Hello

I’m trying to find out when the first oriental (Middle-East, India) pattern-welded blades appear (not crucible steel, e.g. wootz).

And if possible for the different types of blade such as Yatagan’s, Kilic’s, Tulwar, Kindjal, etc..

Are there any metallurgical analyses of such blades? Especially showing differences in the chemical contents (Iron, Carbon, Phosphor, Arsen, Nickel, etc.) in the different layers of forged “iron and steel” bars making up the pattern. I would like to compare this data with information I have from European pattern welded blades.

According to the metallurgical analyses of antique and early medieval West-European
pattern-welded swords that I have collected, I have come to the conclusion that
probably the following 2 types of iron-alloy are responsible for the pattern
found on pattern-welded blades:

1. Difference in the carbon content within the different layers of the blade.
2. Difference in the phosphor levels within the different layers of the blade.

Find following some results of compiled data concerning carbon and phosphor
content of antique and medieval European blades:

-Average carbon content is about 0.20%, extremely rare over 0.5%,
Carbon-difference within layers extremely rare over 0.3%.
-Average phosphor content is about 0.11%, rare 0.3% and over,
Phosphor-difference within layers up to about 0.3%.

Any information and pictures would be helpful.

I hope you could understand my “English”.

Thank you for your help.

Richard R.

There's a nice picture of a Chinese ring-pommel dao in ALex Huagfu's "Iron and Steel Swords of China" (pg 20) that looks pattern-welded. I don't read Chinese, but it's in the Qin/Han chapter, so I'd guess early-mid Han. About mid-Han, there was a big growth in steel-making by decarburisation of cast iron, which was then used in swords etc., often with differential hardening.

Not strictly pattern-welding, but the Chinese were doing the equivalent in bronze weapons even early, using a combination of different bronze alloys to get hard edges and resilient cores. Also bronze and iron weapons of this nature, such as axes with meteoric iron edges and bronze bodies (some examples in Yang Hong, Weapons in Ancient China).

Al-Kindi (English translation in R. G. Hoyland and B. Gilmour, Medieval Islamic Swords and Swordmaking) refers to pattern-welded swords, Frankish (probably generic European, including Rus, Slavs, Vikings) and Sulaymani (Central Asia, likely to be Transoxiana). The book is 9th century.

Paul, thank you for the links to the sites, they are of much interest to me.


I have done the reading on the sword of King Goujian Lu Cheng of Yue, I now understand how she was made.
I have cast things similar to this in the past. I studied old casting traditions in Japon for the making of bells, the old Shang and Chou processes also. So I am now familiar with how this sword is to be made. Not really that difficult, you loose many before the one that works is acceptable. I believe the tin webbing pattern on the soft bronze core was intentional cast at the same time as was the cutting edges. A interlinking net/spiders web from one cutting edge to the other egde to make for more grip to stabilise the torque from impact. Like lacing your fingers together over a soft item, you can flex the arms and hans without them pulling away from the soft ball under the fingers. The ball takes shock and has compression. Alot is to be expected from just the brief conections between the core and the hard tin/bronze alone!
A hard tin bronze web across the soft core shared by the two edges makes for better structural strength do you not think?
Look at a steel bridge with the cross members from main structure to main structural.
Perhaps I will try one to make in the new year?

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Timo thank you for the dirrection, it is very helpful.
I have done a lot of bronze casting and I find this technique of interest.

"I am wondering what is considered "pattern welded" in the context of this post? "

I belive this is called the tangential aside, ("The aside element represents content that is tangentially related to the content that forms the main textual flow of a document").
And we have walked off the original subject.
But the road this thread take is very interesting is it not? If there is a problem then may it be split off to another subject.

By my questions I did not wish to "highjack" the orriginal topic.

So we are back to wootz then. Here is a good place to study old wootz metallurgy.


Sword Forum International > Communities > Bladesmiths, Blacksmiths, Artisans and Professionals > Metallurgical Studies Question and Answer Forum

Tschuss!

Back to the original subject of the post : I had no knowledge of these composite bronze swords and I find it really interesting because it demonstrate some "father" technics that probably led to later steel blades construction.
Making multi layers "pattern welded" or composite steelblades was not only for aesthetic reasons, but :
- because of unreliable steel quality, from iron to high carbon steel : making a highly layered steel allows carbon to equally migrate from highly contrated part to less concentrated ones reqsulting in a more stable final composition
- obtaining better mechanical characteristics (steel edges, iron spine....etc), as for japanese or merovingians swords.

The subject of this thread shows that getting the appropriate mechanical characteristics didn't begin with steel technology, it already existed far before and the blacksmith may have adapted traditional existing methods of sword construction to welding. It looks like all had come from China at the begining. Is these any known example of bronze composite construction from other parts of the world ?

I would leave apart the wootz which is quite different, being related to chimical steel composition and physical behaviour.

