[OT] Katanas (In R/L)

[Aaron L]

If you want TRUE information about katana, or nihonto, look at http://www.geocities.com/alchemyst/nihonto.htm

Links to smiths that make traditionally forged nihonto.

Several thousand dollars, but anything else is either a stainless steel wallhanger or something made in Spain. Or for actual antiques, you can get real old swords for $5000 or less if you look. But be aware that the cost of polishing/sharpening the blade (the same process) will cost several hundred to several thousand dollars itself.

As a side note, modern sword smiths in Japan are limited by national law to producing no more than 24 nihonto a year.

The folding was to get a latticework of carbon throughout the blade, and the blade was laminated (sandwiching layers of metal) with a varying number of layers, hard on the outside and softer on the inside. Then the blade was quenched with clay on the back edge, creating martensite along the sharp edge and soft steel along the back, with a harder skin around a softer core throughout. Martensite is a vary hard form of steel, used for industrial tools today. This allowed the blade to be hard where it needed to cut, and soft where it needed to bend.


Damascus steel was steel that had been pattern welded. Pattern welding was taking strips of iron and twisting them together, adding carbon as necessary, to create a latticework of steel, and then welding the braids together into a blade. The Vikings did this as well in the Dark Ages.

The goal was the same and the end result was close in all three methods, making a blade that could bend and still cut. Although the Japanese method is the best documented by far, the common misconception that European swords were worthless compared to Japanese blades is not true. You just won't be able to find a modern traditionally made European sword to buy anywhere.


If the sword on e-bay is anything less than several thousand dollars, it is a fake, or possibly a machine made WWII gunto (which in and of themselves hold some value)

-sorry for babbling-

 

[barsoomcore]

I would NEVER, EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES buy a sword I had not picked up, handled, studied and had smarter-than-me friends examine first. If you're going to spend several thousand dollars on something, you have to take it seriously.

If the sword in question is not being sold for several thousand dollars, I guarantee it's a stamped aluminium/stainless steel blade. Go to the nearest Knife Hut or Oriental Souvenir shop near you and buy one -- it'll be just as good.

I own a Shinshinto -- a type of katana -- I paid $3000 for the blade, another $1000 for the fittings and $500 to have it sharpened. This was in Tokyo. From trusted friends.

I would never even consider buying a sword over eBay. Just a caution.

 

[Tsyr]

If the sword in question is not being sold for several thousand dollars, I guarantee it's a stamped aluminium/stainless steel blade. Go to the nearest Knife Hut or Oriental Souvenir shop near you and buy one -- it'll be just as good.

I own a Shinshinto -- a type of katana -- I paid $3000 for the blade, another $1000 for the fittings and $500 to have it sharpened. This was in Tokyo. From trusted friends.

Now, I'm sure you're proud of your sword, but I'm going to call you on that first bit...

I promise you you can find a sword for sub-1000 dollars that is better than stamped stainless steel.

 

[barsoomcore]

I promise you you can find a sword for sub-1000 dollars that is better than stamped stainless steel.

Agreed. I own one. But what are your chances that the sword you buy over eBay is?

So I overstated. Sue me.

Keep in mind, I've got this sword here...

 

[shurai]

Mercury-

What do you want the sword for? Are you a collector, or a student of some sword art, or do you just want something cool to hang on the wall?

If you want to learn to use a Japanese-style sword, my advice is to buy a wooden sword first. They're very inexpensive (maybe $20 for a mid-priced red oak sword about the same length and balance as a katana), and are perfectly lethal. They are lighter than a shinken (live blade) would be, but perfectly good for most of us. You can get a very nice ebony boken (Japanese for wooden sword) for less than a hundred dollars, and it will last a very long time and through many battles.

In partial answer to your question, you can't really tell by looking. I held a 400-year-old sword in my hands once not too long ago, and it was indistinguishable from the other modern-era swords I've seen except for two features: it wasn't very long at all, and it had clearly seen a lot of use, having been sharpened so many times that it was noticeably thinner than its fittings suggested it ought to be.

Barsoomcore's right, and I agree with him: I'd not buy a sword online either. Also, based on listening to what my iaido instructors/seniors have said about it, good swords are very expensive and very rare compared to all the Chesapeake Knife and Tool garbage out there.

-S

 

[Mercule]

I'm far from an expert in the matter, but the best modern blades I've seen are Badger Blades http:\\badgerblades.com. (Just checked the website. It's down, apparently being updated. Try next week.)

