For a long time, players of HiTech servers used the nano saber and thought that there was nothing more powerful than it. But they were wrong, such a sword really exists and I will tell you how to make it. I present to your attention - Top Sword!
Section 1 - 7 basic enchantments.
Let's start with something simple. What is a top sword (definition)?
The top sword is a diamond sword that contains 7 maximum enchantments, namely: Vorpal IV, Sharpness V, Recoil II , Extraction III, Conspiracy of Fire II, Disjunction V and Strength III.
What do all these enchantments do?
Vorpal - in version 1.4.7 knocks out heads (the chance of getting a head depends on the level of enchantment), in version 1.6.4 it gives additional. chance of receiving a trophy, but in 1.7.10 there is no chance.
Sharpness - gives additional damage.
Recoil - throws mobs and players a certain distance.
Production - increases production from mobs (in versions 1.6.4 and 1.7.10 it makes it possible to knock out the head of a mob or a player).
Conspiracy of Fire - sets mobs and players on fire.
Disjunction - deals additional damage to endermen (not available in versions 1.6.4 and 1.7.10).
Durability - with some chances the tool breaks more slowly.
We've figured out the characteristics of enchantments, let's move on to creating a top sword.
Section 2 - How to get the books you need?
First we need to make 4 diamond swords. Once you have made them, you will need books with the required enchantments. But the downside is that they will not be immediately maximal, for example Sharpness V. You will need to connect them with swords so that the enchantment level increases. There are 2 more minuses. The first is that you must first enchant the sword to Disjunction and Vorpal, because if you connect them at the end, you simply won’t be able to do it. First, we need a certain number of enchanted books. We will need: , , , , , , if you play on version 1.4.7, then you will also need Disjunction [you will need 4 books for Disjunction III, or 8 books on Disjunction II], [you will need 2 books for strength II, or 1 book for strength III]. Let's start enchanting!
Section 3 - Creating a top sword!
Let's start connecting the sword and enchanted books!
1.) Let's connect 4 books to Disjunction III. For this we need 2 diamond swords. We charm each of them Disjunction IV, connecting 2 books on Disjunction III on each sword.
After this, we connect 2 of these swords in an anvil and we get a sword that is enchanted with Disjunction V.
2.) Connect 4 books on Vorpal II. You say: "Why"? Because Vorpal III books are rarely obtained from the enchantment table, while Vorpal II books are easy to obtain. We connect according to the same principle as Disjunction V. As a result, we get Vorpal IV.
3.) We won't need any more diamond swords. We attach to the resulting sword 2 books for Sharpness IV, or 4 books for Sharpness III.
4.) We connect 1 book on Recoil II with the sword.
5.) We connect 1 book on Extraction III with the sword.
6.) We connect 1 book on Conspiracy of Fire II with a sword.
7.) And the last enchantment is durability. We connect 1 book on strength III with a sword.
Perhaps any boy, even if he had already grown up and started a family, imagined himself as a crusader, Robin Hood, Spartacus, Peter Pan or a fearless samurai. And what is a hero without a trusty sword? Nowadays, it is needed for a carnival costume, a collection of imitation weapons, battle reconstruction or fencing training. The necessary weapons can be purchased on specialized forums or made independently at home. In today's review from the editorial staff of the online magazine HouseChief, we will look at how to make a sword from wood and other materials for training, games or collection.
What boy hasn't imagined himself as a knight in shining armor and a sword?
PHOTO: andomir.narod.ru
Read in the article
What is a sword, types and main nuances of making it at home
A sword is a type of bladed weapon designed to deliver piercing and slashing blows. Initially it was made of bronze and copper, and later of iron and high-carbon steel. There are many types of swords, which differ in size, blade shape, cross-section and forging method. This type of weapon consists of a blade, handle, guard and pommel. The sword has always been a symbol of nobility, honor, an indicator of the status of the owner, and some specimens that have survived to this day have a rich and interesting history. They can even be called a work of art.
Sword of Stannis Barathion PHOTO: i.pinimg.com
The most common, simple, and easy to make and handle are straight, one-and-a-half and two-handed swords. The straight or Slavic sword is the smallest and most convenient for combat, since it can be operated with one hand. Two-handed is the longest and heaviest representative of this type of weapon and allows you to deliver strong and deadly blows.
