WOOTZ or SHAM?

[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

[kai]

Thanks, Jeff.

Yes, we're talking 'low carbon' compared to Verhoeven's definition of wootz, but that puts the hypothetical blade into the normal sword range.

Normal for (high quality) Indo-Persian non-wootz steel?

The higher carbon blades should be able to get sharper & hold the edge longer, but the lower carbon variety would function as well as a blade made from 'normal' steel.

My assumption is that wootz didn't gained its early fame for its beauty but rather for its exceptional functional properties (as already noted in this thread, pattern welding gives much more possibilities for the smith if the major consideration is only a beautiful blade).

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?

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.

[Jens Nordlunde]

Colonel Yuel in his notes on Marco Polo (1254-1324 AD) mentions that Hindwani (Indian) steel was of such surpassing value and excellence that a man who possessed and Indian sword or mirror regarded it as he would some precious jewel.

The next is from memory, but I think I saw it in “Persian Steel, the Tanavoli Collection” by Allan & Gilmour. The Persian merchants had people stationed on the west coast of India to test the ingots before they were shipped to Persia, as not all the ingots had the same – good - quality.

This seems to indicate that some Indian wootz was of an extraordinary quality – but not all of it. Some of the ingot makers probably had great difficulties in adding the correct amount of wood and leaves to the ingot, as well as keeping the right temperature, whereas others could do it.

In Arms and Armour by E. Jaiwant Paul, the author, on page 80, refers to Egerton’s classification.
Kirk narduban literally means forty steps or rungs of the ladder. …… This is the most highly esteemed pattern of watering.
In qara khorasan, the wavy pattern runs from the hilt to the tip of the blade, and the blade is almost black in colour. This is the next in order of merit.
Qara taban is a long watering design and is a brilliant black against the grey steel.
Sham, simple Damascus or Syrian, includes all other varieties and is valued less by cognoscenti.

It seems as if Manfred Sachse in his book Damaszener Stahl is a bit more generous, as he, out of five shown patterns only call one for sham – but he also calls it wootz. His guess is, that the evolution of the wootz patterns we know to day may have started with sham.

[Gt Obach]

I agree with Jeff

pattern welding or forge folding or mechanical damascus... still produces a design that can be revealed..... if you are using dis-similar materials, it is easy to see the pattern........ but if you use the same material welded on it's self, it is the weld boundaries that reveal pattern.... ( why.. ? possibly weld boundaries have abit decarb or even carburization, or flux included, or oxide, ???)
-- i've noticed brighter weld boundaries if you use borax rather than silica flux
-- anyhow...it is harder to see the weld boundaries but they are there... .. for example.... if you have a bar of Cable damascus... it may take a day in vinegar etch before the pattern comes out.. but it is there

the japanese bloom steel was folded to squeeze out some slag... and evenly distribute the rest of the silicious slag in the steel... with a high polish...it is easy to see the weld boundaries..... and like Jeff mentioned.... this forms the "hada" pattern...
-- definitely pattern welded

remember....all these folds have a record of how the blade was forged in the observable pattern


on wootz...... i believe the top notched blades were perfect in all aspects..... such as being heat treated well/combat worthy.... high finish.... excellent etch ...
-- remember back then....if you boasted that your blades were the best... i bet someone would eventually put you and your blade to the test.. ..... not a test i'd like to fail .....
-- also... i believe that the anient steel makers had a good idea of how much carbon to add to their charge... i'm sure they weighed all the ingredients...... otherwise there'd be piles of useless ingots .... trust me !!
-- it's easy to go over the 2% carb level...... and produce a beautiful ingot with impressive dendrites..... that can never be forged out

Greg

[Jens Nordlunde]

When discussing wootz and sham, the discussion has been on the percentage of carbon, but wootz/sham is not clean steel with carbon. Will more or less of the other components in the steel have any influence?

[Gt Obach]

i'm not sure i understand.. .. from my point of view, sham can be made with both high and low carbon wootz.... just the high carbon wootz has additional carbon to form carbides (large)
-it maybe the carbides help with cutting.... but one thing is forsure....they help alot with having a nice etch
- cutting properties are so very hard to quantify

in my opinion.... wootz is a very clean steel... there are no silicious slags.. . (the slags do not add to blade strength)
personally, I believe a fully melted steel has much better properties

obviously both ways make a fine blade


Greg

[Jens Nordlunde]

Sorry Greg, I was not very clear. What I meant was that wootz has a lot of other metals in it, does the amount of these make any influence?

Here it another one – it is in 3-D – as you can feel the pattern.

