They're not brittle at all, Typically they are created with an edge around high fifties on the RC scale hardness and low to mid forties on the spine.
My pair were sharpened only once when I first purchased them 3 years ago and I do daily tameshigiri practice on bamboo wrapped in straw and wet tatami with both of them, even when a less than optimal cutting angle is achieved they still do not take the slightest bend or lose edge.
The Bainite L6 Katana from bugei.com has been tested to take a flex of 40 degrees without taking a set. This is not "brittle"
I always mix up that fellow with the original creator of the katana. One was famous for having wickedly sharp blades and one was famous for having extremely good all round blades, guess masamune was the sharp one.
I think walrus have bones in their penis, I believe Olson is a blade smith rather infamous for his experimentation with unconventional mounting, and my third I think but hey, I believe he used the walrus penis bone as the hilt of a beautifully forged modern katana.
the sword you're referring to is probably a wakazashi, identical to a katana in all but length and (usually) quality.
the samurai class of ancient japan were the only ones allowed by feudal law to wear the katana, but there was no law dictating that a wakazashi could not be made using the exact same metallurgical methods as a katana was, and in fact with the more wealthy owners this was often the case.
It was certainly the case in the instance of actual samurai weilding the wakazashi and katana as twin weapons, a shattering wakazashi would be useless.
Personally I use dual katanas due to the extended reach and interchangability of the techniques from left preferred to right preferred, but this is extremely unusual and historically speaking I know of no other examples of it, so it is without a doubt that the wakazashi was often tempered in much the same way as the katana.
Typical japanese blades were not made with a soft core and harder shell, they were made with a harder edge and a springier spine. The entire blade is tempered so long as your definition of tempering is quenching in liquid to rapidly cool heated metal to the strength that you wanted it to be. if you heated a blade white hot and let it cool naturally you would have a completely pearlite structure, too soft, You want martensite pearlite and bainite composite with the distribution on the areas that make sense, martensite for a super hard edge, bainite to ease the transition to a thin pearlite spine (imho, I prefer martensite edge bainite spine with no pearlite, martensite is springier than pearlite).
This was achieved, as I outlined some distance above, using clay encasing, thick on the spine and progressively thinner to the edge.
I have never heard of cementite and you spelt pearlite wrong. It would be very interesting though if you were right about the hamon being identical to damascene steel, How would this be done from a forge perspective? coating the non tempered areas in temperature insulating substance and quenching so the temper only applied to the "pockets"?
They sell custom made forged blades just like in the old days, I use a pair, absolutely brilliant, my most satisfying purchase ever (says a lot really )
The L6 Bainite Custom Forged Katana is slightly lighter than the Traditionalist Forge Folded Blade, I use the Bainite in the left hand and the forge folded in the right.
If you're interested in the exact specifics of the tempering process I posted all the details somewhere further up this topic.
There were actually swords designed to do exactly what you specify here called Katana-wari-katana, IIRC these were constructed with a less brittle edge than a standard katana and took less time to make because it was expected that they would deform and eventually break after time, but in the interim would be useful as anti katana weapons.
Remember that katana were constructed with the primary enemy in mind being *other* katana, I don't doubt that it would take not much effort at all to shatter a brittle rapier blade or shear a thick euro broadsword in two with a standard katana, but katana rarely came up against either of these two blades as an opponent historically speaking so it's largely a moot point.
There is not a single technique I have learned in standard kenjutsu / iaido that deals with the target of the attack being your opponents sword.
once again this fixation with sharpness, just not as important as the entire package of longevity, flexibility, and cutting ability.
I have never heard this particular legend but I find it extremely difficult to believe for two reasons;
1) as above, it's quite irrelevant if a sword can cut a leaf floating in the water from the minescule amount of force generated by the weight of aforementioned leaf and the soft current of the river, realistically any idiot with a shard of obsidian would do a much better job of this.
2) Although it is typical to coat a real katana blade in choji oil in order to stop the elements from oxidising the blade (real steel does not contain chromium, of which stainless steel from memory contains up to 40%) sticking a proper katana blade in a river kissake down in the riverbed would *not* be good for the blade and in light of the fact that these blades often took years to create and were treated with the utmost respect I highly doubt that this is true, a thin layer of choji oil would not be sufficient to protect the blade from total immersion in water and riverbed sludge on the kissake.
