Another wootz question

[Jeff D]

I am of the belief that sham is quite different than kara khorasan. The edges of a khorsan blade has thin stripes in the same manner that the ladder pattern has thinner stripes. Most likely during the forging the original pearlite and cementite crystals are elongated and thinned. When the blade is 'beveled' for the edge or a ladder you see the thinner cross section of the bands. My understanding that if the blade has a lot of hammering, it breaks up these crystals to give the 'jumble of matches' appearance seen on many fine Indian pieces.
The etching of sham is also quite different than the etch of khorsan. Philip Tom has explained it to me more as a slow controlled rust. This indicates to me that it has a different chemistry.

Here are a couple of my own blades to illustrate. First picture is kara khorsan with its edge, the second is a Turkish sham kilij, and the third is a ladder rung.


All the best Jeff