WOOTZ or SHAM?
 

As we know, Dr. Verhoeven does not consider sham to be true wootz, however many collectors do. And as it's relatively easy to recognize network and ladder types, it is difficult to make a clear distinction between stripy, water and wavy patterns, as all three can be labeled as sham (just look at the multitude of individual opinions from this post:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=38

So here are two blades. Both have longish threads, more evident on Sword_One, with one particular thread looking like a half-circular brush stroke (see second picture). I even thought it was painted when I saw it first time. The second sword has similar, but less wilder threads. Both can be seen as sham, but considering relative high contrast could one see them as wavy/water type? And how do you make an informative "guess" which is which?

P.S. Glad to be joining so many dedicated and knowledgeable people at The Forum. This is my first post. Looking forward to learn and to share. Alex

Hi,
Nice blades. A definitive way of characterizing/naming patterns still needs work as it is so objective and different parts of a blade often shows different patterns..some tight and some more wavy. As for Sham...check out my reply on the other link.
:)

hi
the sham pattern can be produced with both hyper and hypo eutectic steel.... ofcourse.... my idea of a sham pattern is where the waterings are very straight... the pattern is controled by how the igot is drawn out.... if you want a very straight pattern... simply use hammers with very flat faces..... it takes longer to make ...

now for real interesting waterings.... you forge the blade out with round face hammers.....and do lot's of fullering to draw the ingot out.... ... now the drastic deformation of the surface helps the waterings to become much more chaotic..

its really more about pattern control and forge techniques.....

however....i'm not sure about the swoopy patterns.... i've gotten weird pattern when i etched blades that weren't totally degrease.... but that a different matter..

Greg

Hello,
I guess it all boils down again to how one defines a Sham pattern. :)

Welcome
 

Welcome to the forum, Alex. Hope you enjoy your time here.

As you have already seen, some of our members are very knowledgeable about steel patterns.

Ian.

Hi Ann

OK,Sham=Something false or empty that is purported to be genuine; a spurious imitation or A decorative cover made to simulate an article of household linen and used over or in place of it: Oh sorry you mean a steel pattern I should be a sham ed :D Sorry I just couldn't help myself :)


Lew

There is a very wide variety of opinions about the classification of wootz, what is wootz, how do you classify, etc. I think it can even be split into technical aspects and collector aspects. Speaking from a collector aspect, Sham wootz is most often associated, again from a collectors perspective, with Turkish or Syrian wootz or shall I say that this pattern of wootz is most often associated with those regions. I believe Sham is another word for Syrian. As Greg points out, the sham pattern is mostly recognized as long flowing lines without circular distortions, partial rungs or full rungs. I am afraid I am away and am unable to post an example to illustrate.

It is hard to tell from your example but it appears that your first example has some dead spots or inactivity in the patterning most probably due to a failure to control the heat during forging. In the sections where the pattern is visible, it seems to not exhibit the typical sham pattern. The second example also does not appear to be an example of sham.

A favorite topic of mine so welcome to the forum and keep the wootz posts coming!

I thought sham meant plain steel that was etched to look like it was wootz/pattern welded?
To photograph patterns in steels, it is often easiest to get a uniform reflection by taking the photo with the blade outside, positioned in such a way as to reflect an overcast sky - you get a very clear shot of the pattern if the blade is lit with uniform, diffuse light.
The parallel lines (to the right) in the middle photo indicate that blade might be pattern welded steel, but the photos are indistinct enough to make any attribution a guess.

after rereading some of Al-Kindi's words on arabic swords.... i still feel that we are getting too strict with our definitions of wootz/poulad steel. I'm still leaning towards all the crucible steels made in the middle ages, wootz tradition as being wootz steel.... this includes even the lower carbon hypo eutectic's with good pattern..

it is a good matter for discussion..... i'm personally open minded to all of it..

ask yourself these questions.?
-- do you think that if the Indian steel makers made a hypo eutectic ingot, and forged it into a sword.... that they wouldn't call it wootz ? specially if it had a watered pattern?

-- would it be more likely that they'd have a catagory of quality for such wootz.... noting it's difference from the high carbon wootz.... specially in terms of observable pattern.. !!

-- remember......they had no way to tell the carbon level of this wootz..... (no mass spectrometer etc )


maybe i'm getting too excited over nothing..... but i feel that our modern definition is getting away from the middle ages tradition..... as i have mentioned before

if sham isn't wootz......... then what about the dendritc pattern.... i've seen this on indian swords..... where there is very little roast time and the watering is very grid like....... are these to be excluded too!

i hope there is to be more open dialog on this topic... it's important to discuss this

Greg

when reading Verhoeven's study on " the key role of impurities in damascus blades" .... he bases his idea on wootz from the Zschokke blades..... yet he totally discounts the analysis of sword no. 8 because it was hypoeutectic.....