I base this on having held one -- the weight is good -- and the demonstrations of the strength and the flexibility I've seen. The quality probably isn't at the level some of these guys are talking, but if you're like me and just know enough to be dangerous, they're probably a good place to look.

Actually, on that note.... Are any of you sword aficionados familiar with Badger's stuff? How would you rate it?

 

[Dremen]

EBAY is a very dangerous place to get a sword if you don't know what you are looking for. If you want information on REAL swords spend a few hours or more on Sword Forum (SFI) .

In short there are Sword Like Objects. Things that look like swords, but lack any real perfomance characteristics, refered to as SLO. Then there are real swords.

On the low end under $300 you can get a few decent swords.

1. Kris Cutlery has a couple Katana a 26' for $220, and 29' for $225. These are 5160 spring steel. These are not very traditional looking, or traditional construction. They are a tad heavy. Good quality, decent workmanship. I have one. Cecil is the owner and is an upstanding guy and able to answer your questions. These are good intro swords. The polish is satin and no temper line (Hamon) is visible. These are differentialy tempered. (The spine is soft the blade is hard)

2. Paul Chen (Hanwei) Practical Katana. You want the 4th generation. This is 1095 high carbon steel. Hanwei is concered about quality and continually improves. This has a plastic same (ray skin) and cotton cord wrap. This is a basic sword, and is another good beginer sword. This is differentialy heat treated and does have a visible hamon (temper line). This looks traditional only in comparison to Kris cutlery's. I belive you can find them for less than $200. Check Sword forum for dealers. You don't want the earlier generations.

3. Paul Chen Practical PLUS Katana. This is closer to traditional and is a better version of the pratical katana. The tsuba (handle) is dismaountable has real same (ray skin) and the fittings are nicer. This has a hamon. It is 1095 high carbon steel. These go for around $250 - $300 if I remember correctly.

In the mid range I'm not too familiar with. $500-$900 I belive Kris cutlery (link above) has a ELITE Katana that goes for around $700. There is not a pic on the web site yet. This I belive is forge folded (I'm not positive on this). This has a fuller and is closer to the traditionaly mounted katanas.

In this range is the Shinto by Hanwei, and several other models. Get detains from a Paul Chen (Hanwei) distributor. These are traditionaly mounted and decent blades. You can read many reviews on Sword Foums web site.

Then you have the high range prices start at $1000 and up.

Bugei Trading Company has good swords.

Michael Bell - Traditionaly trained smith
Howard Clark - makes a bananite L6 katana read about it on SFI.
Randal Graham
Don Fogg

These are some western smiths who make high end custom katana. Some people feel only the Japanese can make a good katana, but this is usually snobery. The japanese smiths must follow many strick laws in sword making and this limits the materials and techniques they can use to make a sword ( This is a traditional art form and is protected ). There is definately something to say about the beauty of these works of art. But the western smiths are free to use technical and material inovations to improve upon the sword and they have. A L6 bananite katana can flex more than 90 degrees and return true. A traditional katana is usually limited to less than 30 degrees before it will take a set. Western katana are their own art form, and differ in some ways to japanese swords. Michale Bell does make traditional swords with traditional materials.

If you are serious about getting a good sword then spend a few weeks getting educated on sword forum. They are great and have many resources, and always willing to help newbies.

If you see Stainless Steel or Hollow Ground or Blood grove in the same sentance as Katana or Sword; you are looking at a Sword Like Object, not a sword.

Stainless Steel is brittle and can not be differentialy tempered. This is good for knives and not for swords. Knives and swords are 2 VERY different weapons.

Hollow grinding is another vialble option on a knife but not good for a sword. The edge will be too narrow and delicate. It also will not displace material as it cuts through it. This is only good on a knife.

Blodd Groves is a misnomer used buy people who don't know what it is. This shows ignorence on the subject of swords but sounds cool. Blood Groves are really called FULLERS. They are ground in or forged in to decrease weight and increase rigidity. Think I beam.

Thoose 3 terms should steer you in the right direction.

-D

 

[shurai]

In somewhat minor response to Dremen's post, I noticed that a couple of his sites featured katana with simulated ray-skin under the wrappings instead of the real thing. Ick!

On the other hand, I'm kind of a traditionalist with this sort of thing.

-S

 

[Tsyr]

In somewhat minor response to Dremen's post, I noticed that a couple of his sites featured katana with simulated ray-skin under the wrappings instead of the real thing. Ick!

