Wootz Shamshir

[ariel]

Sorry if I was less than precise.
By monosteel I mean truly uniform industrial grade European steel manufactured under tight conditions and with meticulous quality control. They did not require additional homogenization. Surely, lower quality steel manufactured in rather primitive and poorly controlled conditions will have variable composition in different areas. But monosteel Solingen, Birmingham and Zlatoust blades did not delaminate. Damascus gun barrels from Liege did, simply because they were deliberately composed of bars with different carbon content.

And yes, the seam on the spine might look like delamination. But not quite. The edges of the ingot with most impurities, slag and variable composition just could not be fused when forged under low temperatures needed for wootz. More precisely, it is not a delamination ( which implies past good lamination ), but an almost inavoidable defect of forging. They can be barely noticeable or ugly as hell. I have several wootz blades with them.