Straight or Slavic sword
PHOTO: cdn.fishki.net 
Bastard Bastard Sword
PHOTO: worldanvil.com 
Two-handed sword
PHOTO: avatars.mds.yandex.net
How to determine the optimal sword size
Before you make a sword at home, you need to know certain parameters: length (total and blade) and width. The size of this type of bladed weapon varies depending on the type of sword and the height of the swordsman. Short swords had a blade length ranging from 600-700 mm, long swords - more than 700-900 mm, and their weight ranged from 700 g to 5-6 kg. One-handed models, as a rule, weighed 1-1.5 kg, and long medieval ones had a length of about 900 mm and a weight not exceeding 1.3 kg.
There are the simplest ways to select the length of this weapon: a long two-handed sword, set with its tip on the ground, should reach the swordsman’s chin with its handle, and in Slavic - a weapon in a lowered hand should reach the sole of boots or boots with the tip of the blade. Guy Windsor, a modern fencing expert, recommends the following optimal sizes for this noble weapon:
- the length of the blade with the handle and pommel is equal to the distance from the floor to the swordsman’s sternum;
- handle - 2.5-3 palm widths;
- guard bow - 1-2 palm lengths;
- center of gravity (CG) - 3-5 fingers (width) under the guard.
The long sword should reach from the ground to the middle of the warrior's chest PHOTO: i.pinimg.com
Center of gravity or weapon balancing
Determining the center of gravity (CG) and balancing the sword is a very important point in the manufacture of this weapon. The ease of control, the force of the blow and the fatigue of the swordsman depend on it. The center of gravity of a sword is the point at which the weapon is in balance. Depending on the shape of the blade and size, the CG is located 70-150 mm from the guard arms. If the balance is shifted further towards the tip, then the blow, although it will be stronger, will become more difficult to handle such a weapon. When you move the center of gravity closer to the handle, it may seem that control has become easier, but the force of the blow drops significantly and the blade becomes more difficult to control.
A simple way to determine the center of gravity
PHOTO: cs8.pikabu.ru
Material selection
To make a sword in modern conditions, a variety of materials can be used (steel, wood, plastic, paper or cardboard). This largely depends on its purpose: for a costume, training, reenactment battles or a collection of imitation weapons. Below, in step-by-step instructions, we will look at how to make a sword from different materials.
Roman bronze sword PHOTO: cdnb.artstation.com
Steel weapons PHOTO: mod-games.ru
Japanese training sword - bokken made of wood PHOTO: i.ebayimg.com
How to make a sword out of wood with your own hands: for play, training or collection
Having examined in general terms what a sword is, as well as some important nuances, we can move on to its actual manufacture. First, we need to decide what kind of wood we will make the weapon from, which, in turn, depends on its purpose. Some recommend using deadwood or boards made from aspen, birch, ash, maple, oak or walnut. This is a good option for making a training sword. The choice of material must be approached responsibly: the wood must be free of knots, rot and damage from insect pests. It is advisable to soak the selected wood in water until completely saturated, after which it must be dried slowly and thoroughly. If you follow the wood drying technology, you can end up with a fairly strong and lightweight decorative or training weapon.
Wooden sword for a child PHOTO: whitelynx.ru
Having decided on the material, you need to choose the type, model of the sword and the necessary tool. You also cannot do without drawings with dimensions.
DIY drawing of a wooden sword PHOTO: avatars.mds.yandex.net
Necessary material and tools
In order to make a wooden sword for a child with our own hands, we may need:
- Wooden plank.
- Nylon cord, twine or strips of genuine leather.
- Dye.
- Paint brush or roller.
- Cardboard or whatman paper for the template.
- Wood glue or PVA.
- Hacksaw, jigsaw or circular saw.
- Sandpaper of various grits, a hand sander or a stationary machine.
- Chisels, chisel, plane and mallet.
- Clamps.
- Manual or stationary router.
You will need the listed hand or power tools regardless of whether you decide to make wooden swords for children from solid wood, plywood or sticks.