On the other hand, I'm kind of a traditionalist with this sort of thing.

-S

Well, yes, but in the long run, some artificial wrappings are actualy better than the traditional stuff. Tradition isn't always the best way to go about things, you know . And if it bugs you that much, re-wrap it yourself, it's not that hard... I've done it before.

I'd like to mention Paul Chen again... Paul Chen swords aren't the best out there, but you can do alot worse than a Chen sword too. I own nearly a dozen Chen swords of varying styles and levels of quality... None of them would win many awards (The so-called "viking" sword he makes out of damascas, with a deer skin handle, is a beutiful sword... and I have the folded katana he makes, and it's very nice too), but none of them will suck either. About the very cheapest you can get into a Paul Chen anything is around 50 bucks, on e-bay, for one of his jian. You can get a second or higher generation practical katana for around 100 bucks, on ebay, and the Practical Plus (which is a very nice sword for a someone who doesn't want to spend a small fortune, but still wants a fairly nice sword) can be picked up for between 150-200, on e-bay, if you watch the auctions and get lucky.

 

[buzzard]

OK, being a real metallurgist [I can exhibit my big fat unused PhD n Materials Science for those who wish to ooh and aah], I figure I better set some of the claims made here straight.

The initial claim about why Japanese swords were layered was correct. It was an issue of poor steel with lots of impurities. These are known as inclusions in the steel business. They generally consist of non metallic particles trapped in the metal. Given that they are brittle, hammering will either break them out of the metal, or render them into a fine enough size to not weaken the structure (the important aspect of a fault in a material is the crack size, and if we assume that the inclusion is poorly bonded, it will act as a crack). So the Japanese sword smiths hammered the heck out of the blades to compensate for lousy steel.

Now it is possible that this could have introduced some nice cold work into the blades, but given the martensitic quench which was uniformly followed, any internal cold work would have been eliminated (which is probably for the best since it would have made things too hard where they didn't need to be).

As for alloying, well that is rubbish. There was no titanium powder available in fuedal Japan. In fact processing titanium ore into a pure metal is a relatively modern process, which was discovered in the 18th or 19th century (I'd have to check). You have to react thet titanium oxide with flourine gas. Needless to say Japanese smiths didn't tend to have cylinders of flourine sitting around. Though titanium is not a particularly interesting things to add to steel for strength anyway in spite of it's wonderful marketing these days. More useful things would be manganese, molybdenum, or vanadium. None of these are common, and they certainly weren't available to early smiths. Alloying did occur by happenstance in many early steels, but that was due to impurities in the ore.

Then there's the making the 'latticework of carbon', umm well this doesn't make much of a realistic picture. The smiths did not practice metallography, and probably wouldn't etch the metal even if they did micro-polish it. Thus, the latticework wouldn't be revealed. The creation of different carbide precipitate structures does happen, but they would be a by product of what they did to get the properties they found. The smiths probably didn't know the metal had carbon in it, or at the least didn't know about carbide precipitates. In any case the latticework is fairly irrelevant. Any regular dispersal of the carbide precipitates will be useful, pretty pattern or no. What you are essentially making is a metal matrix composite where the carbides act as the stiffener.

Though one final point on the finishing of the blades. You will do the clay on one side quench to create the martensitic edge. However you will likely heat it up again somewhat (not as hot) to temper that martensite to cut how brittle it is. The martensitic transformation leaves a lot of stress at the atomic level (the transition is a product of the shift in atomic stacking type, anybody is is dreadfully bored can ask me for more details) and heating things up a bit allows the atoms to re-arrange themselves to alleviate some of this without reducing the hardness appreciably. A good smith would know of this (and by any measure those who made katanas were good smiths).

Now, as for buying a sword, I'm no expert. However it would seem to me that what you intend to use if for should be the driving matter. If you want it for display, well make sure it looks good. Don't worry about the metal. Almost all steel made these days is of good quality (though it seems that most steel I have seen out of the PRC sucks, but that may be my bad luck). If you intend to use it for hacking people up, go see a shrink. If you live somewhere nasty enough that a sword might be wise to keep your butt in once piece, buy a gun, they work much better(and are generally made of some nice alloys).

I suppose there could be some pride issue involved in having a folded blade, but in practical terms they would not be better then a carefully made modern example made with good steel.

Dr. buzzard
B.S., M.S., Ph.D. Materials Science