Zig-Zag Ladder Pattern

[Jeff D]

Hi All,

I would be very careful of anything this seller has to offer. For fun you should follow his other listings. He does have access to relatively skilled craftsmen but he rarely does his home work and will make big mistakes. A lot of his offerings are composites as well. I agree 100 % with Jeff. The lines are less "organic" because they were made very superficial. This is an old rusty blade dolled up. It has been hand polished so that the wootz pattern has not been lost.
Dr Leo S. Figiel died in the 90's (I will see if I can find out when). This gentleman consulted Mr. Leo Figiel, I don't know who he is but he might be a jeweler .

All the Best
Jeff

[ALEX]

Originally Posted by Jeff D

...This is an old rusty blade dolled up. It has been hand polished so that the wootz pattern has not been lost. ...

Jeff, while it is a theoretical possibility, I can not see it being technically achievable. I know there are master blacksmiths who can forge wootz blades, but to take an old blade, reforge and regrind it while preserving wootz pattern is something "unreal" to me.
Would be so interesting to hear from smiths/metallurgists who can comment on the technical possibility.

[Jeff D]

Originally Posted by ALEX

Jeff, while it is a theoretical possibility, I can not see it being technically achievable. I know there are master blacksmiths who can forge wootz blades, but to take an old blade, reforge and regrind it while preserving wootz pattern is something "unreal" to me.
Would be so interesting to hear from smiths/metallurgists who can comment on the technical possibility.

Hi Alex,

I would love to hear to.

All the best
Jeff

[Lee]

What a fool I am. Yes, Jeff, you have opened my eyes. The character of the 'rungs' is indeed suspicious. So, start with an unpatterned wootz blade, cut new shallow file marks, reforge at low temperature and flatten a bit followed by a light grind and polish.

Photographs can be so deceiving and none of the several shown really give a clue as to thickness. These days I would not buy a purported European medieval sword unless I or a trusted agent had handled it up close and I suppose that rule really must be extended to anything commanding a significant price.

[RSWORD]

I am enjoying the scrutiny over this piece and it is proving to be extremely educational because wootz tends to be very safe because the old complex patterns really cannot be reproduced today and if this is a contemporary manipulation of a blade with complex pattern it is a first and worthy of discussion. However, I am not yet convinced this is the case but would love to continue to discuss the practicality of taking a blade with an existing, very complex wootz pattern, chiseling a zig zag pattern, reforging blade at low temperature and then regrind and polish without 1) losing any of the wootz pattern(albeit there is a bit of fading towards the spine) or 2) altering the complexities of the existing pattern. Please look at this close up of a section of blade. I am noticing a couple of interesting things. First, notice that there is a very narrow shadowy line that is zig-zagging. Right next to that, there is another, lighter line and in the middle are complex swirls on most "rungs" for a lack of a better word. But also notice in the middle of this picture there is a singular line running between the zig zags but also at the same angle. What created this effect? You would think if someone was chiseling zig zags they wouldn't start a line and go whoops better slide over a few centimeters. Since creating this pattern seems basically the same whether you do it at the original making of the blade, or post original blade manufacture, how can you tell the difference? Wootz is hard enough for contemporary smiths to forge I doubt anyone would be willing to experiment on a finished product that has already been forged, ground and polished, and there probably are not any of us that want to donate any wootz blade to experiment upon so I, for one, am excited to continue the debate to see if we can figure out if there is a way to tell if someone has the capability in these days and times to manipulate a very complex patterned wootz blade.

[Richard Furrer]

Hello All,
I just found this discussion.
It is an interesting blade. I have not seen this pattern before.

I saw many odd patterns while at the Alwar Armory in India last year..some in pattern-weld, but several "unique" pieces in wootz. I would not discount the age of the blade due to pattern alone. I saw one with zig zags emanating from a central "rose" like a sun.....also one of the symbols for the rulers in the area.
What Jeff says about the shallowness of the rungs does ring true, but I would also have you take note of the pitting found near the tip in the fourth photo. If the blade were reforged then the pitting would be different then that I think. What makes the rungs look "odd" is that they were cut with straight sides (pattern is "dense" at the ends of the cut)...much like what is left from an angle grinder rather than a file/chisel, but ....though I think both Jeff and I could pull off such a "trick" neither would do the work for a price that would make a profit at that going rate...at least I did not do this piece.
I could say more if I had the blade in hand.

I wish the blade were in my collection.

Ric

[ward]

Here is a shot of the spine you can see it is average thickness so maybe theoretically possible to add steps later but like Ric Furrer says who would pay waht it would cost to do. If buyer is lurking out there speak up and send some more pics

ward

[Jeff Pringle]

Since the patterning in wootz is intrinsic to the material, provided you don’t overheat it, taking an old blade back to the fire should be no more dangerous to the pattern than when it was initially forged. And if the re-flattening of the blade was done with care (or with a hydraulic press ), you would not induce much distortion of the underlying pattern with the small dimensional change involved in erasing a set of ladders. If I have time this weekend I’ll do a test with before, during and after photos on some wootz of recent vintage.

The occasional parallel lines I immediately chalked up to stray swipes of the hypothetical angle grinder, but it also occurred to me that if one were laddering an already-thin piece of wootz, it is possible that in forging out the ladders on one side, a slight distortion in the opposite side’s pattern could occur & cause ‘ghost’ ladders – since the metal directly under a rung would stretch slightly less than the full thickness metal to either side. If the buyer chimes in we can ask if the ghosts are aligned with the other side’s ladders.

I didn’t do it either, Ric, but back in ’04 I did use a grinder to put a similar pattern into a knife, I’ll try to remember where I stashed that bit of metal and see what it looks like.
Dr. Figiel was still with us in ’98, when he auctioned off his collection at Butterfield’s.

[Richard Furrer]

Jeff,
I understand you meaning....it could also be a bit of bar forged in to locally distort with no/minimal material removal...just a distorion...like Fogg's "spirit" pattern.
However, the corrosion on the blade looks to me like all the forge work had been done years ago priot ro the repolishing that obviously had been done to this blade before selling.
Deep pits like that are not the result of forging, but rust later. The pits appear to be overlapping the zig-zag so I do not think this is a recent forge job.

Ric