[Jeff Pringle]

The carbon level determines whether you will get carbides or not, and how many you get, so that's the element that gets all the attention. Some additional elements are needed to get the carbides to segregate and build up into bands, but I believe their influence is not changed very much in the amount of variation you see in the historic blades. And they are usually a tiny percentage of the total alloy.
So far, it seems (to me!) the determining factors in pattern are: speed of solidification; pre-forging heat treatment; the manner in which the metal is forged; alloy content - in that order, more or less...and I could be very wrong about that order - the history of wootz is littered with bad theories, so I'm in good company!
Since there are some (relatively) non-destructive ways of getting spectrographic analysis done these days, it would help to get a couple blades tested, to see if there really is a carbon or other difference between the sham and not-sham wootz. But visually, the sham looks more like alloy banding and not carbide clusters to me (that is not really different, carbide clustering is just alloy banding with a lot of extra carbon in the alloy)

[Jens Nordlunde]

Thank you for your explanation Jeff, I think it makes it easier for a lot to get an idea of what it is all about, and yes you are in good company – here.
The problem to many is, that when they see analyses, showing a lot of different metals plus carbon, many does not know what to look for and what not, so they get confused and stop watching for anything – thinking they don’t understand it anyway. I think you have given a fine explanation, without tying yourself into something you can’t get out of. But you have given an understandable explanation – thank you very much.

[MABAGANI]

I've been following the thread with interest, btw. Other than creating the wootz pattern indicating a high degree of refined skill of a smiths forging ability, if all things were equal in the shape and form of two swords, one with wootz, one without and the skill of the swordsmen weilding them were equal, would a sword with wootz have an advantage over one without, martial or combat wise? I could imagine a psychological advantage or disadvantage of the swordsmen, but leaving that aside, are there qualities in the wootz sword that make it better than a non-wootz sword? tougher yet flexible, better balance, etc? Excuse me if this has already been answered and I missed it in all the commentary.

[Gt Obach]

That is the 50 dollar question ?

is wootz a better sword steel that regular high carbon steel...

this is very hard to tell.... since if both steels are heat treated right.....they will work wonderfully

- i would think that wootz would hold its edge abit longer.....since carbides are wear resistant

- i've also found that wootz will take a keen edge...

if were are comparing this to our modern high carbon steels....it would be hard to tell..........but if we are comparing it to the high carbon bloom steels that were used by the ancient smiths.... ... the silicious slags in these steels do not add to strength, nor edge retention, or toughness
- then i'd alway vote for wootz...

like i said before..... it is very hard to quantify this property in steel

i'm interested in what others think, aswell


Greg

[B.I]

i believe the 19thC (european) opinion was debated as well. from memory, the historian was fascinated by it, to the point of attempting to replicated it in england (and failing), whilst the military opinion was that it was vastly inferior to british steel.
this cannot be taken seriously of course, given the military attitude at the time (raj and empire vs anything unbritish).

[MABAGANI]

I see, so to quantify the advantages, it would make more sense to make the comparison using technology of the era and the ancients would've had the answers by having their smiths and warriors do several hundreds or thousands of test cuts to check which sword held up better. Any ancient or early text or references as to how the wootz performed in battle and test cuts vs. non wootz swords?

[Jens Nordlunde]

Greg, I think you won the $ 50 note, both for your answer, and for mentioning that the steel of to day is not the same as the steel they used hundreds of years ago.
I agree with you that a sword with a wootz blade most likely would be preferable. One thing is the pattern on the blade, but I think when fighting most would tend to forget about the pattern, and be happy to have a sword, which keeps the edge better than the opponents, armed with a sword with a high carbon blade.

It should also be mentioned, that you now and again see blades, where one side is made of wootz, and the other side of high carbon steel. These blades are rare; I have never seen one myself – only read about them.

Mabagani, I don’t think you would need many thousand test cuts – a battle or two would be enough, and no, I have not seen anything about the test cutting you refer to, in any of the old texts I have seen. The only thing I have seen about test cutting, was that the young Rajput nobles practised their cutting power on wet clay, so they would be able to serve the head of an ox in one blow – anything else would be a disgrace to the family.

[MABAGANI]

One cut slamming edges of a wootz vs. non-wootz blade could've also given an immediate but costly answer, too, ouch...
Wet clay, interestingly for testing could give feedback and practice for- line, angle, aim, quality, etc on a stationary target without damaging the edge. I'll have to try it some time.
So were wootz blades more difficult for smiths to master and an expensive commodity reserved for the elite warriors and/or wealthy?

[Jens Nordlunde]

Mabagani, I think you will need a very big lump of moist clay, as the test they did was on force. I don’t know how much force it takes to serve a bulls head in one blow, but I would think it take quit a lot of strength – besides a very sharp sword.

In some of the older texts that I have prices of blades are mentioned, and it seems as if a perfectly made watered blade would sell for a kings ransom - almost, a good watered blade would sell for the ransom of a minor prince - almost, and a normal blade(?) would sell for far less. It is difficult to say how much the blades would be in to day’s currency, but from the old writing it is clear, that very good blades must have cost a fortune. On the other hand, for the owner it was safety first, as there were a lot of wars going on in India in those days, as well as a lot of robbers were touring the country – and it also gave prestige.

