In the Oct. 06 issue of Blade Magazine, Ed Fowler has an article entitled "The Benefits of Sharing". While the jist of the article is about the downside of trade secrets there is a bit about the testing of a blade which exhibits radically different force when flexing the blade
90 degrees from one side to the other. When etched the sides showed different amounts of carbide banding. Appearently the carbide banding is what gave wootz its legendary toughness. Since the carbides disolve when steel is austentized befor quenching to form martinsite the beneficial effects of the carbide banding is lost on a traditional heat treat. This leads me to think that if you could develop the carbide banding and protect that banding on the spine (perhaps by clay-coating) you would create a blade with a good cutting edge and some of the toughness of wootz.What are your thoughts on this?
And how can carbide banding be created (I'm mostly interested in 1095 as that is what I'm working with right now)?
ron