Another precursor of pattern welding that hasn't been mentioned so far is piled construction. Your iron has too little carbon, and you don't do crucible steels, what do you do? Make a bunch of iron sticks and carburise them. Weld them together, and you have something that is close to pattern welded. If the carburised iron sticks weren't all the same - if you mixed carburised rods with rods of different carbon (or phosphorus) content, I'd call it pattern welded (others might say that "straight lines" isn't much of a "pattern").

Piled blades were done in Europe early enough so I'd say that it wasn't introduced from China. Either independently developed in Europe, or introduced along with iron technology from Central Asia (and if so, perhaps also from there to China).

I don't know of any early Chinese piled swords. A bunch of early (Han dynasty) folded steel swords can be seen at http://www.arscives.com/historysteel/cn.steelswords.htm.

Piled construction looks to have been the Indonesian path to pattern welding, and given the time difference between the introduction of pattern welding there as compared to China/Europe, I think it's an independent development. Whether or not piled construction was independently developed there, I don't know. Some very nice pattern welding done there - saw some pics of a beautiful Moro spearhead, twistcore body and high-carbon edges.

Deeply etched piled blades do show patterns, in the form of surface texture. I don't know what they'd look like polished smooth and only lightly etched. Now I know what to do if I break a piled blade! (Maybe I can sacrifice my ugliest piled blade? I need to practice a bit on some pattern welded stuff first.)

Welding multiple pieces of the same material together (I think the english word for this is currying) also leads to layered pattern because the heating for welding causes a surface de-carburation that can then be seen with etching.

For composite bronze swords, do you know if the pattern needs some chemical etching or something of that kind in order to be viewable ?

In "Iron and Steel in Ancient China" Donald B. Wagner has a section of early iron/steel blades from China.

A sword from Pankuang, a long slender early Jian from first or second century AD is analyzed.
Its dimensions:
Total length: 109 cm
Blade length: 88.5 cm
Width/thickness at base: 3.2 / 0.8 cm
Width/thickness at point: 1.1 / 0.3 cm
Tang is 20.5 cm

The overall structure is pearlite + ferrite (not fully hardened - no martensite: the sword was not quench hardened). Dark stripes in the material is 0.6 - 0.7 % C and light stripes about 0.4% C.

Cross section reveal a construction of three layers: outer layers and a central core. The outer layers are striped and composed of layers of steel of higher and lower carbon content. The core is uniformly about 0.7 - 0.8 % C and show some streaks of layers of higher phosphorous content (probably below 0.2%)

It is suggested the higher carbon material was made by fining of pig iron (a method of reducing carbon content in cast iron).

Both the core and the outer layers were made by repeatedly folding and forging of billets. The outer layers were made from materials of varying carbon content, while the core was refined from one pice of material folded and forged in itself.

The sword is inscribed and named "fiftyfold refined". The outer layers are about 60 on each side. The author argues that the fiftyfold refining is a description of the resulting layers from folding and reforging the original material.

This is not really pattern welding, but rather a piled structure. There are many examples of this method of manufacture in sword blades in different areas and periods. The same methods were also used in Europe at an earlier time that has been found examples of in China.
Celtic swords from second or third century BC clearly show a piled structure and make use of both iron, carbon steel and phosphorous iron in similar ways as this Chinese Jian.

The mention of Maryon got me to look at the papers by Maryon that I have here (I don't have the 1948 paper on the Nydam swords where he introduces the term "pattern welding"). In H. maryon et al., "Early Near Eastern Steel Swords", American Journal of Archaeology 65(2), 173-184 (1961), I see, concerning "an iron Luristan short sword", that the blade had "the characteristic structure of wrought steel with layers of differing carbon content and numerous coarse slag particles." This is from a 1/2 cm sample from the centre of the blade. Further, "it was possible to determine that the sword was built up from no less than eleven separate forgings, riveted together." This is from radiography. No further detail is given about this "riveted" part, but the layers are welded.

This particular sword is strange. The grip (or at least, what looks like the grip on the handle) is flattened at right-angles to the blade, rather than being flattened in the plane of the blade. If held so that the blade would be in the usual position, the grip would be wider than its front-to-back depth.

From the decoration, it looks 1st millenium BC. No more precise dating is given.

"Not strictly pattern-welding, but the Chinese were doing the equivalent in bronze weapons even early, using a combination of different bronze alloys to get hard edges and resilient cores. Also bronze and iron weapons of this nature, such as axes with meteoric iron edges and bronze bodies (some examples in Yang Hong, Weapons in Ancient China). "

The week past I had the great pleasure of looking at one of these composite bronze swords. I was visiting the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto Canada to view the exhibition "The Warrior Emperor and China's Terracotta Army".
They have one of these swords on exhibit and several of the type with the chrome-bronze alloy that do not show corrosion.
The bi-metal sword is not marked as bi-metal but when I know what to look for it is very obvious. You can have as much time to look at these artefacts as you need, the masses just want to watch the television programmes in the exhibits instead of seeing the original objects!

http://www.rom.on.ca/terracottaarmy/en/