Hi RDGAC,
Watering or wootz you can see on the blade at the right side of the picture, the blade to the left is mechanical damask, but very skilfully done, it can be seen much cruder.
A steel blade keeps the edge very well, but it can be brittle and break, an iron blade is soft, bends easily but seldom breaks, and to this comes that it does not keep an edge very well – so to get a mixture of these two metals was important.
The last picture is from a Khyber knife, here the wootz is clear and you can even see how the koftgari was made.
|