Thread: Wootz! Joseph Rodgers "Indian Steel"

Nice blade, but that is in all likely hood not wootz.
India steel, silver steel, magnetic, damascus, etc have all been used as marketing terms.
It could be any of the alloys they experimented with (hence the sanskrit) but to call it wootz you need some more evidence / confirmation from a metallurgist.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

That is a really cool razor. I have a W&B 'Fine India Steel' razor. Helluva razor too, though not uncommon. Do you think it really is India steel and not just Sheffield ore with an etch designed to give it an exotic flair that would make it sell ? Wouldn't change the shave for me but I would like it better if I knew for sure that it was really India Steel.

Ore was pretty regularly imported (it really helps to be on a river that can support huge barges) and the government was certainly doing a ... brisk ... business with India at the time. It's not remotely out of the question that Rodgers was using actual imported raw material from India. It's definitely a thing that was done. I've got a handful of 'Fine India Steel' razors, but this is the only one I've ever seen with sanskrit on it.

In any event, the main interest for me is the stamp. It's a humongous wedge. It's gonna be a pain to hone anyway, I don't really need it to be super awesome steel.

Originally Posted by Bruno

Nice blade, but that is in all likely hood not wootz.
India steel, silver steel, magnetic, damascus, etc have all been used as marketing terms.
It could be any of the alloys they experimented with (hence the sanskrit) but to call it wootz you need some more evidence / confirmation from a metallurgist.

Well no, wootz is just the Tamil word for steel and I don't think it's unreasonable to think the raw ore came from India. It's hair-splitting, I know. But the famous aspect -- the patterning -- comes from the processing, not the ore. This blade has bog-standard carbon steel oxidation.

Rodgers didn't begin their own steel refining until 1887, so all the material they made razors from was sourced from other local firms, and there were definitely folks in Sheffield making commercialized steel using material imported from India.

---

Hah, I got a lot more certain of things between the two replies above because I was shooting from the hip in replying to Jimmy, then I went back to original sources because I wasn't sure about Rodgers producing their own steel, and in the process read a lot more about the early use of wootz imported from India.

So yeah, I think it's reasonable to think the razor is made from imported metal. Just not prepared in the way that makes it what we think of as wootz.

The ore / raw steel might come from india indeed. That would make some sense, since the empire had a strong influence there.

So it may have traces of vanadium in it, along with anything else to make an alloy.
For it to be wootz it would need to be processed like wootz, in order to grow the dendritic structures that give wootz its distinct visual and mechanical properties.

I remember reading an article that, IIRC,said Wootz was made in small batches in India ? Here is a Wiki article on the topic. Go down page to get past the Samurai sword stuff to find the pertinent portion of the article. BTW, I had a Joe Chandler Wootz. IIRC Mike Blue did the heat treat on it. Perhaps he could enlighten us on Wootz because he probably knows more about steel than anyone on this board.

Here is another article I googled that has pix and an informative bit of text .....

http://www.buffaloriverforge.com/wootz/wootz.htm

would it be bad form to ask what you plan on doing with it?

I am just curious if you keep that as is, or restore it, and do you put it in a collection for display, or use it? It is a personal thing, and there is no wrong answer in my book...I am just curious what you choose for that beaut.

I would require some time to decide, I think.

If it was mine I would hit it with semichrome, flitz or whatever metal polish on a paper towel and then hone it and leave that well earned patina as is. Just my preference. YMMV.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

If it was mine I would hit it with semichrome, flitz or whatever metal polish on a paper towel and then hone it and leave that well earned patina as is. Just my preference. YMMV.

Not that anyone should care what this noob thinks, but I think I would hone it as is, shave once (possibly twice) with it, then put it on display.

I understand guys that restore and rescale (I have done it)...However, I think there is merit to the thought that the scales (no matter how bad they may be) are part of the story, and once replaced...those chapters are missing.

I really like that razor...the only way it could be cooler is if *my* ancestors passed it down to me.

Nice old razor.
But I'm very doubting, that it's wootz. IMO.
Rodgers used the "Their Majesties" stamp during Queen Victoria reign too.

Originally Posted by manah

Nice old razor.
But I'm very doubting, that it's wootz. IMO.
Rodgers used the "Their Majesties" stamp during Queen Victoria reign too.

Have you seen any other Rodgers razors with the Sanskrit stamp? Or any other razors at all? (other than the Stodart ones)

Reading a lot of period literature on the subject has just confused me further on what was and was not considered wootz, but I'm certain this razor isn't what we call wootz. And I didn't really think it would be when I bought it, I just thought it was neat that this razor had the Sanskrit on it.

Originally Posted by Voidmonster

...and the government was certainly doing a ... brisk ... business with India at the time.

That's about as tongue in cheek as one could get and stay politically correct. Even so, that's all history. Wootz production in India had ended some few hundred years before India began exporting iron or or steel. There could have been some processed wootz tossed onto an ore boat I suppose. I strongly suspect back then that no archeometallurgist was snooping around looking for wootz and the fellows loading the boat would have only said "this is easier to load in these lumps than with shovels..." But, none of us can prove any of that. Even in the famous UK crucible steel, a wootz billet would have been lost in a 100 lb batch.

...But the famous aspect -- the patterning -- comes from the processing, not the ore. This blade has bog-standard carbon steel oxidation.

I agree with this assessment of the pictures. There should be some pattern to see in the oxidation, at least a hint. But it could be polished, then etched if you really really had to know.