That's not right, kenjutsu techniques rarely attempt to put blade directly against blade, ideally large flowing movements using the entire body and momentum therof are used to avoid strikes and absorb the energy of avoidance to supplement the strength of your own cuts.
For example the aikido technique Ikkyo was developed from a common kenjutsu technique dealing with two opponents, one attacking from the front and one from the rear, to avoid a downward cut from the front you would step into the attack slightly and simultaneously wheel to the side with a sharp hip movement throwing your arms into the crossing attack at the opponent behind you, letting the blade strike flesh and the original attacker miss you completely with their strike, from this position a second wheel and step back and a cut from the top right to the bottom left will cause the first attacker to drop into two neat seperate segments.
Of course, all this is in theory and often in practice you would simply do everything that you could to stay alive, in ancient battlescarred blades ( and in my own katanas that I rarely use against other live blade katanas ) there is evidence of blocking with the hardened sharp edge, but in order of preference, when using a sword your options would be as follows;
1) Get out of the way and use the momentum from avoidance to deliver a counterstrike.
2) block with the flat off the blade, preferably in the center where the hardened edge fades into the more springy spine, twisting the blade at the same time will cause the block to "deflect" the attack.
3) block with the edge, you're likely to get a non fatal chip in the blade but no fatal flaws that can't be sharpened out.
4) Block with the spine, this is extremely rare as usually in combat the sharpened edge faces the enemy anyway so you would have to twist the blade a full 180 degrees in order to do this, furthermore the hardened edge would leave quite a mark on the springy spine, admittedly not compromising usability but undeniably compromising aesthetics, and seeing as the unsharpened spine was never sharpened this would be there to stay.
As for legends of falling silk scarves being cut by flashing damascene scimitar blades, this is not an impressive feat, a sharp blade is not difficult to achieve, renaissance rapiers were extremely sharp (high carbon steel) but quite brittle, in the rare occasion that one of these glasslike blades came into contact with a lower hardness steel with more spring in it with any considerable force, the likelihood of a break would be very high.
Japanese steel in a katana is forged by heating the blade white hot after hundreds of folds and covering the spine with clay and gradiating down to a thin layer on the front and plunging the blade into water (causing the spine to cool slower than the edge, resulting in a martensite/bainite/pearlite gradient from edge/center/spine and as pointed out in the parent post, causing the curve.)
Not mentioned in the parent post is the misty pattern often polished onto imitation oriental swords, this is not actually decoration on a functional katana, it is a result of the complex tempering process and is evidence of a well forged blade, on a real sword it actually goes the entire way through the blade and gives a visual record of the area of the sword which is hardest (the misty part will follow the edge up to the point, that is the hardened edge).
In my view the impressive thing about damascene steel, even though compared to the above process for the purpose only of making swords with a single edge and an unsharpened spine (which the scimitar was, also) it is quite inferior, is that damascene steel did not rely on a gradiation in tempering, it was a single solid pillar of power compared to contemporary steels and not gradiated like the japanese blade.
All in all quite a bit of media sensationalism in the article but there you go, not that new.;)
I've got to agree with Brian, I went to school with a bunch of people, who basically fit neatly into two categories, athletic and stupid, or intelligent and extremely weak.
Of all the intelligent children in the entire school I was the only one who was not constantly attacked physically or even taunted, purely because I made a habit of responding with extremely vicious violence (I've noticed smarter kids seem to pick up martial arts a hell of a lot faster than their more idiotic counterparts) in any given situation in which anyone tried to show off by bossing 'round the smart kid.
It's quite possible I don't have any social skills at all to speak of, I don't need to talk to anyone in my job, I respect only a single other person that I actually know (Although I really do like what has been created by members of the Open source movement, I don't know any of these people personally so do not feel fit to judge them in any way aside from their works) and pretty much flat out ignore everyone else, this results in me pretty much being asexual, but that doesn't particularily disturb me. I get what I want when I want it.
I think it's sad that arrogance is seen as a negative trait, arrogance merely sculpts a person into an alternative form, there's no positive nor negative aspect to it, Personally I like being this way because it keeps other people away from me, and I generally don't like other people, so everyone is happy. It's not as if people who are arrogant are necessarily interfering with the activities of any other person (Which I would never do, I don't like to intrude on other people and I expect the same back)
Slashdot Mirror
"known" eh?
They're not brittle at all, Typically they are created with an edge around high fifties on the RC scale hardness and low to mid forties on the spine.
