tell me Jow Forums... why do Japanese katanas bend so easily? is it by design?
Katanas
Camden Anderson
Other urls found in this thread:
en.wikipedia.org
vikingsword.com
jarkman.co.uk
twitter.com
Ian Diaz
Yeah.
Joseph Hall
Real ones dont. They are more likely to snap. The blades chip/delaminate/break but only bend if they are cheap unhardened chinese junk.
Julian Adams
It's light and made for cutting/stabbing flesh not fucking rocks.
Adam Brooks
>Real ones dont. They are more likely to snap. The blades chip/delaminate/break but only bend if they are cheap unhardened chinese junk.
That's absolutely false. Japanese katanas bend in combat and then they have to bend them back.
Ayden Moore
>Real ones don't
wrong and there are both historical depictions and accounts of samurai stopping in battle to try straightening them by bending them back over their knees
>is it by design?
yes
Julian Williams
It has to do with the differential hardening and with the hard edge with a soft back. Hard edge is good but it will snap easily, that's why you add the soft back that makes the blade bend rather than break. You can usually bend a sword back to its somehow original form, and it's a popular scene of battle - a samurai bends back his katana during the battle using his knees. So yeah it's a feature and not a bug.
Gabriel Price
The construction and hardening of katanas, just like any other sword, would vary by time, place, and the skill level and style of the individual smith. You can both be right for specific swords, because they were not all the same. The technology and cost/benefit balance changed over time, and there were both very high-quality blades and flawed, cheapo junky ones being made and used historically. Same goes for swords anywhere else really, with the Romans being a little of an exception because of how well they standardized.
Nolan Collins
Wow cool post, thanks for sharing
Nathan Ortiz
This gentleman is correct.
Remember, it was mostly samurai's own job to equip himself. Meaning, they bought their own swords.
Some people could afford only crappy ones, some had moolah to buy quality.
Generally the Japanese iron was of poor quality, and you had to jump some serious hoops to get proper steel out of it. This was time consuming and costly, and therefore the good quality ones were absurdly expensive. the Markets were filled with cheapo ones that weren't all that great quality, and lot's of samurais weren't all that rich. They had a small stipend (or investitured piece of land) their master would "pay" them annually, and that would have to be enough to arm themselves and also DO EVERYTHING ELSE, like feed their families and repair their houses etc. etc.
Also, remember that the average samurai would practically never use his katana in combat. It was a sidearm, rather than main battle weapon. So while it was a sort of honour thing to have a decent blade, lot's of people (especially more administrative job samurais) would be perfectly content if they just had SOME sword that they could carry on their belts. They'd never use it anyways. Especially on more peaceful times.
If a war would come, there would be time to go and buy a better sword anyways. And most of the fighting would still be done using spears and bows. Or guns, on later days.
So it's more like "why would a mercenary/hired thug working for some brasilian mobster buy a glock or colt, when HK USP were available?"
the answer is "he wouldn't feel like it was worth the investment. He'd be mostly using AK anyways."
Jordan Cox
Another note, the average quality would have plummeted as the Sengoku Jidai wore on and the need for raw numbers overrode quality concerns, as it does in every drawn-out war.
And during the Shogunate, swords were to be seen and not used, so while the fit and finish would generally have been very good, the metallurgy and blade design were pretty much meaningless unless you were one of the tiny minority that could tell the difference and pay a huge premium, and even then why bother?
So the best katanas were probably from the era just before and right at the beginning of the Sengoku Jidai, which would make few survivors.
Jaxon Moore
This has only little to do with the core original question. Katana bend because of the differential hardening and heat treatment, regardless of quality since both poor and high quality blades where made using this method - though it's true to say that better quality blades would also bend less frequently and easily. They still all bend because of the same mechanical process and it doesn't make them poorer weapons by itself.
Zachary Powell
Correct.
Towards the end of the sengoku jidai, guns pushed themselves to the front of the battlefield weaponry and priorities changed significantly towards manufacturing guns rather than other weapons.
