[Owen Bush]

this is an ongoing piece , far from being finished .
the blade is made from a wootz made by Niko hynninen and myself , that is to say I chose the ingredients , Niko ran the melt and I think i agreed that it was time to turn the furnace off !!! so really its Niko's wootz , he is a remarkably talented Finnish woots maker and I expect to see some truly amazing work from him in the future . ( he is doing fine work now !! both with wootz and tamahagane)
I forged the ingot and blade out whilst in in Finland earlier this year . I have stopped at a point where I still have some space to alter the shape if needed ,
I have made my own woots quite a few times but this is the first time I have gotten a sword sized bit .....

I would be interested if any of you have suggestions re handling or anything else .

I aim to finish this later this year .
If I can pull this piece off I think it will be quite a sword , Then kilij is one of my favorite sword shapes I hope I am doing it justice I am not worried about having a completly authentic kilij but want it to fall within possables for that blade type .
the guard is cast bronze and also in an unfinished state .



here is a close up of the pattern under the T section


Like i said any comments or suggestions would be appreciated .

[Jeroen Zuiderwijk]

Wow! Looking great already. I'm a big fan of the yelman equiped swords as the kilic, and in wootz it's going to be fantastic. I'd be interested to see how you'll put the handle together. The handle construction has always been a bit of a mystery to me.

[Gottfried P. Doerler]

oh yeah, i like this style of sword.
i`ve seen an antique one in a museum last year, which was described as "hungarian saber ~ 1560"

since then i always wanted to know how they are wielded, such a big and heavy blade and such a small handle.
(unfortunately it was not possible to try out in the museum)

[Stephen Curtin]

Wow it not ever day you see something like this being re-created, man this will be one sweet looking sword when shes done that wootz looks excellent, one of the best modern made examples I've seen yet, cant wait to see more pics Owen

[Jared Smith]

I am wondering if you are prioritizing forging and heat cycles in its manufacture? http://www.myArmoury.com/feature_groundpound.html For many hypoeutectoid steels (those with carbon ranges well into the tool steel range) the significance of forging and thermal cycling that occurs during forging on cosmetic finish "appears" to be significantly different than it does for most modern hypereutectoid alloys that our present reproductions are normally made of. There were several articles in the last few years after Verhoeven's work on the subject. The methodical experiments I have seen to date seem to support the idea that they need to be forged to "nearly finished" condition, and minimally ground in order to get the more exotic grainy look and fancier patterning. (I posted at least one or two links to some of the related articles a couple of months ago, although there was not a single response.) http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t...ight=wootz I have seen several examples of "chemical wootz" that turned out "muddy" and disappointing in appearance when simply ground to finished shape. It can be altered dramatically with subsequent forge heating cycles and hammering, although, you have to give up a lot of thickness to scale.

[Owen Bush]

thanks for the comments.
regarding working the material .
wootz is a complex material to work and an even more complex one to understand .
I am lucky in that I have managed to get very good tutoring in the making and understanding of the material (thanks to Ric furrer), it is a fascinating subject and I must admit that I reach the borders of my understanding on this one .
The patternation process of woots is still not fully understood , in that there are no modern makers who can predictably replicate the ancient patterns . there are some who have done but i am unsure of the repeatability of this (Jeff pringle USA is doing wonderfull ancient patterned wootz) .

As I understand it there is a lot of chance involved regarding pattern and the majour influence as to whether you get good pattern or not is the initial ingot !!
wootz is not an exact science , repeated runs often have different results .
the factors that influence initial ingot dendrites are alloy content and cooling rate ( and .......luck) . I am of the belief that even with ancient wootz makers "good" patterned ingots would have been put aside and saved for "best" ie high value swords .

forge manipulation and grinding and a combo of both have a huge influence on finished pattern as well . This blade has been forged to shape during that process a lot of longitudinal fullering took place and also a lot of betwixt forging grinding . when you make a blade of this size from an ingot you have a very serious material limit so you must carefully forge to get a blade at all .

That I managed to travel to Finland and have Niko run a melt that I then forged into a blade that shows good pattern is quite an amazing feat !! possably the 300euro that I lost in the snow placated the forge gods......... or the whisky we drank in there names .
possably just good luck !!

here is a picture of the pattern on the yelman showing some of the fullering action on the dendritic structure.


and here showing the transition from T back to yelmen


I must admit that with regards to woots there is a long journy ahead as far as the material goes.