My pair were sharpened only once when I first purchased them 3 years ago and I do daily tameshigiri practice on bamboo wrapped in straw and wet tatami with both of them, even when a less than optimal cutting angle is achieved they still do not take the slightest bend or lose edge.
The Bainite L6 Katana from bugei.com has been tested to take a flex of 40 degrees without taking a set. This is not "brittle"
I always mix up that fellow with the original creator of the katana. One was famous for having wickedly sharp blades and one was famous for having extremely good all round blades, guess masamune was the sharp one.
I think walrus have bones in their penis, I believe Olson is a blade smith rather infamous for his experimentation with unconventional mounting, and my third I think but hey, I believe he used the walrus penis bone as the hilt of a beautifully forged modern katana.
:)
Check swordforum.com for specifics.
Americans...
Eh?
the sword you're referring to is probably a wakazashi, identical to a katana in all but length and (usually) quality.
the samurai class of ancient japan were the only ones allowed by feudal law to wear the katana, but there was no law dictating that a wakazashi could not be made using the exact same metallurgical methods as a katana was, and in fact with the more wealthy owners this was often the case.
It was certainly the case in the instance of actual samurai weilding the wakazashi and katana as twin weapons, a shattering wakazashi would be useless.
Personally I use dual katanas due to the extended reach and interchangability of the techniques from left preferred to right preferred, but this is extremely unusual and historically speaking I know of no other examples of it, so it is without a doubt that the wakazashi was often tempered in much the same way as the katana.
Eh?
Typical japanese blades were not made with a soft core and harder shell, they were made with a harder edge and a springier spine. The entire blade is tempered so long as your definition of tempering is quenching in liquid to rapidly cool heated metal to the strength that you wanted it to be. if you heated a blade white hot and let it cool naturally you would have a completely pearlite structure, too soft, You want martensite pearlite and bainite composite with the distribution on the areas that make sense, martensite for a super hard edge, bainite to ease the transition to a thin pearlite spine (imho, I prefer martensite edge bainite spine with no pearlite, martensite is springier than pearlite).
This was achieved, as I outlined some distance above, using clay encasing, thick on the spine and progressively thinner to the edge.
I have never heard of cementite and you spelt pearlite wrong. It would be very interesting though if you were right about the hamon being identical to damascene steel, How would this be done from a forge perspective? coating the non tempered areas in temperature insulating substance and quenching so the temper only applied to the "pockets"?
http://www.bugei.com
They sell custom made forged blades just like in the old days, I use a pair, absolutely brilliant, my most satisfying purchase ever (says a lot really )
The L6 Bainite Custom Forged Katana is slightly lighter than the Traditionalist Forge Folded Blade, I use the Bainite in the left hand and the forge folded in the right.
If you're interested in the exact specifics of the tempering process I posted all the details somewhere further up this topic.
There were actually swords designed to do exactly what you specify here called Katana-wari-katana, IIRC these were constructed with a less brittle edge than a standard katana and took less time to make because it was expected that they would deform and eventually break after time, but in the interim would be useful as anti katana weapons.
Remember that katana were constructed with the primary enemy in mind being *other* katana, I don't doubt that it would take not much effort at all to shatter a brittle rapier blade or shear a thick euro broadsword in two with a standard katana, but katana rarely came up against either of these two blades as an opponent historically speaking so it's largely a moot point.
There is not a single technique I have learned in standard kenjutsu / iaido that deals with the target of the attack being your opponents sword.
once again this fixation with sharpness, just not as important as the entire package of longevity, flexibility, and cutting ability.
I have never heard this particular legend but I find it extremely difficult to believe for two reasons;
1) as above, it's quite irrelevant if a sword can cut a leaf floating in the water from the minescule amount of force generated by the weight of aforementioned leaf and the soft current of the river, realistically any idiot with a shard of obsidian would do a much better job of this.
2) Although it is typical to coat a real katana blade in choji oil in order to stop the elements from oxidising the blade (real steel does not contain chromium, of which stainless steel from memory contains up to 40%) sticking a proper katana blade in a river kissake down in the riverbed would *not* be good for the blade and in light of the fact that these blades often took years to create and were treated with the utmost respect I highly doubt that this is true, a thin layer of choji oil would not be sufficient to protect the blade from total immersion in water and riverbed sludge on the kissake.
