Kevin R. Cashen said:
No problem, thank you for trying to clear up my confusion. But I am still a little lost, I think it is just the wording and terminology that is throwing me here. "Wootzy looking" and "Wootz like" are great descriptions that I understand. ...It is indeed wootzy looking since many of the underlying causes of the patterns are similar to the patterning in real wootz, but wootz would be an entirely different product of a specific crucible manufacturing process, whereas alloy banding occurs in almost any alloy-rich hypereutectoid (and even some hypoeutectoids) when temperature allows enough carbon to get grabbed by those alloys (not that I am breaking any news to you, but I thought it good information for others interested in the process.)
When you referred to it as "wootz", instead of "wootz-like" or alloy banding, I became confused as to whether you had folded in a bar of the real thing (wootz) or simply thermal cycled the 52100 until it banded. Thank you for the clarification, I didn't want to draw entirely false conclusions about the beautiful work you have shared images of here. Well done.
Okay, just a comment from the peanut gallery... I was, like Kevin, kinda confused by the terminology as I understood "Wootz" to be an actual form of steel formed through a particular process as Kevin pointed out.
However, in this case, maybe what Ed has done is the same thing many early Japanese swordsmiths did through their manipulation of the forging and heat treating processes... The Japanese then developed a rather refined set of terms to describe each of the different effects that were achieved in the smithing process... Which exact term is appropriate for what Ed has encountered, though, is way beyond me.
Which term is appropriate might be better answered by the likes of Michael(?) Bell in Oregon who makes traditional style Japanese blades in the original manner of the traditional Japanese swordsmiths - He may know the correct term for this effect, if there is one Japanese term for it...
Otherwise, I have several plain carbon steel blades from several makers that show more than just the simple transition between two crystaline structures (the hamon) - I've got shadow hamons (kind of like the false rainbows that exist on either side of the most visible rainbow) and several different grain patterns, both above and below the hamon, that are characteristic of several of the effects that the Japanese have named... none, however, show as distinctive a marking as what Ed has produced...
All that being said, I don't really care what the correct term is... That blade is just plain beautiful and I would really like to see it close up to truly appreciate the life that Ed has breathed into that piece!!!
Ed, even though we haven't formally met (your table is always three and four deep when I swing by in Eugene! LOL!!!,) I've read most of the threads you've been involved in that go into your pursuit of totally understanding the life of one particular kind of steel; I've read your articles in the mag's about your philosophy, (heck, you even invited me to stop by on my cross country trip last year!!)... I may never be able to afford one of your blades, but I have learned way more than I could in any book from you about your style of knives, your way of approaching knifemaking, and, what actaully happens in the steel itself from your totally unselfish sharing of your experiences and knowledge... And I think most of the folks on this thread (and on this forum) seem to be cut from some of the same cloth - everytime one of you shares with the public like this, you demonstrate the true values of this community...
Thank you.
), is this a complete 52100 blade with banding, or did you weld a band of actual wootz in there? It would indeed make an interesting pattern if one did.