Also, after the sengoku jidai when the new shogunate had established itself, there was a general shift from heavy-duty war swords to much more slimmer and lighter blades. Samurais were still expected to carry swords, but since they were not used anymore (no more wars to fight) even those samurai who had well-paid jobs generally changed to lighter, more ceremonial swords. After all, if you have to carry it all day (and yes, you were expected to haul that thing around) why would you carry a heavy one instead of lighter one? You won't be using it anyways.
Similiar things happened during WW2. Many soldiers had to carry their rifles but a lot of them didn't even get to use them. It was just heavy piece of kit they had to haul around all day every day. So many soldiers who were equipped with a big, heavy M1 garand envied the support troops (mortarmen, radiomen, etc.) who had been issued with much smaller and lighter M1A1 carbine. And there are (anecdotal) stories about men just switching to the smaller gun if they somehow could.
After all, chances of some of them seeing actual frontline combat were small, carrying a lighter gun would be easier, and in a pinch the carbine would still do the job.
People are like that: even these days many soldiers just dump some of the stuff they are expected to carry, but think that a) they won't be needing it anyways and b) nobody is going to check their gear.
Joseph Roberts
Correct. I do not argue this.
Katanas bend. Yes, it's a fact of their construction. They didn't have modern spring steel. Or even in many cases decent quality ordinary steel. You work with what you've got.
Pictured: Japanese iron sand, satetsu. it's a crappy stuff to make steel items from.
Angel Campbell
whoops, forgot the picture.
Daniel Taylor
Chinks made garbage steel
Cameron Jenkins
Can't the modern jap smith just import high quality steel and make katanas out of that? I'd imagine they would get higher margins than the average European guy making long swords or whatever
Leo Sanchez
They do import good quality steel. But they dont' really make katanas out of that.
The better steel is intended for industrial purposes. You know, making home appliances, cars, tools, ships etc. Actually useful stuff for modern world.
What "katanas" they make out of it, are usually the crappy quality "just cut it with laser out of stainless steel" kind of mass produced shit that they sell with ~20 bucks on ebay. And usually those markets are flooded with cheap chinese crap.
Japanese are proud of their traditional sword-making style where they turn crappy iron sand into workable tamahagane-style pig iron, and then re-work that painstakingly into decent quality steel katanas. It's more of a tradition and veneration of this ancient skill and artform than for commercial purposes.
They don't do high quality spring steel swords any more than Europeans manufacture them and for the same reason; there just isn't enough markets for that stuff. It's niche item bought only by very few enthusiasts or historical buffs.
There are very few people who are willing to use 1000+ USD/EUR for a hobby item. And that's what swords are - hobby items.
Historically this quality wasn't that much of a problem because it was the same for every japanese lord: Everyone else had the same quality weapons. It wasn't feasable to import better quality steel or ready-made weapons into japan during sengoku jidai, so everyone who you fought against had the same level of weaponry. It evened itself out.
Jaxon King
Yeah
Justin Reyes
addition:
While there aren't much markets for modern steel katanas (even if they were of superior quality), there ARE markets for made-using-traditional-swordsmithing-techniques katanas. there are greater profits in selling the nostalgia item rather than pure functionality.
And as far as functionality is concerned, a well made katana does that perfectly adequately. Katanas DO work as swords. You can use them for sparring and cutting practices and for any reenactment you'd want.
It may be of inferior quality (at least on paper) when compared to European-style purified tempered steel. But is in comparison only. It doesn't mean they are utter crap. They still work as a swords if a sword is what you need.
A colt 1911 is obsolete in many ways when compared to more modern pistols like HK USP. But that doesn't mean the Colt doesn't work as a pistol. It gets the job done.
William Anderson
Based effortposter
Cameron Garcia
>tamahagane-style pig iron
Tamahagane is a form of steel and by definition not pig iron. Frankly I don't think you actually know what you're talking about, this idea that Japan's method of obtaining iron led to worse steel is a meme. It led to relatively little of the high end product compared to the manufacturing powerhouses of the day but they still had enough to field steel tools and weaponry so the real impact of that is questionable at best.
