Teodor,
What I've learned is that good quality wootz requires minimum effort to be brought up nicely. Wootz blades which were not polished, grinded and buffed too much during their lifetime have tendency for better contrast when etched. Just like the examples shown above - these blades were in excellent condition, not just well preserved, but not "touched" much. They required almost no mechanical work. All I did was polished them gently with the polishing paste until the surface became mirror-like/shiny, then cleaned it with alcohol and etched with FerroChloride (FeCl) solution. I've worked with good wootz blades with heavy pitting, and when test-etched they were showing good pattern, but when grinded and polished to get rid of pitting - the pattern often lost its contrast and became distorted. I'd strongly recomment NOT to overgrind and overpolish wootz. The goal is to make an entire surface mirror-like without taking too much metal off and without overheating the blade - the less mechanical intrusion - the better! You can use very fine sandpaper with water, then sandpaper with oil, followed by dry sandpaper and buffing, and once the surface looks mirror-like -- stop!
Now, when wootz is low-contrast (especially Turkish or Syrian sham type) - this is how it meant to be by design, and there is not much one can do to increase the contrast, except of trying different etching methods - FeCl, acid, etc. and if it happens to be sham (low contrast wootz) - it'd stay this way:-) Finally, a wootz blade can have areas of pattern loss - different reasons - overheating, overpolishing, underheating:-) Good wootz will always show it's best with almost any etchant, and this is the secret:-) Hope it helps.
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