Katar with massive wootz blade

[mariusgmioc]

Originally Posted by ariel

Beautiful Indian wootz!

I have been told by the bladesmiths that mechanically Indian wootz was heads and shoulders better than the Persian one. This is, of course, purely theoretical assertion: AFAIK, no head-to-head competition was ever conducted. Even funnier, I am unaware of any similar test versus mechanical damascus or even high-carbon monosteel:-)

Anyone here has such information?

Hello Ariel,

It appears the Persians themselves appreciated wootz with finer watering patterns, and most Indian wootz displays finer pattern. However, from everything I know, this is purely anecdotical.

Besides, there is hard to charactersie something like "Indian Wootz" because in India they made a wide variety of Wootz from rather low quality, to extremely high quality (but let's keep it in mind that Wootz was surpassed in quality by European steels as early as 17 century (or maybe even earlier).

[Roland_M]

Thanks very much for all the explanations! I read them carefully and learned many new informations.

According to the wonderful and very valuable Dissertation of Anna Feuerbach "Crucible Steel in Central Asia" one can see the quality of a wootz blade by its shine.

"The shine is the lustre, or perhaps glittering appearance of the sword. The sheen can be absent (Piakowski, 1976, 239) or range in color from reddish to a golden color, which is the highest Quality (Bogachev, 1952, 40)." (Tatton, 1880, 60)

This Katar is from the golden type, clearly visible already during the polishing, if the abrasive cloth has a grit of at least 8000, better 12000. The effect was strong enough, to hide the whole pattern.


Roland

[Sajen]

Hello Roland,

not the area of my collecting but have to say that it is beautiful dagger. The chiseled middle of the blade is very nice worked. The same is to say about the remaining koftgari work! A very heavy dagger, I really glad that I was able to handle it.

Regards,
Detlef