well but at a very high heat... for wrought and bloom steel.. .. at least these fluxs were very thick and goobery at an orange heat.. it would be very hard to squeeze this out of the weld boundary during hammering...
-- not sure on the rice ash... ( impossible to find around here... )

it maybe that something was added to the borax to lower its melting point... if borax wasn't there.... then i'm not sure at all

maybe flurospar... .. never worked it and don't want too either... bad fumes
-- but its a very aggressive flux agent


Greg

Would the blade have a different 'sound' to it, after it had been put together?

Hello Im new here, very interesting reading, I have no experience with eastern wootz type material, but would surmise a great deal of material loss at high welding heats, especially with thin broad sections like you would find on a ground and already formed blade, you would be very apt to burn off the sides especially the thin cutting edge. I would think silica sand would need too high a heat to do this sort of repair on a thin and high carbon workpiece.
The fire would need to be deep and of a reducing nature (ie charcoal) a slow and steady blast. The back edge of the blade would face the tue iron (air input) and the thin delicate edge face away from the air input to minimise burn off. I would think , but I have never tried this.. I think I would end up cutting it all up re stacking and re welding the entire billet !!!