WOOTZ or SHAM?

[Jeff Pringle]

many of the pattern-welded patterns are underestimated.

I think you may be right there, Jens.
Pattern welding gives the smith a much broader range of design elements, and can result in an incredible array of appearances in the finished surface. Some of the patternwelded rifle barrels in Figiel's "On Damascus Steel" are of mind-numbing complexity, with as many as ten or twenty operations on the steel to develop a specific pattern, before the metal is even made into something!
Although wootz gives less options in design, it offsets that by being rare, cool and mysterious - as modern smiths get more used to working with wootz I'm sure we'll do more with the patterning potential, there is certainly some room to explore there.

[Rick]

Should these random surface patterns really be referred to as 'Pattern Welded' ?
I see disorganised patterns such as these as a result of plain old layer forging rather than a planned pattern such as bird's eye which is obviously manipulated to produce the desired effect .

Thoughts ?

[Jeff Pringle]

Should these random surface patterns really be referred to as 'Pattern Welded' ?

I'd vote 'yes', because the method of manufacture is the same, and a random pattern is still a pattern. The smith might not have been directing it, but it's there.
Note the horizontal traces in the left blade of post 23 - the smith was doing some manipulation there, although I'm not sure you are referring back to those two blades?
The right hand blade looks like it went through the bird's eye treatment (or something similar), but due to the low number of layers the effect is stylized into something else.

[Rick]

Hi Jeff , yeah those were the two blades I was referring to .
I'd like to see longer samples of each one .

I guess when I think of *pattern* I think of repetition as in Turkish Star or Ribbon , Ladder Pattern , Rose etc .
Something specifically manipulated to achieve an effect .

So any blade forged in layers is in fact Pattern Welded ?

[kai]

Should these random surface patterns really be referred to as 'Pattern Welded' ?

I also thought about this question, Rick.

I tend to vote "yes" - especially since there seems to be no objective cut-off between random and "forced" patterns but rather a broad continuum between the extremes. There also seem to be quite some patterns which were not strictly planned but only slightly coaxed into a direction preferred by the smith.

Regards,
Kai

[Rick]

Is a traditionally made Japanese sword considered pattern welded ?
Not counting the hamon of course ......

[Andrew]

Originally Posted by Rick

Is a traditionally made Japanese sword considered pattern welded ?
Not counting the hamon of course ......

I think of Japanese blades as "forge folded", Rick. The distinction being that a single steel was used, and folded onto itself, whereas "pattern welding" refers to two (or more) different steels welded together during the forging process. (Inserted edges and different cores notwithstanding).

[Rick]

Now I'm getting a little confused .

First off I'm not a smith ; so pardon the dumb questions here .

The idea behind forging and folding two or more steels of lesser quality together is to produce a better end product ; correct ?

The reason most early Japanese swords were fold forged was to remove impurities and create an overall better steel ; no ? They worked from iron bearing sand as a source ; correct ?

Now I have two spearheads that are finely forged with many many layers ; the only real pattern that can be observed on them is on the edges ; there is no overall pattern to be seen .

Many older swords were forged under varying conditions depending on the cultures' skill at metal working and with varying rough finish qualities , differing material amounts , and layers ; some were probably fairly lumpy when fresh from the smith's hammer and had to be filed or smoothed and shaped in some way . This was not a choice but a necessity to produce a usable end product .

I'm having trouble with applying the term pattern welding here because to me that term implies *intent* to create a pattern , not something that is incidental to the manufacturing process .

I'll shut up now and listen to anyone who cares to comment .

[Jeff Pringle]

I'd expect that a "wootzy" blade with lower carbon content than high-carbon wootz which properties don't stand above regular steel blades would be considered inferior by people who actually used these weapons (and whose survival might have depended on any little advantage). Is there anything along these lines hinted at in the historical sources?

From “Persian Steel, the Tanavoli Collection” by Allan & Gilmour, quoting a French traveler to Iran in the 19th Century:
“…A watered steel sword of the finest quality is priced at 2,400 Francs, of good quality at 240, and of ordinary quality at 36, whilst the figures for an ordinary steel sword are 60, 18 and 6 Francs…”

That does not really help, we don’t know if he was referring to wootz or PW, or what the quality designations were. But I would expect the HC wootz would fetch the most, with LC wootz and/or extra-nice PW next in line and $ heading downhill from there – I’ll look for better references. But it does show that they recognized one type of watered steel as being ten to forty times better than everything else, which is tantalizing.

Perhaps the term “mechanical damascus” does not bear the same implication of intent (as pattern welding), but it is not in as widespread use, so to avoid confusion I can live with PW.
EDIT - The term comes from (as far as I know): the steel has a pattern, the pattern is from welding. It was created to differentiate PW from crucible-origin steels. There's something about this in "Persian Steel" too - it's a book with a lot of info!
Historically the process of folding a steel repeatedly was used to refine non-homogenous material, and pattern welding grew out of that – combine different materials with the same technique to create effects which also prove quality and show off skill. The blade does not necessarily gain from the process, but usually one combines steels that are tough and steels that are hard to get both properties in the blade. How much of that is real, and how much superstition, is currently a subject of debate in bladesmithing circles.

I’d lump the Japanese blade tradition into pattern welding too, because when you weld steel to itself you get a pattern due to the weld zone being slightly decarburized in the process. And the smiths control the pattern very specifically, to achieve different grain (itame, mokume, masame hada) in the finished sword. In the Edo period, when flashier stuff was in fashion, they even filed/hammered the material in the same manner as Persian and Indian smiths to get more obvious grain (ayasuga hada). We don’t think of them as pattern welded because the material is not treated in a way to make the patterning stand out.
The starting material for the Japanese steel was iron oxide sand, but once it went through the smelter it became a lump of steel, slag and charcoal fire residue, much like a bloom from European smelters but they were shooting for higher overall carbon in the Eastern method. So the folding was to squeeze out impurities and level out the carbon content.