@ Lew
occasionally a crucible steel charge can be an incomplete melt... some of the low carbon wrought iron has not gone into solution in time... it is difficult to tell as when you look at the crucible, most of the melt is liquid -- with a piece of wrought iron floating within.... now the crucible is yanked out..... cooled.. and then ingot is cracked out of the crucible and forged out into a blade
-- now to the smith's surprise, when the blade is etched....a non-patterning area is revealed in the wootz... this can be some of the initial ingredients not fully melted
- it does become a steel however.... as carbon will migrate as the blade is forged
also... to broken tips... alot of blades can have the tips broken during combat use..
not suggesting this is what happened with this blade... but its likely a crucible melt error
also... forgewelded wootz can be done without loss of pattern... I have seen it
|