Thread: Great Qama
View Single Post
Old 27th June 2020, 05:39 AM   #16
ariel
Member
 
ariel's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Ann Arbor, MI
Posts: 5,503
Default

Kai,
You hit the nail on the head: every variety of mechanical Damascus is a product of mixing/ twisting chunks of steel with different carbon content. Suffice it to take a book by Manfred Sachse and look at the endless combinations and perturbations of “ hard” and “soft” iron to realize that they all, without exception, are in fact “ twistcore”. But devil is in the details: different masters in different cultures had their favorite schemes of twisting to produce their favorite final pattern. Not for nothing contemporary Indian artisans manufacture blades with the “ bird eye” pattern: simple , quick and flashy. Turks twisted their rods creating “ Turkish ribbon”, old Vikings braided them, but Tibetans just bent their rods on themselves for their unsophisticated “ hairpin “ pattern.
It’s like music: every composer from Bach to ABBA had same do-re-mis, but arranged them differently.
This is why we can look at the Damascus pattern and guess where it came from, and why pattern A and pattern N have a lot in common implying a connection between the traditions.
ariel is offline   Reply With Quote