Before this moment in time..... that sword was concidered wootz !!... obviously so because it was a selected sample for testing and characterizing wootz steel.....
-- it must have showed typical wootz pattern with a watered surface !!
--. So ....if the observable features of this sword fooled the scientists in this study.... do you think that the Ancient Indians could be more thorough ?? and discriminatory

.... now after being discluded from the acceptable ranges of wootz steel is this study.... it is here by declared " Not Wootz "


at university, they drummed it into my head to ask the question " Why "..... and to test all theories for repeatability....

the modern definition of wootz is holding less and less water, for me !

Greg

I too think this is an important point, and that historically hypo-eutectoid steels were considered wootz - but it also might be that you, me, Ann and Ric are the only ones who care about this subject on such a technical/historical level. :)
I think we should revisit some of the earlier descriptions of the watering - Didn't al-Kindi desribe several types? One of those is quite possibly a reference to the lower carbon variety. And the sword in the bottom pic looks like it might be of that ilk (just to keep to the initial subject)...

Hi Jeff, Greg and Ann,

No you, Greg and Ann are not the only ones interested in this subject – I am too. Only my knowledge about the subject is far too little to join the discussion, other than ask the stupid questions – so that is what I will do.

How about one of you writing a ‘Wootz for Dummies’, that might help many of us.

Is it so, that in theory sham has less carbon than 0.8, and wootz has more than 0.8?

When I write ‘in theory’ it is be course of what Greg wrote. I have understood that the smith, if the difference of carbon is not too big, can make a blade after his own wishes, is that correct? Earlier this was of course impossible, as they could not measure the carbon.

When the crucibles were made ready for melting, this of course would mean that none of them would be exactly the same, as the amount of organic stuff you put into each could/would differ from crucible to crucible, also meaning that the man maintaining the work had to be very accurate. Some were, others were not. This could explain what I have read about the Arabian merchants having people living in India to check the crucibles before they were exported – as some were of a lesser quality.

i'll tell you a story..... when i was starting to make crucible steel... i was testing the boundaries of wootz.... so i deliberately made an ingot to have a carb level bellow 1%.... ( a sort of control experiment)
I forged it out.... heat treated and etched in the standard way..... suprised to see a nice watered pattern come out with a very short etch time.... ... confused, i shuffled this blade to the back of the pile thinking that i either -- goofed up the calculation for carb levels or... extra carbon was borrowed from the crucible...
-- anyhow.. i gave it to a friend and didn't look back....

now... Jeff had posted a knife awhile back that had a wootzy look.... but he'd stated that it was too low a carb to be wootz..... yet it looks identical to an Indian blade i've seen..... so what ? well if Jeff didn't have that blade tested, would he have known to catagorize this blade as " not wootz ".....
-- is this another No.8 sword ???


so what it boils down to is...... are we to split the hypoeutectic watered crucible steel (low carbon steel) off of the definition of wootz (basically following verhoeven's lead and discounting sword no 8's existence) or are we to look at the whole sample of watered steels from the middle ages and be inclusive of No 8


i'm not sure i can come up with a definition of wootz at the moment... if anything, I think it is just a crucible steel that is made in the wootz tradition of the middle ages...

I believe Jeff's point is excellent.... we should try to revisit Al-Kindi's classifications of watered steels... and look here for some answers


Greg

How about the functional aspect? Would a wootzy blade forged from a low carbon ingot live up to expectations under martial use?

Greg, did you ever tested edge holding of your experimental blades?

Regards,
Kai

yes the low carb wootz.....as long as its above .6% carb would make an excellent knife... ... i did not test that particular blade for edge holding but whenever i finish quenching a blade...... i test its hardness by running a small file on its edge......... if the file skates on the edge without biting the metal.....it is then very hard !! ( around 60rc) and off to the temper oven it goes to relieve some hardness and give it some toughness...

I believe the low carb wootz would do well in martial use...


Greg

ps.....the high carb wootz blade do hold a nice edge

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

What a wonderful welcome to the Forum. Thank you all who responded. Now I have more questions than before... and it's a good thing :)

Greg:

Your reflection on the wootz/sham issue is one of the brightest I have ever came across (well, after Ann's, of course :)). And I can not agree with you more. It sounds so logical - it's either wootz or mechanical !!! ... (or am I way off changing the conventional wisdom on my second post??).

Rick:

Very short and sweet description of sham pattern. And I'll keep wootz pictures coming. It's the ONLY thing I collect, and amazingly know so little about :) Also, the pattern on my blade looks more Chunky than Stripy, and if Manfred Sache categorizes Stripy damask as Sham, should the Chunky be qualified as such, IF AT ALL? (Ann, any comments?)
MORE IMPORTANTLY: If it's not Sham, what do you think it is?

Jeff:

I did not think it's a mechanical pattern, and even with all that "chunks" and blank and empty areas I inclined toward stripy (sham) wootz, but now I am not sure. :) Perhaps someone will be able to identify it despite low quality photos (still can not get them right with my Kodak 3MP).

