nice watered hanshee (photos)

Spiral, I will help you out, save the Gold Membership, I will buy all those silly old antique,watered,ivory inlaid Khuks from you! just makes it easy for everyone! pity I dont know how to put those smilie things here. Rod
 
Solid ivory if you domt mind, Rod!
SOLID, heavy chunky Ivory!;) :D

To get smilies click on the faces in the box on the left of where you right the text, they always appear after the words that are lowest on page so do them as you want them not at the end!;)

you dont see them in full till you post! :)

Spiral :D
 
I don't think that the patterns in wootz come from welding multiple billets together ~ if you look at many Indian swords they have a wootz blade scarf welded to a piece of regular steel near the base of the blade. The pattern is often fainter or missing as you get near the site of the weld. This bolsters my thoughts that these higher heats put the carbides back into solution at the elevated heats involved with welding.

I believe that patterns in wootz (I have no personal knowledge of this) could be created in a similiar method as those used in mechanical damascus (I do have personal knowledge of). If you take a high layer count billet (this would be similar to the fine banding exhibited in wootz) and file a design into the top layers and forge flat you can create many patterns. I would imagine in wootz if you filed a design through multiple layers of the banding (I believe they are fine alternating layers of almost pure iron and carbides) and forge flat it should work the same.

Again this is seat of the pants

stevo
 
Stevo,
What you say about filling makes perfect sense to me, I wonder if they did do that?

Often The scarf welding is 2 billets of wootz , not just wootz & plain steel,

I am sure most wootz blades are from, just one billet , but The Ladder effect is according, to Lord Eggerton two bilits twisted & welded together by the most accomplished of the smiths.

I dont know about you , but personaly I figure the Old Lord of Tatton probably new more about it than all of us forumites put toghether! He went to where it was being done after all & also had access to Every important weapons collection the British had got thier hands on!

Sounds like a good job to me!

Spiral
 
Following up on some comments,

I think that both wootz & mechanical damascus require some sort of etching to bring out the pattern. Though they may not require the same amount, or strength, etc. And in both cases I think the etching may 'be good' for quite some time, so Rod's blades could have been etched quite some time ago?

I am not certain, but I don't think one can pattern-weld wootz. I think there is some problem that the temperatures one needs to welded together the billet for mechanical damascus would be too high for working with wootz? But I don't know for certain.

Perhaps Egerton was confused? Perhaps one could get some interesting patterns by using pattern-welded steel folded many times over, to get the thinner lines, and then those pieces themselves welded together?

I don't know for certain.

spiral - you can email me pics and I should be able to put them up.


cheers,
--B.
 
Hi Folks,
Well yes Yvsa,Stevo & Beo, I must admit that although ,I assumed the old Lord was correct, that doesnt actualy mean he was!

Anyone out there know about Lord Tattons accuracy?

I have sent you 3 photos Beo, Thanks for your offer.

I think the Ivory one is laminated, because of the blisters in it, The pre 1820 Budhume also looks like it has lamination faults & appears to be made of a very unusual steel, to me.

As to whether they are unetched Wootz,Damascus,laminated or plain steel, I can not be 100% certain!

Either way I like them!

Spiral,
 
Burton, in "The Book of the Sword" (1884), desribes Wootz-making in Indian as follows:

About a pound weight of malleable iron, made from Magnetic ore, is placed, minutely broken and moistened, in a crucible of recractory clay, together with finely chopped pieces of wood . . . . It is packed without flux. The open pots are then covered with the green leaves of the Asclepias gigantea or Convolvulvus lanifolius, aand the tops are coated over with wet clay, wihich is sun-dried to hardness. . . . Some two dozen of these cupels or crucibles are disposed archways at the bottom of a furnace, whose blast is managred with bellows of bullock's hide. The fuel is composed mostly of charcoal and sub-dried brattis or cow-chips. After two or three hours of smelting the cooled crucibles are broken up, when the regulus appears in the sahpe and size of half an egg. . . . These 'cops' are converted into bars . . . .

In his discussion of Wootz, Burton also says:

The Jauhar ('jewel" or ribboning) of the so-called 'Damascus' blade was produced artificailly, mostly by drawing out the steel into thin ribbons which were piled and welded by the hammer.
 
Originally posted by Rod Allen
Thomas, can you give me the publisher and details of Burtons "book of the sword".
Thanks Rod
Click to expand...

Burton's "The Book of The Sword" was first published in 1884 and he intended that there was to be a Part II and a Part III to the book, but according to the note in the front of my copy the material was incomplete and therefore never published.
Like so many other things that years bring increased knowledge to, I think Mr.Burton may have been mistaken about a few things. The one in particular that pertains to the subject is the way Wootz Steel was made.

Beoram wrote:
"I am not certain, but I don't think one can pattern-weld wootz. I think there is some problem that the temperatures one needs to welded together the billet for mechanical damascus would be too high for working with wootz? But I don't know for certain."

I think Ben is exactly right about the Wootz not being able to be pattern welded.
It's a damned shame the links I once had are no longer operable as that's where I'm sure I read that Wootz need not be etched to bring out the pattern, but that it took a skilled bladesmith to work it to bring the pattern out as working it at too high a temp would destroy the pattern. I hope all that made sense.:rolleyes: ;)
If I would have saved the info to a file I may of still had it, but when my computer crashed almost everything was lost except for my files.
So let this be a warning and if it's something you really want to keep be sure and save it to a file as there is no guarantee that the info will be there tomorrow and may not be available ever again!!!!!!!:(
I have learned my lesson!!!!:grumpy:
 
Ben has provided some great sources, but two books I consider the definitive sources are On Damascus Steel by L. Figiel and the best by J. Hrisoulas titled The Pattern-Welded Blade, Artistry in Iron.
 
Originally posted by John Powell
Ben has provided some great sources, but two books I consider the definitive sources are On Damascus Steel by L. Figiel and the best by J. Hrisoulas titled The Pattern-Welded Blade, Artistry in Iron.
Click to expand...


Yes, I highly recommend Hrisoulas's book myself too. Very informative, even for those of us who aren't actually smiths, and lots of nice photos. :)
 
As is true of many things, the ugly truths show up years later. What happened to the other two manuscripts is this:

Burton was somethng of a womanizer or sexual predator, and he had many affairs. His wife, when she found out after burton's demise, burned the remaining manuscripts. The moral: Don't piss of yer wife, she WILL get even.

Keith
 
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