New shamshir: hoping for a diamond in the rough.

[10thRoyal]

Fantastic info from all of y'all, it is all very much appreciated . And Norman, that was my exact thought! I wasn't able to find another example of this hilt type on a shamshir but it did not seem to be out of the realm of possibility. The "new" hilt is unfortunately of low quality. My bottle of Ferric Chloride just arrived so I'll have some (hopefully) pretty pictures shortly.

And beautiful blades GePi. One of those pulwar blades would really make this a piece to display instead of the current grip which looks like the work of a Khyber Pass gunsmith, hahaha.

I'm open to it being laminated honestly. At the very least it was done well and isn't some tourist piece. Hopefully will get some clarity soon.

[GePi]

Originally Posted by 10thRoyal

Fantastic info from all of y'all, it is all very much appreciated . And Norman, that was my exact thought! I wasn't able to find another example of this hilt type on a shamshir but it did not seem to be out of the realm of possibility. The "new" hilt is unfortunately of low quality. My bottle of Ferric Chloride just arrived so I'll have some (hopefully) pretty pictures shortly.

And beautiful blades GePi. One of those pulwar blades would really make this a piece to display instead of the current grip which looks like the work of a Khyber Pass gunsmith, hahaha.

I'm open to it being laminated honestly. At the very least it was done well and isn't some tourist piece. Hopefully will get some clarity soon.

I find these actually quite interesting, and like the khyber knifes with militarized hilts they are legit and there are quite a few examples still around. Here are two from Artzi, one with a more simple wootz pattern, perhaps local, but the other one with a really nice older Persian blade.

[10thRoyal]

Originally Posted by GePi

I find these actually quite interesting, and like the khyber knifes with militarized hilts they are legit and there are quite a few examples still around. Here are two from Artzi, one with a more simple wootz pattern, perhaps local, but the other one with a really nice older Persian blade.

Those are excellent examples! The second has an almost identical style grip to my own. I guess I need to do a more thorough search of examples.

I managed a marginally better etching with the Ferric Chloride. It does look more like wootz towards the edge now but gets less so towards the spine. Almost like it was heat treated composed of multiple steels.

[mariusgmioc]

Yes, it appears to be Persian wootz but the etching is very poor.
You need to polish the blade to grit 2000 or even 2500 to be able to better reveal the pattern.

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=21732

[Sakalord364]

Originally Posted by GePi

I find these actually quite interesting, and like the khyber knifes with militarized hilts they are legit and there are quite a few examples still around. Here are two from Artzi, one with a more simple wootz pattern, perhaps local, but the other one with a really nice older Persian blade.

10thRoyal it’s interesting the hilt on your example appears irregularly made, perhaps the smith was a novice or it’s just a result of wear and tear.

An example in original condition looks quite nice actually.

These sword hilts were imitations of Afghan army pattern hilts, and were handmade by local smiths and sold to officers who wanted a fancy private purchase sword instead of their issued sword. That why I think the quality of the hilt is variable, since each smith made them by hand and one smith might be more skilled than the other.

The army issue swords these were inspired by were made in the military factory with modern European machinery, which is why they were quite uniform quality wise

[10thRoyal]

It has been two months from my first post. Etching this shamshir has taken me to the edge of sanity. mariusgmioc, your comment cut me deep. I have polished and etched polish and etched and polished and etched. I'm now using a mix of JSP 14k gold testing solution and Everclear Grain alcohol. Neither my hillbilly Nital nor Ferric Chloride showed the pattern I wanted. I have used up to 8000 grit. The best result I got was this:

And yes I know that isn't good.

At the brink of sanity I realized that I DID have a shamshir in my collection with a nice wootz pattern, so it polished a portion of that blade and etched it with my best procedure. Below is the unetched side and the etched side:




I am now convinced that whatever my new shamshir is, I'm not entirely sure it wants to be etched. Maybe it's not wootz. Maybe it's laminated. At this point I'm not even sure I care which it is. I'm just going to be content with what I have.

[Interested Party]

Originally Posted by 10thRoyal

I am now convinced that whatever my new shamshir is, I'm not entirely sure it wants to be etched. Maybe it's not wootz. Maybe it's laminated. At this point I'm not even sure I care which it is. I'm just going to be content with what I have.

I think it looks good. My 2 cents is that it is wootz. Different steels have different levels of contrast.

Mariusgmioc Could this be a local Afghan ore processed by a Iranian smith thus a slightly different contrast? I have read that Afghans, I don't know which tribe, were making their own crystalline wootz blades. It is possible that they were extracting their own ore rather than importing cakes of wootz from Iran or India.

How long is the blade from the point to the guard?

[Sakalord364]

Originally Posted by Interested Party

I think it looks good. My 2 cents is that it is wootz. Different steels have different levels of contrast.

Mariusgmioc Could this be a local Afghan ore processed by a Iranian smith thus a slightly different contrast? I have read that Afghans, I don't know which tribe, were making their own crystalline wootz blades. It is possible that they were extracting their own ore rather than importing cakes of wootz from Iran or India.

How long is the blade from the point to the guard?

Interesting, do you remember where you read it? Afghans no doubt must have used their own ore alongside imported cakes and blades