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Old 3rd December 2006, 10:52 AM   #232
Chris Evans
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Australia
Posts: 661
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RSWORD

I would like to express my thanks and appreciation for your efforts in posting the photos of your Wootz blades. They certainly present food for thought. As I mentioned elsewhere, it would help us enormously if somehow the edge hardness of those blades could be ascertained. A bit of very careful file testing against samples of known hardness would go a long way.....

With regards to the one that seems to have a hardened steel edge inserted, it brings to my mind a story that I was told in my student days, long ago, about clever forgeries involving a common (?) steel blade somehow overlaid with thin veneers of Wootz. I hasten to add that this never made much sense to me as the work involved would have been huge, requiring great skill - Much more likely is that here we have a composite type of sword construction that was misunderstood by Europeans.

Again, may thanks
Chris
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