A good tool is half the success PHOTO: udivitelno.cc
Making, polishing, assembling and finishing a sword from a wooden board
From the step-by-step instructions below you will learn how to make a wooden sword with your own hands. You can choose a different model and decoration method, but the described manufacturing principle will be the same. First of all, you need to make a template from cardboard or Whatman paper, made according to the required sizes and shapes.
| Illustration | Process description |
 | Take a dry board (preferably without knots) and sand it. This way we will remove dirt and small protruding fibers |
 | We attach the template to the workpiece and trace it with a pencil. We also find the center of the sword |
 | Using a hacksaw or jigsaw, we cut out the blank of the sword. Let's start with the handle |
 | We rearrange the workpiece and press it with clamps to the table or workbench |
 | Using a cutter, make a hole in the top |
 | It turns out like this, still a “raw” sword |
 | Using a router and a special cutter we go along the contour of the sword |
 | Now you need to draw a line on the blade, up to which you can chamfer |
 | Using a grinder, we gradually remove the wood along the contour, simulating sharpening a sword |
 | It should turn out as shown in the photo. Finally, you need to carry out a final sanding with the finest sandpaper. |
 | As a result, we get a sword made from wood with our own hands for children. If desired, you can decorate the toy in different ways. For example, cover the blade with silver paint and wrap the handle with twine, a leather strip or, in extreme cases, electrical tape |
The presented step-by-step instructions clearly show how to make a sword from a board easily, quickly and without much expense. If you don’t have a power tool, then even with an ordinary saw, knife and sandpaper you can make a game or carnival weapon. We invite you to watch the video in your home workshop.
Making your own metal sword
We have already become familiar with the process of making wooden weapons, and now we will look at how to make a sword from iron with our own hands. It’s worth saying right away that the complexity of the work to create it will depend on the type, shape, decoration and purpose. The most difficult thing to make is a forged sword, which is understandable, because you will need a forge, an anvil and the experience of a blacksmith.
Homemade metal sword PHOTO: rusknife.com
Materials and tools
Before making an iron sword, you need to stock up on the necessary material and tools. First of all, you need metal: a sheet or strip of strong steel. You will also need:
- clamps;
- angle grinder;
- a set of cutting and grinding wheels for metal;
- cardboard or whatman paper;
- marker, varnish and document proofreader;
- plywood or wood;
- leather strip
- Grinder;
- sandpaper;
- file.
A grinder with different discs is the main tool needed for making an iron sword PHOTO: images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com
So, the tools and material are prepared. Now you can move on to step-by-step instructions on how to make a real gladius sword - the weapon of gladiators and Roman legionnaires.
Making a sword: from blank to final polishing
Making an iron sword is a more complex process than creating a wooden analogue. In addition, it requires compliance with basic safety rules when working with metal and power tools.
| Illustration | Process description |
 | First we make a complete sword template |
 | On a steel blank sheet, using a template, we outline the general outline of the weapon |
 | Cut out the blank using a grinder with a cutting wheel |
 | We get this rough draft of a sword |
 | Using the template, we draw the boundaries of the future sharpening of the blade on the sword and paint over the chamfer using a stationery corrector |
 | Using a grinder, we remove all excess to the final size. |
 | We install the petal disk and grind the chopping edge of the future sword |
 | This is what one side looks like with the blade sharpened |
 | Now, according to the template, we will apply the outline of the lining of the sword handle onto the multilayer plywood. |
 | Cutting out the handle lining |
 | Having connected them together, we grind them using a manual electric machine. |
 | We drill holes in the hilt of the sword for attaching the lining |
 | We drill holes through the handle and in plywood blanks |
 | We paint the plywood cladding silver and artificially age it using coarse sandpaper |
 | Now let's start polishing the blade. This process is long and tedious. For this we use a block with fine sandpaper on a fabric basis and water. Polish the metal to a mirror shine |
 | The many hours of polishing paid off. The result in the photo speaks for itself |
 | We again apply the internal template to the blade and trace it along the contour |
 | Paint the cutting edges of the blade with nail polish |
 | It should turn out as shown in the photo. This is needed to tint the inside of the blade. Those who do not want to tint can skip the etching process |
 | Place the sword in a solution of citric acid for several hours |
 | Something went wrong, there was a hole in the film, the acid leaked out and, as a result, the tint came out weak and streaky. In addition, after a few days rust appeared. Therefore, it was decided to simply polish the sword again and secure the hilt lining |
 | After this, the hilt of the sword was wrapped with a leather strip |
 | The result is a sword like this |
 | Looks very cute |
The video shows how to forge a katana sword - the weapon of real samurai, as well as a way to decorate it.