[Jeff Pringle]

the historian was fascinated by it, to the point of attempting to replicated it in england

Not just historians, cutlers like Stodart and scientists like Faraday (the famous one) investigated wootz in the early 1800's because it was viewed as superior to the crucible steels in production then. Attempts to duplicate it were also made in France, Switzerland and Russia. According to C.S. Smith in "A History of Metallography", interest waned when local methods improved and the Bessemer process came along and introduced a method of making homogenous steel more adaptable to large-scale production.
An analogy might be drawn between the manufacture of wootz blades and violin bows - The starting material is graded, and the lesser quality stuff is used by production line workers with little care to exploiting the material or fit and finish. The higher quality stuff is worked by th more skilled artisans, and as they work it they grade it further. The bows that are fully realizing the potential of the high-grade wood get more hours lavished on them in fit and finish, as well as gold fittings, the finest horse hair, a signature. The ones that are not working out optimally are still much better than the lower quality wood could aspire to, so they get some attention to detail and silver fittings, and perhaps a signature.
Violin bows are still largely made in a manner that survives from the pre-industrial era, so I think it could be a window into how the ancient steel was worked. The best material getting the most attention and expensive fit-out could also explain the tenfold increase in prices for the best watered blades.

[Jens Nordlunde]

In one of my books I read, that when the Europeans tried to forge an ingot they failed, and one of the reasons was, that they heated the ingot far too much. An ingot should have cherry colour when being forged, and they heated it till it was white – loosing whatever carbon in the ingot from the start.

[B.I]

pearson wrote a fabulous article in the late 18thC, after a claim from bombay about the fabulous properties of wootz. he dove into the subject with the academic passion of a victorian institution, and hammered, weighed, smelt and tasted it (no joke!), as well has forging and dipping it in various acids. i cant remember his conclusions, but remember him thoroughly enjoying his experiments :-)

[Jeff D]

Hi All and welcome Alex,

I was away and didn't see this thread until today. The term Wootz is the anglicized version of ukku wich just means steel. Wootz has come to mean a high carbon crucible steel with a "watered steel pattern". I have on a couple occasions noted that Zschokke blade 8 was eliminated from Verhoeven's study because of the hypoeutectoid carbon level. Before we condemn Verhoeven for "redefining" wootz we should consider a few things.

Verhoeven makes it clear that Fe3C (cementite) is crucial to forming the watering pattern. He also makes it clear that they can only form in the hypereutectoid state. Zschokke's blade 8 was rightfully dropped from his study because it could not contribute anything to the understanding of the formation of these particles. To my knowledge he doesn't call it sham.

When we look at the pattern on blade 8, it does have a sham appearace, my copy of the paper does not show the pattern clear enough to be conclusive. As Dr. Anne has stated it depends on your definition of sham. This is one blade that has been tested. Statistically this is meaningless. Other studies have been done, on wootz with carbon levels in the 1-2% range. Since sham has been considered to be wootz I assume they are part of this test, and therefore assume that not all sham blades are hypoeutectoid. It is certainly possible that the cementite particles are distributed in the pearlite matrix and still having the ferrite sham pattern ? This of course begs the question do we know the carbon levels of other sham blades.

I would love to hear more on this topic as there definately is a wealth of knowledge hear to clear this up.

Thank
Jeff

[shangrila]

one guy showed off this for the Spring Festival's traditional blessing, but people don't actually know what this is but an antique with koftgari and some veins.

this thing may you look at right here:

http://www.hl365.net/viewthread.php?...extra=page%3D1


would you kindly tell something, thanks!

[Jeff Pringle]

Verhoeven makes it clear that Fe3C (cementite) is crucial to forming the watering pattern. He also makes it clear that they can only form in the hypereutectoid state.

While it is true that excess cementite only shows up in hypereutectoid steels, I think Verhoeven might be mistaken in saying the cementite is crucial to the pattern.
This blade is 0.79%, measured at a lab -


This blade is somewhat less in carbon, but has not been lab analysed -



The patterns are not due to extra cementite; since they are below the eutectoid point the carbon is all wrapped up in pearlite.
Do the patterns look like sham wootz, or regular, or somewhere in between?

I think the ultimate answer is to get more blades checked at the lab, but we may find the old pattern-based distinctions are as much related to working methods as alloy.

[Gt Obach]

love those blades... very nice
i like the top one alot... ... were they etched in sulphuric

the bottom one..... the pattern near the spine looks abit sham like... with the straight long lines..

what do others think?




i think we are really are closing in on the true wootz steel... by looking at the traditions, the alloys, patterns and treatments.... i believe its really the big picture that counts.....
-- when i look at Jeff's blades ...by the nouveau wootz definition... i would say they are wootz..


Shangrila: I believe that is a " Kard " and its made of wootz... ... very nice...
I love the close up on the blade.... look at the purple-ish hue of the etch..
-- this is interesting.... has anyone replicated this etch oxide color ???
-- i'm thinking "alum" may have been used in the etch??