Brandon James
No a katana literally can't block euro swords
they just break or bend
source: My great great great great great great great great great grandfather was a knight
Carter Torres
Shut up you fucking weeaboo faggot
Robert Thompson
Consider how the swords were made, traditionally with a very hard, sharpened blade and a relatively mild steel core/back. (I don't recall the actual terms).. so honestly depending on how it was used and where it was damaged it could either snap or bend, although it's more likely for the actual blade to chip/shatter while the core would bend.
Nolan Brown
I'd rather be a weeaboo than an ignorant bitch.
Kayden Martinez
No, similar things happened in the late 17th, early 18th century with the development of the smallsword.
People didn't carry M1 Carbine in civilian environment (except Patty).
Noah Roberts
Japanese had really really shitty iron. That's why the whole FOLDED TEN THOUSAND TIMES is even a thing. Super shitty steel. I'm not trying to bash Japanese sword makers or anything. Given their materials they did an incredible job but their swords were still pretty shitty because they just didnt have access to high quality iron.
Dominic Stewart
>That's why the whole FOLDED TEN THOUSAND TIMES is even a thing.
Except that the entire world did that, forge welding is found everywhere. Even when Yurop at large moved to what could be called early monosteel blades they were folding that shit to even out carbon content and mitigate the effects of whatever slag or other inclusions the furnace might have added.
Weebs were dumb for thinking Japan was an outlier in this aspect, now the pendulum has moved and Westaboos are dumb for thinking Japan was an outlier in this respect. What a world.
Blake Russell
not just Patty tho
Nathan Ross
>this thread
Good thread
Henry Murphy
should have bought a Jian.
Ian Garcia
To help illustrate just how common folding was, here's part of a Swedish door hinge, probably 18th century, naturally etched by corrosion to show us how it's been folded.
Jacob Taylor
But were they all using precisely the same techniques? They clay layering seems like it produces an interesting interaction. Of course clay composition and granule would play a role, as well, creating a doubly unique set of interactions.
As an aside, glassblowers in Italy, purely through blind experimentation managed to find a flux that produced a much clearer glass than had been possible before. This is after doing some straight retarded shit, frankly. Burn a (random) plant, sieve it, boil it, and then throw it in to your region-specific, high purity quartz. Viola, clearest glass ever.
Thomas Carter
>But were they all using precisely the same techniques?
That depends heavily on the time and place. By the time katanas came about Japan was relatively advanced as far as forge welding goes.
John Ward
interesting
Blake Carter
>It wasn't feasable to import better quality steel or ready-made weapons into japan during sengoku jidai
I see this claim made occasionally, but never with any kind of source or citation, or even a reason as to why it would would be unfeasible.
It seems strange that the Japanese could export tens of thousands of swords to China, but for some reason somehow be unable to import iron ore or steel.
Logan Torres
New model army pikemen in the english civil war were know for throwing their tassets (thigh armor) away, as well as swing a foot or two off of their pikes.
To make this clear, they absolutely WOULD see front line service and either of those things could easily get you killed. But soldiers are lazy shits who hate carrying things. Always have been, always will be.
Ryan Thomas
wrought iron.
Camden Martin
I got two words for ya buddy
>DUNNING
>KRUGER
Jeremiah Gutierrez
If hardened in historically correct fashion most of the blade stays unhardened soft steel.
IF it has a hamon (and doesn't have a Bainite back, which is fairly rare) it bends easily as most of the blade is soft annealed steel.
Jason Clark
That may be part of the point. I don't want to put words in his mouth but I believe what he was getting at is that folding wasn't exclusive to sword making but was a feature of metalworking at large.
Gabriel Williams
>as most of the blade is soft annealed steel.
For proper annealing you want a very slow cooling afterwards, slower than just air cooling in many cases. Even with the clay coating used here I would assume the quenching to accelerate the cooling of the spine quite considerably past that, giving you a rather fine grained pearlite structure. Not exactly hardened by steel standards, but certainly not annealed either.
I would guess so, yes. A simply hinge isn't something to use expensive steel in. But even so it's been folded. The "wrought" part of wrought iron tells us it's material that has been extensively worked to give it its properties, and that often meant folding specifically.
More examples:
vikingsword.com
jarkman.co.uk
That's pretty much what I had in mind, yes. I certainly agree with it.