filled wholes on indian sword blades

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Richard Furrer

Hello All,
This may not be exactly what is discussed here, but it does involve a rivet on a blade...

I have seen rivets holding on a portion of wootz near the spine which had broken off due to the seam on the spine causing a weakness (the seam or dark line on the spine of some wootz blades being the top of the ingot which can fold over during forging or may contain poor metals from the melt)...the rivet was also wootz...

Also do not discount the idea that a contrasting metal, filework, fullers or even a carving (horimono on Japanese blades) were used to hide a flaw in the steel...a poor weld or inclusion or a crack from hardening etc.

Ric

Thank you so much for responding to this Ric. I was wondering if this practice might have had some structural application as you describe, but it seemed the holes and rivets were too strategically placed to correspond to something as presumably random as a structural flaw. I know next to zippety doo dah about metallurgy , so really wasnt sure if the idea was valid or not, so thanks for answering it.

All best regards,
Jim