That's not right, kenjutsu techniques rarely attempt to put blade directly against blade, ideally large flowing movements using the entire body and momentum therof are used to avoid strikes and absorb the energy of avoidance to supplement the strength of your own cuts.
;)
For example the aikido technique Ikkyo was developed from a common kenjutsu technique dealing with two opponents, one attacking from the front and one from the rear, to avoid a downward cut from the front you would step into the attack slightly and simultaneously wheel to the side with a sharp hip movement throwing your arms into the crossing attack at the opponent behind you, letting the blade strike flesh and the original attacker miss you completely with their strike, from this position a second wheel and step back and a cut from the top right to the bottom left will cause the first attacker to drop into two neat seperate segments.
Of course, all this is in theory and often in practice you would simply do everything that you could to stay alive, in ancient battlescarred blades ( and in my own katanas that I rarely use against other live blade katanas ) there is evidence of blocking with the hardened sharp edge, but in order of preference, when using a sword your options would be as follows;
1) Get out of the way and use the momentum from avoidance to deliver a counterstrike.
2) block with the flat off the blade, preferably in the center where the hardened edge fades into the more springy spine, twisting the blade at the same time will cause the block to "deflect" the attack.
3) block with the edge, you're likely to get a non fatal chip in the blade but no fatal flaws that can't be sharpened out.
4) Block with the spine, this is extremely rare as usually in combat the sharpened edge faces the enemy anyway so you would have to twist the blade a full 180 degrees in order to do this, furthermore the hardened edge would leave quite a mark on the springy spine, admittedly not compromising usability but undeniably compromising aesthetics, and seeing as the unsharpened spine was never sharpened this would be there to stay.
As for legends of falling silk scarves being cut by flashing damascene scimitar blades, this is not an impressive feat, a sharp blade is not difficult to achieve, renaissance rapiers were extremely sharp (high carbon steel) but quite brittle, in the rare occasion that one of these glasslike blades came into contact with a lower hardness steel with more spring in it with any considerable force, the likelihood of a break would be very high.
Japanese steel in a katana is forged by heating the blade white hot after hundreds of folds and covering the spine with clay and gradiating down to a thin layer on the front and plunging the blade into water (causing the spine to cool slower than the edge, resulting in a martensite/bainite/pearlite gradient from edge/center/spine and as pointed out in the parent post, causing the curve.)
Not mentioned in the parent post is the misty pattern often polished onto imitation oriental swords, this is not actually decoration on a functional katana, it is a result of the complex tempering process and is evidence of a well forged blade, on a real sword it actually goes the entire way through the blade and gives a visual record of the area of the sword which is hardest (the misty part will follow the edge up to the point, that is the hardened edge).
In my view the impressive thing about damascene steel, even though compared to the above process for the purpose only of making swords with a single edge and an unsharpened spine (which the scimitar was, also) it is quite inferior, is that damascene steel did not rely on a gradiation in tempering, it was a single solid pillar of power compared to contemporary steels and not gradiated like the japanese blade.
All in all quite a bit of media sensationalism in the article but there you go, not that new.
Indeed, it's like they think because we're intelligent we mustn't have a shred of agressive instinct in us... Oh well, their broken bones, not ours...
I've got to agree with Brian, I went to school with a bunch of people, who basically fit neatly into two categories, athletic and stupid, or intelligent and extremely weak.
Of all the intelligent children in the entire school I was the only one who was not constantly attacked physically or even taunted, purely because I made a habit of responding with extremely vicious violence (I've noticed smarter kids seem to pick up martial arts a hell of a lot faster than their more idiotic counterparts) in any given situation in which anyone tried to show off by bossing 'round the smart kid.
It's quite possible I don't have any social skills at all to speak of, I don't need to talk to anyone in my job, I respect only a single other person that I actually know (Although I really do like what has been created by members of the Open source movement, I don't know any of these people personally so do not feel fit to judge them in any way aside from their works) and pretty much flat out ignore everyone else, this results in me pretty much being asexual, but that doesn't particularily disturb me. I get what I want when I want it.
I think it's sad that arrogance is seen as a negative trait, arrogance merely sculpts a person into an alternative form, there's no positive nor negative aspect to it, Personally I like being this way because it keeps other people away from me, and I generally don't like other people, so everyone is happy. It's not as if people who are arrogant are necessarily interfering with the activities of any other person (Which I would never do, I don't like to intrude on other people and I expect the same back)