Dang I was Hoping someone would jump in on this.

|quoted:

Dang I was Hoping someone would jump in on this.

Jesse,

I may be wrong but from the research that I've done I think that most of the difference is in how the billet is milled/ground after welding the left/right twist billets. Usually a Turkish has the top & bottom 1/3 of the billet removed showing the Turkish pattern in the middle 1/3 and then the bevels forged into it. It appears that a Merovingian is only surface ground enough to remove the low spots of the twists and then the bevels ground into it rather than forged showing different patterns as the blade gets thinner.

If this is incorrect I would love to hear from those who have made the two patterns.

We really need to get Rodrigo Sfreddes for this question. Or Kevin.

Brion

I am certainly no expert on the subject, but this question has pestered me for some time. The best answer I have been able to come up with from looking at examples is that it has to do with the tightness of the twist. The Merovingian is not as tightly twisted as the Turkish variety. The resulting difference in patterning is the Turkish has the well known "stars" appearing down the length while the Merovingian looks more like a herringbone arrangement.

I would happily accept any contradictory assessment..... <img src=' http://www.americanbladesmith.com/ipboard/public/style_emoticons//wink.gi f' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' />

|quoted:

I am certainly no expert on the subject, but this question has pestered me for some time. The best answer I have been able to come up with from looking at examples is that it has to do with the tightness of the twist. The Merovingian is not as tightly twisted as the Turkish variety. The resulting difference in patterning is the Turkish has the well known "stars" appearing down the length while the Merovingian looks more like a herringbone arrangement.

I would happily accept any contradictory assessment..... <img src=' http://www.americanbladesmith.com/ipboard/public/style_emoticons//wink.gi f' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' />

Anyway, I was under the assumption that a twist no matter how loose would expose a star if only ground deep enough? Going to have to play around with it. That batsauce Merovingian that Haley desroisiers is doing is hypnotic.

OK, I failed to mention some important items, and that is the low layer count in the Merovingian (can I just abbreviate this to "M"?)and the mild grinding.

So, if you take that wonderful Thor II software,and take the example pattern 5-Lagen, you might be able to see what I mean.

Set it at about 10% grind and low twist (about three lines from the right). Yes, there is a star, but when laid up against one another, the star is not what the eye focuses on. It focuses on those 3 layer bundles in sort of an oval shape. Laid up next to each other, reversing twist direction, they make something like a herringbone pattern. higher layer bars increase the bundle, so a 7 bar twist has 5 lines in the bundle.

I think that is the essence of the M twist pattern.

I was unaware of this pattern and googled it.

Man, how nice.

Following this so once you guys work out how its done I can try.

|quoted:

I was unaware of this pattern and googled it.

Man, how nice.

Following this so once you guys work out how its done I can try.

I think Gary got his answer on another forum site. It looks like a twisted bar of asymmetrical layering, or a three-bar laminate which is then twisted. The result is lots of thin layers on the outside of the twist and 3 to 7 thicker layers in the middle of the twist. Salem Straub does some very nice versions of this with very high layer (100+) counts on the outside and very low layer (3-5) in the center. Then he twists the bar. I did a little playing around in Thor II using the attached bitmap file I drew. It has 13 thin layers, 5 thick layers, and 13 thin layers. Try it in Thor II, it will give you and idea of how it plays out