Kastane for comment

[CourseEight]

Hi all --

Nicely done Radleigh!!!
I very much like the way you have addressed the posts regarding your sword and providing nicely detailed support material. The kastane is not often discussed and extremely limited information available on them, so your sword and data have added to the archived resources here.
Thank you very much!
All the best,
Jim

I'm quite pleased to contribute. I've only been collecting real stuff for about a year, and I have to thank everyone here for what an incredible resource this site is. I'm glad to give back, even in such a limited way!

Corrosion can indeed form a pattern along the blade, which a priori seems to be the case here. Im' afraid that without better focused pictures it's going to be hard to say anything realistic about it...

Thanks for the information, Marc! Given this, I'd say I'm fairly convinced it is not wootz. I'd love to see pictures of the sort of whole-blade patterns that corrosion can cause, to compare with mine. Reading more about it, unless I'm incorrect it seems that with a vigorous polish one can make a wootz pattern disappear, and require an etching to reappear. I tried further polishing of the kastane, and got... no change whatsoever. This, and the seemingly none-existence of other examples of wootz kastanes, seems conclusive to me.

Still an amazing piece that I'm lucky to have!

(Still on the hunt for my first something made of wootz... )

--Radleigh