How to make a sword with your own hands at home from different materials
We looked at how to carve a sword from wood or make one from a steel plate. However, these materials are not the limit. The weapons of medieval knights, Russian heroes, Vikings or samurai can be made from other raw materials. Let's take a quick look at the main options.
DIY plywood sword
You can make a children's sword from plywood quite easily and quickly. This is an affordable and easy-to-process material. However, when making a sword for a child, you need to follow some rules. It is advisable that the weapon of a small warrior have the end of the blade as blunt as possible, so that there is no sharpening of the edge of the blade.
Drawing of a sword made of plywood PHOTO: i.pinimg.com
We invite you to watch a video that shows how to make a gladius sword out of plywood for a child with your own hands.
How to make a sword out of cardboard with your own hands
A sword for a baby can be made quickly from cardboard. To do this, you will need the cardboard itself (as thick as possible), scissors or a stationery knife, paint and a brush.
- On a sheet of material, using a pencil or marker, draw the outlines of the sword and cut it out using scissors or a stationery knife.
- Use fine sandpaper to sand the sharp edges.
- We paint the sword (blade and guard - silver, handle - black or dark brown).
- If desired, the blade can be wrapped in foil and the guard made of thin tin.
And this is only the simplest option, and you can find a large number of ideas on the Internet.
Cardboard sword PHOTO: avatars.mds.yandex.net
How to make a sword out of paper
You can also make a sword of any kind for a child from thick Whatman paper or ordinary sheets of A4 office paper, which are sold in any stationery store. You can make weapons together with your child. We invite you to watch a video tutorial on how to easily and quickly, without much effort and expense, make a samurai sword and sheath out of paper for your child.
Samurai sword made of paper for a child
PHOTO: i.ytimg.com
The lightsaber is the weapon of true Jedi
Who, having watched “Star Wars” at least once, did not want to become the owner of a Jedi lightsaber. Previously, one could only dream of this, but today it is quite possible to do it at home. Of course, this is not a real sword, but it’s perfect for the game.
What boy hasn't dreamed of becoming a Jedi and wielding a laser lightsaber? PHOTO: fanparty.ru
First you need to know that the handle has a length of 240-300 mm, and the sword itself is 1000-1300 mm. These are the sizes of the swords used in the filming of the famous film. We make weapons for the child in accordance with his height and as stated at the beginning of the article.
The lightsaber blade is made from a transparent tube (PVC or polycarbonate), in which an LED strip is attached to a special rod. The handle houses a special power supply and batteries. Let's put it all together. In this case, the transparent tube is recessed into the handle by approximately 50-100 mm. If you want the lightsaber to make a characteristic sound, then you can add ARDUINO (a special electronic board, microprocessor, battery and MP3 player) to the circuit.
The video shows how to make a cool Jedi sword. With him you can even fight Darth Vader.
Greetings, brain brothers! Here is a detailed guide on how to create a magnificent Barbarian sword. Not a decorative thing, but a high-quality and beautiful sword!
Since I decided to create the Barbarian sword for myself, I am a hunter by nature, and a lot of time has passed until its implementation. I think this happened not because of a lack of desire, but because a lot of time was spent acquiring materials, necessary equipment, and, of course, knowledge - this I believe is true for many projects.
This tutorial contains over 200 photos, so I won't go into detail about my steps, let the photos speak for themselves.
Design criteria: I wanted to make a beautiful sword, a little in the “fantasy” style, but without losing its properties, that is, it should be durable, functional, made of decent steel and with high-quality detailing of the elements. At the same time, the tools and materials used to make a sword should be accessible to many, and not expensive.
Roughing the Blade: Since I don't have a forge or anvil, I decided that I would carve rather than forge my sword from a strip of metal. As a base, I used 1095 high carbon steel, this is an inexpensive steel recommended for “knife makers.” In general, if you are planning to make a good blade, then it is better to use stainless hardened steel, and if you are planning to use a “wall hanger”, you can use less expensive grades of steel. And also, if you live in a humid climate, then take into account the carbon composition of the steel, since high-carbon steels rust very quickly.
