Are real katanas fragile?

[RW]

I keep reading that even real katanas, made using traditional techniques are quite frail... is this true?

[ShoriKid]

The question is fragile compared to what? A katana is not the super sword that many have made it out to be. It has properties of toughness, sharpness and flexibility according to it's materials and construction.

[Wastelander]

I would certainly not call them frail or fragile, but as ShoriKid says, they aren't a super sword. If you drop any steel sword and it breaks, it was improperly heat treated. Any sword can have the edge chipped, though.

[Zoodles]

Katanas are made from steel, and steel can shatter like glass. It can bend. It will suffer knicks and stresses.

All things being equal, Katanas made from modern steel using modern processes would probably be vastly superior to Katanas made from tamahagane using traditional techniques.

A modern smith doesn't have to worry about folding and all the other processes. He could take a bar of the appropriate steel, precision machine it into shape, heat treat it and sharpen it and it could potentially be far tougher and better balanced than anything masamune made.

[RW]

fragile compared to other swords I meant

[yamesu]

Is an apple tastier than a banana?

It comes down to a mix of personal taste, as well as manufacturing processes nowdays I think.

There is no longer a need for modern manufacturers to do 1000 folds, as we use a higher quality steel than was used 500yrs ago.

Japan is a relatively new country geologically speaking, and so steel from Sweden and other aged countries has already been naturally tempered.

You do get what you pay for though. I have personally had my first Katana for over 10 years now, and practice tameshi giri (practice cuts) regularly. A manual sharpen every now and again and it still cuts as well as the day I got it.

As far as sword comparisons go, I am biased. Take a look at this:

[Zoodles]

As far as sword comparisons go, I am biased. Take a look at this:

Ugh..please don't. That video is quite infamous in the sword arts community for its lameness. Infotainment sucks. The test is terrible, with a cheap japanese style sword-like object and a euro-style bargain beater. Neither knows how to actually cut or properly use a sword. I do Haedong Gumdo as well as euro sword arts, and cut with both katanas and Longswords. Trust me..Its a dreadful dreadful video.

[sensei8]

They can be!! Depending on how they're made, and by whom, I suppose. Most katana's that I've purchased haven't been for battle, but for the everyday use in and out of the dojo [tournaments, testing cycles, demos, etc]!!

[Kusotare]

Actually, for what they are designed for, they are amazingly forgiving.

Despite what popular info-docs might say, they are neither slashing weapons nor stabbing weapons.

They are closer to surgical scalpels!

They are not designed to cut through bone (no sword school worth their salt would promote that anyway) and they are not designed to cleave a man in half!

They are made to make purposeful cuts to vital areas to render an opponent useless.

The sharpness is down to the molecular content of the iron ore that is geographicaly unique to the area along with the method of introducing a more flexible core steel (with a different molecular content ) into the blade.

BTW - a traditionally made "Nihon-to" manufactured using said tamahagane ore - would set you back about $50,000.00 these days, so you can’t compare with the wall hangers you get from the Paul Chen factory - which are just drop forged steel.

K.

[Zoodles]

Real nihon-to swords were designed to cut bone and flesh. One thing to understand about swords, even Japanese swords...they are rarely very sharp.

"Huh? What are you talking about Zoodles?"

The cutting ability of a sword has more to do with technique and blade shape and blade geometry than sharpness. Sharpness is a..heh heh..a double edged sword. Sharper blades cut better. They also damage much more easily. You honestly don't need a very sharp weapon to cut flesh and bone. Sharpening swords is time consuming, and over time will consume the blade *especially with laminated type swords like the Nihon-to. So, swords were only sharpened as much as they needed to be. Generally speaking this is the the level of a wood chisel. Any sharper is pointless. The Japanese would take blades that were over sharpened and cut into sandbags to dull them down before battle.

Japanese forging techniques were learned from the Chinese and were an adaptation to the poor quality of Japanese iron and relatively primitive Japanese smelting technology. Japanese iron was smelted in a fairly crude oven, and resulted in lumps of varying purities. The softer lumps were turned into pearlite by forging and inserted into the middle. The harder lumps were hammered into tougher martensite steel and used for the edge.

And this is what all the folding is about..By folding the steel you even out the carbon content. Folding good steel is pointless as it will beat out too much carbon and make the steel soft and useless. The Japanese had poor quality iron, and they needed to fold and work the iron to make it usable. But folding steel introduces structural weaknesses in the steel such as microscopic inclusions and imperfect welds between the folds, so its a tradeoff.

Techniques like folding and twisting are commonplace throughout eurasia, but the more advanced smelting technology in places like Europe, China and India meant that it was not needed as often. They could produce much more consistent iron that did not require alot of working. As a result, in Europe or china high quality swords could be mass produced. These swords would be through hardened as opposed to differentially hardened and made from pure martensite as opposed to a martensite pearlite mix. This resulted in swords that were, structurally speaking, stronger. It is interesting to note that whenever japanese smiths got their hands on good steel, they did not use the folding or differential hardening.