OK, now we're back where we started. The One who said: " Wootz is an amazing and magical thing" was right.

Also, Rick - do you know where can I get Manfred Sache English edition? All I could find is German one on Amazon. Thanks to all!!!

Hi

yes....currently my thinking is leaning towards being historically accurate..... after all, why should we make new standards for crucible steel when there were already some in place...

i realize that what i'm trying to put forth is against the grain but something has to be said for crucible steel.... from what i understand, wootz/poulad was crucible steel made in the middle ages tradition.

I believe this post to be important to collectors, also !!!
-can you imagine if your shamshir, tulwar, kilij, with fabulous waterings... truly wonderful crucible steel...... if it was tested for carbon level and was found to have .8%....... under the current definition it would be declared " Not Wootz/poulad "
-- the value would be much less.... but yet....it still is an excellent steel, strong enough to do well in combat.... beautiful to look at.... and has interesting waterings

-yes....it is abit troubling..... so this is why we have to ask questions when scientists come up with subcatagories and redefine materials.

-from what i've been reading and rereading... the ancient catagories of crucible steel was about the surface waterings (color, pattern, region etc)

maybe i'm over reacting.... but it is definitely worth looking into

Greg

those blades are strange.... sometimes you can have some non-patterning surface decarb... and this will etch into black blobs.... but can be ground out...
- it maybe that the etch was off...... sometimes the etch will do crazy things

- lastly...... this is a long shot...... but it maybe that these blades were roasted for a very long time dissolving some of the dendritic network.....
i've noticed in the past that long roasts will give you a larger and wandering pattern..... much the opposite of the dendritic look..
so...it maybe that....but i'm truly reaching here..... .. way out !

The new photos make me think it is not mechanical damascus, too - looks more like crucible steel to me. I'm thinking the blobs are probably decarburized areas as well, the patchy look (sharp transitions & shapes that are random, not streched out or tied tightly to the blade geometry) is consistant with a decarb layer that was not fully removed in the finishing process.

What would you call this?

And this?

Alex,

In regards to Sasche book, have a look on Ebay. It pops up from time to time in the English version. With the extra pictures, it is still hard to make out the pattern of the steel due to the areas of inactivity. While I am confident both blades are wootz, in as far as how a collector would classify the watering, but very hard to say if it is a shami pattern or not. From what I can tell in the areas where the pattern does show up, it seems to have a bit more activity than one would expect with typical sham wootz.

Jens,

Lovely blades you post there. I will take a crack at these speaking strictly from a collectors viewpoint. The first example has the very tight, fine, low contrast pattern most often associated with India. In the next picture, the two swords to the left exhibit the high contrast, high activity patterning that is most often associated with Persia while the final example to the right is what I would call a classical example of Indian wootz. Tight, fine pattern with low contrast.

The reason why I show these three dagger blades is be course the first one has these dark blobs as well as watering, but the others don’t.

What are thise ones then? They are from tulwar blades.

Jens,

The last two examples you post are examples of mechanical damascus or pattern welded steel. The example on the left, with the widely scattered pattern, is according to Figiel, from peining the blade. Perhaps he means tapping on the tang will create these distortions. The example on the right is a good example of an active watering that is the result of pattern welding.

Hi.. I have seen those exact blotches on some of my first blades ... .. i'm not quite sure why the pattern is like that.... it may need to be re-etched ... or may have been a problem with the last stages of lower temp heat cycling... (some spots may have been overheated abit.... and need some cycles to repattern )
-- in past experiments.... i kept etching till those spots start to pattern....but the problem is that the other places where the etch was initially decent ...now is overly etched and looking cruddy...
-- if you change solutions and acids......sometimes this can help..and a thorough degreasing
-- or bring the blade to a higher polish... (high grit) and use only a quick etch... this is a less durable etch... but allows you to see fine detail

Jens.... those are some marvelous blades !!

and i totally agree with the bottom being patternwelded..

take care
Greg

On the patttern welded blades, the left has a low number of layers, the right a high number. Unevenness in the surface from hammering (that is later filed out) results in more layers being exposed on the surface, which is what Figiel must have been referring to when he spoke of peining.
Another factor which influences the way patterns show up on these blades is the state of hardness of the metal - A blade or area that has been fully transformed in the hardening process will etch more slowly than an area that was not hot enough or cooled too slowly to harden properly.

Jeff..... i'd buy you a beer for that answer :D :D

i believe your right on !! and it makes sense.....

Greg

Hi Greg and Jeff,
I think I am in the presence of greatness!!!
please carry on as i am an enraptured spectator!
B

Hi All,

Thank you for your answers. I too like wootz very much, but I also have the feeling that many of the pattern-welded patterns are underestimated.

The explanation of the difference shown in the two pictures in mail #23 is very interesting.

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.

In Reference To Post 23
 

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 ?

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.

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 ?

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

Thanks, Jeff.

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

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).

Now I'm getting a little confused .

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

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 . :)

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.

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.