Originally Posted by
Russel Baldridge
I don't have any personal experience with Wootz, but I remember reading an excellently researched and authored article on it where they claimed Wootz was indeed a good steel, but not a wonder steel and very different from our current varieties.
The big difference (says the article) is that Wootz is a soft steel that binds together many extremely hard carbides. It isn't heat treated as regular steel is, so it's structure can be much more segregated. The author claimed that the carbides were in fact hard enough to scratch glass, but that the overall Wootz blade would have been somewhat dull in comparison to modern steels. They claim that the advantage Wootz had (for swords etc.) was that the carbide grains acted like saw teeth, cutting through flesh and remaining sharp for long periods of time while the soft "binder" steel was shock absorbing and tough. It was said to have been great for combat swords but not so much for more delicate tools.
I'd like nothing more than to have the means to play around with the stuff some day, but for now internet research is the best I've got.