"tears of the wounded" swords...

[Jens Nordlunde]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

However, it should be remembered as well that wootz blades did gain a certain disfavor as in combat they were prone to breaking as opposed to forged blades, if I understand the matallurgists correctly.

Jim,
I don't know where you have see that wootz blades were likely to break. It is the first time I hear about it, in all the years I have collected.
Kronckew,
This is very interesting. So maybe it is true, what I have been told, that the chevron blades with the tears of the wounded were used in battles.

[Richard Furrer]

I had thought that the Indian slot was in sections of short lengths (each section isolated)..like Jens said, but when I was in India last year I saw Gopilal Banwharlal..a smith in Udaipur...start to drill a hole from the tang toward the tip...in essence the balls could move from tang to tip unobstructed. I asked him why they do the balls and he said that it was tradition and that they can get more money for it....sounded like a good answer to me.

I have yet to do this technique, but it is on the list.

Ric

[Jens Nordlunde]

Originally Posted by Richard Furrer

I had thought that the Indian slot was in sections of short lengths (each section isolated)..like Jens said....

Ric

I don't hope I said that, if I did, I must have been confused. Like Ric mentions, the slot goes almost through the hole blade, at least when it comes to the type of slots we are discussing here.
Jens

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Jens Nordlunde

Jim,
I don't know where you have see that wootz blades were likely to break. It is the first time I hear about it, in all the years I have collected.
Kronckew,
This is very interesting. So maybe it is true, what I have been told, that the chevron blades with the tears of the wounded were used in battles.

Thanks Jens, obviously misstated, and perhaps I can blame desert fatique for trying to recall notes on wootz that I didnt thoroughly understand in the first place! I think that I might have been thinking of the avoidance of sword to sword combat with shamshirs and wootz blades, but then any blade which had a flaw in its composition would probably fracture in such stress, and the use of the shield to parry might have led my assumption. Thank you for the correction.

Best regards,
Jim

[Jens Nordlunde]

Don’t loose any sleep about it Jim.

Now, the interesting thing is, that there are ‘tears of the wounded’, and there are ‘tears of the wounded’. Some may know of this, and other may not, but close to the ricasso some of the swords with the tears have slots on each side of the blade. These are only short slots, but they are there, and the balls are there as well.

The interesting thing is, does this have anything to do with the ‘tears’ - who knows? But on other blades you can see small groves in the same place, indicating that there could have been balls in them, had they been slots, and not groves. Sometimes the groves are in connection with three dots at each end.

Jens

[Jim McDougall]

OK Jens, as penance I did some more looking into wootz and found all the information on the 'strength' of the steel, so that was interesting. It is noted however, that the process must be carefully completed to avoid the creation of cementatite and a hopelessly fragile blade.
Naturally, this same result might occur in any type of forging, so I cant be sure where my thoughts came from.

Did we ever figure why the term, tears of afflicted or wounded?

The slots: perhaps to lighten the blade, much as with fullers? and of course for the balls as applicable.

[Bill M]

Pictures, near the end of the link.

http://thomaschen.freewebspace.com/photo2.html