Pattern-Welded Blades
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Our ancestors were unable to process irons and steels with the same rigour as we can today. Naturally, this ensured that the metals they used in the manufacture of arms and armour were of varying quality and this fluctuation could lead to a failure long after the finished item left the workshop. One small, invisible weakness in a sword or knife blade could lead to it breaking or bending at what was likely to be an important emotional moment for the wielder.
Aside from such weaknesses, there was another problem. Historical steels or irons that retained a good cutting edge were usually ‘brittle’ and striking with such a blade inherently carried a greater risk of breakage. Conversely, steels or irons that were softer and less likely to break upon impact usually could not retain a good edge. The duality of this problem has plagued sword-users and sword-makers for many, many centuries.
While bladesmiths might not have had access to our modern technology, they certainly knew that a sword or knife blade was better off without weak points and, for thousands of years, ways to mitigate a metal’s inherent vulnerabilities were sought by the more inventive individuals. The invention of pattern-welding was one such of these mitigations.
Pattern-welded steel is often called Damascus steel due to a perceived link with the city of Damascus in Syria, though perhaps the most publicly famous users of the early pattern-welded swords were the Romans and the Danes of the viking era, from whom a variety of swords and daggers survive in museums and private collections.
A curved Indian katar dagger with a pattern-welded blade.
If you’ve already read my introductory article on wootz steel (a similarly patterned type of desirable steel) then you’ll know that I would prefer it if the Damascus moniker was allowed to fall into disuse. The term ‘Damascus’ is commonly used to describe both pattern-welded and wootz steels in spite of these things actually being very different to each other. This, as you might expect, is the cause of much confusion. Even the term’s origin is debated hotly to this day with no clear winner. Using the term ‘pattern-welded’, which was introduced in 1948, is far more appropriate in this writer’s opinion.
But, name aside, what is it? Simply put, pattern welding is a technique that combines several pieces of iron (with varying carbon content and, often, minor amounts of other metals) by twisting or plaiting or/and folding them together to ‘spread’ any weakness in them evenly along the resulting blade’s entire length. By folding and hammering out and folding and hammering out the blade it gains some form of relatively homogenous make-up though one that is, when compared to modern steel, is usually of a lower quality, overall.
As well as creating a relatively more reliable blade, pattern-welding allowed the experienced maker to construct exquisite matrices of light and dark areas, intertwining and plaiting as he saw fit. These ornate appearances were highly desired by those that could afford their prices and allowed something otherwise less tangible to be seen: the advanced skill of the smith.
I have etched hundreds of antique blades and have seen wootz cutting edges combined with iron spines, pattern-welded tangs and wootz fortes and foibles, iron tangs and pattern-welded blades—even pools of wootz amidst a mainly iron blade. It’s clear from these examples that smiths experimented widely with combinations of metals and techniques.
A tiger-handled curved dagger, designed to be split in two. ‘Both’ blades are pattern-welded.
Modern smiths have embraced pattern-welding with enthusiasm and it is easy to find, with varying quality, blades with elaborate swirls and repeating patterns—sometimes made from unexpected raw materials like chainsaw chains.
I encourage readers to zoom into the images accompanying this article to be able to view the swirls and droplets of the blades and also to familiarise themselves with the aesthetic differences between wootz steel and pattern-welded steel.
Sources and Further Reading
https://engineering.purdue.edu/MSE/aboutus/gotmaterials/History/horning.html
https://www.britannica.com/technology/Damascus-steel
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/24832
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/damascus-vs-pattern-welded-steel.1642590/
https://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/iss/kap_b/backbone/rb_3_1.html
https://www.instructables.com/Small-Pattern-Welded-Damascus-Steel-Kife-With-NO-p/
https://suffolkmuseums.org/ipswich-museum-redisplaying-a-case-in-anglo-saxon-galleries/
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_1878-1230-899
https://www.nms.ac.uk/explore-our-collections/collection-search-results/sword-blade/167710
https://www.academia.edu/47474626/Neutron_imaging_study_of_pattern_welded_swords_from_the_Viking_Age
https://metalmuseum.pastperfectonline.com/bysearchterm?keyword=Damascus+steel
https://www.yorkmuseumstrust.org.uk/collections/search/item/?id=1446&search_query=bGltaXQ9MTYmR2c9c3dvcmQ%3D
https://www.bexsimon.com/damascus-steel/
https://worcester.emuseum.com/objects/48047/blade-of-a-sax-short-sword;jsessionid=5926F240F8A6FAA14512A2C666BBA13B
https://www.fordemilitaryantiques.com/articles/2020/8/7/how-to-etch-wootz-steel
https://www.fordemilitaryantiques.com/articles/2019/4/4/is-it-wootz
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