Kaskara with unusual patterning in the blade

[Rick]

Are we discussing Shear or Sheet steel, or both here ?

[katana]

I have decided not to 'create' a window, it would destroy the overall patina of the blade. As a compromise I have lightly sanded an area and oiled it. The darker areas are not pitted rusted areas. One of the pictures has been tweaked with high contrast which shows the overall uniformity of the 'patterning'. You could argue that the patina could be 'creating' the pattern...but to have such a consistent patina (and therefore pattern) over the entire blade....both sides seems strange.
The only other observation that may be relevent .....is the condition of the blade edges. Under magnification the sharp edge is almost 'micro serrated' ...not by design ......but it seems by the structure of the blade. It seems that minute particles (on the edge) have either corroded or worn at a different rate to the rest....almost suggesting that the blade is not homoganised steel


Shear Steel , a defination from "The Engineer's And Mechanic's Encyclopaedia Vol1" by Luke Hebert published 1849


.....Shear Steel
This name was given to a steel that was first made by Crowley, of Newcastle, about sixty years ago, in imitation of a peculiar kind of bar steel that we formerly imported from Germany. Crowley, however, stamped his production with the figure of a pair of shears, to indicate its suitable application. The process of making it at Sheffield, where the manufacture of this and all other kinds of British steel is conducted on an immense scale, is as follows: - The bars of blistered steel are broken into pieces of from one to two feet in length, which are then piled up into bundles or faggots of a size and weight adapted to their subsequent applications. The faggots are then taken up by means of a long bar having a ring at the end, into which one extremity of the faggot is inserted; and by means of the bar as a handle, a workman puts it into a reverberatory furnace, whence, after it is brought to a welding heat, it is taken out and placed under a heavy hammer, by which it is drawn out into a bar; this bar is then divided, the pieces laid together, brought again to a welding in the furnace, and then under the hammer, or by rolling, reduced to the size required.

By this process the steel has lost much of its previous brittleness, and has acquired a uniform texture, which adapts it to the manufacture of a great variety of edge tools and other purposes to which it was before unsuited. Various qualities of shear steel are made, distinguished by the terms half-shear, single-shear, and double-shear, according to the number of times it has been cut, piled, welded, and drawn out......."

Regards David

[stephen wood]

...Sheffield Kaskaras?

See this post

[Jim McDougall]

Very nicely done David!!! Thank you for getting that clarified on shear steel.

Thanks Stephen....interesting to see there was evidence of some Sheffield kaskaras, even if at this point this was just one. The other blade with the remnant stock markings you had was another, it was four letters that were off center in the blade.

[stephen wood]

...and the kaskara with the stock marking near the tip is here

[Jim McDougall]

Thanks.

[katana]

Thanks for the info Stephen. Perhaps Sheffield, or even Birmingham could have been a source of trade blades for the Kaskara. The complete lack of marking, could be, perhaps, considered circumstantial evidence....afterall would British swordsmiths 'advertise' the fact that they have supplied an enemy's arsenal ??

I found this 'curious' quote which may support this .....

"....In the Sudan, Major E A De Cosson who served with Sir Gerald Graham's field force at Suakin in April 1888 noted how the local inhabitants entrepreneurially met the demand for souvenirs and war trophies. On the day the expedition was brought to a close, he 'rode into the town in the evening and found the streets thronged with officers buying souvenirs. The native population are waking up to the fact that money is to be made and the women and children offering their silver bangles for sale; shields and swords have run up to ?£5 a piece, and spears to ?£2 or ?£3. There is a little Italian who keeps a curiosity shop, a sort of niche in a wall, and he had new spears manufactured every day. They say an armourer on one of the ships turned an honest penny by making a lot of spear-heads and having them mounted, and that a batch of "real Soudan spears" has already been sent out from Birmingham.'

http://www.michaelstevenson.com/africanart/essay.htm

Regards David