What's the big deal about Kirk Narduban?

ariel · 16th December 2006, 05:37 PM

The mechanical qualities of crucible steel ( wootz) have been already discussed extensively.
No doubt, it is beautiful. Particularly, everybody is very excited about the blades with Kirk or Kirk/Rose patterns. However, these are just embellishments. The swordmaker chiselled straight lines alone or interspersed them with chiselled circles and continued hammering the blade to get the above patterns. Of course, that added time to the manufacture of the blade, but no additional positive mechanical properties ( if anything, it might have conceivably only weakened the blade).
These patterns are not much different from chiselled panels, koftgari inscriptions, etched or incised patterns etc: they are just meant to make the blade prettier, no more.
Why are we going ga-ga every time we see the Kirk-ed blade? What is so special about this particular embellishment?

16th December 2006, 05:37 PM	#1
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	What's the big deal about Kirk Narduban? The mechanical qualities of crucible steel ( wootz) have been already discussed extensively. No doubt, it is beautiful. Particularly, everybody is very excited about the blades with Kirk or Kirk/Rose patterns. However, these are just embellishments. The swordmaker chiselled straight lines alone or interspersed them with chiselled circles and continued hammering the blade to get the above patterns. Of course, that added time to the manufacture of the blade, but no additional positive mechanical properties ( if anything, it might have conceivably only weakened the blade). These patterns are not much different from chiselled panels, koftgari inscriptions, etched or incised patterns etc: they are just meant to make the blade prettier, no more. Why are we going ga-ga every time we see the Kirk-ed blade? What is so special about this particular embellishment?