Pattern of forging

[Mark]

I love the patterns in Tibetan blades. I've never seen ones as intricate as these, though, Athena. Beautiful! The first almost rather like a keris pamor.

I got a close-up look at a liu wei dao (willow leaf sabre) with a horse tooth pattern on a recent trip to Longquan in China. It actually is in the History of Steel exhibition, now (I was there helping evaluate and pick - well sort of - swords for the exhibition). Anyway, Zhou Zhen Wu, the owner, who is himself a great smith (again the Macao connection - he represented China in the Masters of Fire exhibition), has been trying to figure out how the pattern was achieved. It is not a temper pattern (at least his wasn't), but is sanmai. So far he hasn't had success. It is one of those lost arts in Chinese swordmaking.

PS: Here's a little game of "Where's Waldo" -- can you spot me in the pictures in Antonio's article?