It has been two months from my first post. Etching this shamshir has taken me to the edge of sanity. mariusgmioc, your comment cut me deep. I have polished and etched polish and etched and polished and etched. I'm now using a mix of JSP 14k gold testing solution and Everclear Grain alcohol. Neither my hillbilly Nital nor Ferric Chloride showed the pattern I wanted. I have used up to 8000 grit. The best result I got was this:
And yes I know that isn't good.
At the brink of sanity I realized that I DID have a shamshir in my collection with a nice wootz pattern, so it polished a portion of that blade and etched it with my best procedure. Below is the unetched side and the etched side:
I am now convinced that whatever my new shamshir is, I'm not entirely sure it wants to be etched. Maybe it's not wootz. Maybe it's laminated. At this point I'm not even sure I care which it is. I'm just going to be content with what I have.