Step 1: Gutter
A groove is a groove running along the length of the blade. You've probably heard another name for it - blood flow, this is not true, since its main purpose is to reduce the weight of the blade. In this case, it is a purely decorative element. I spent a lot more time learning how it was made than making it.
The depth of the groove is chosen relative to the thickness of the blade, and you should not deepen the groove too much, as this will weaken the craft. I made a groove on each side 0.16cm deep, while my sword is 0.5cm thick.
Step 2: Mounting Base
Now we will make a mounting base for the sword and will use it throughout the entire process of creating the sword. It allows you to process the knife more efficiently, grinding, shaping, etc. The blade blade is flexible and soft, so I don’t regret spending time on creating the mounting base, because with it I made a sword of excellent quality.
I made the base itself from scraps of lumber, just slightly shaped the board into a sword shape and installed fasteners.
Step 3: Blade
I sharpened the blade using “old school” technologies - by hand, with a file, without whetstones, grinders or other devices. I spent at least 4 hours on this whole thing, and I think if you do this constantly, you can save on the gym. So, brainiac into your hands!
And some tips:
— if you plan to subsequently harden the blade, then do not sharpen the blade until sharp, leave the cutting edge with a small thickness of 0.07-0.15 cm. This way you will avoid cracks and deformations during the heat treatment process.
— constantly check the correctness of the blade geometry. To do this, it is convenient to shade the initial blade with a marker and mark the boundaries of the blade. I marked the bevel at 45 degrees, and during the sharpening process, when the marker disappeared, I knew for sure that the required sharpening angle had been achieved.
- use different files, both coarse and fine, as some remove a lot and with grooves, while others remove smoothly, but the process is slow.
Step 4: Heat Treatment
As I mentioned, I don't have a forge, so I had to work hard to find a workshop that would temper my sword using the "differential hardening" method. This is an interesting method that is used by Japanese craftsmen to harden katanas. The bottom line is that the blade and the body of the blade are cooled differently, because the body of the blade is coated with clay, which slows down the cooling process. Thus, after heating and cooling, the blade becomes hard but brittle, and the body of the sword is soft and durable. Which is what you need for a great sword.
At least in theory.
Historical home decor is easy to create yourself. Today’s publication will discuss how to make a sword from wood and other materials. The Homius editors will help you get acquainted in detail with some of the design features of this weapon.
PHOTO: dbkcustomswords.com
Anyone can make a bright, elegant and beautiful weapon. However, it is first important to determine exactly which material to choose for the base of the structure. In fact, with turning and carpentry skills, you can create serious weapons for training and collection from metal and wood. Moreover, such copies sell very successfully. Many collectors are ready to buy Hand-Made options.
PHOTO: bloknot-stavropol.ru
Suitable sizes of edged weapons
If you believe the standards that came to us from antiquity, then the length of the sword should be approximately equal to half the height of the warrior. To more accurately determine this, it is necessary to measure the height from the foot to the palm in a lowered position at the seams. If you hold the sword in your hand, bent at the elbow, then its tip should touch the chin.
PHOTO: comp-pro.ru
Be sure to take into account not only the length, but also the width of the future blade. The mass of the finished product is also taken into account.
- The weight of the structure should be no more than 3 kg, otherwise it will be very difficult to control this weapon.
- If the sword is short, then the blade length should be 60-70 cm, for long models - 70-90 cm.
- The width of the handle is 2.5 times the width of the palm, and it should have a comfortable design. The size of the palm is taken specifically from the future owner of the weapon.
In fact, you can take into account a lot of other parameters, but for the production of models from natural wood and metal, these data are quite sufficient. For example, wooden swords for children should be lightweight.
PHOTO: liveinternet.ru
How is balancing done?
Balancing is the same center of gravity that is taken into account in the production of different versions of edged weapons. Mostly it is located in the area where the cutting edge of the blade begins.
If the center of gravity is shifted lower, for example, to the middle of the blade, then the impact force will be small. When the balancing is closer to the handle, controlling a bladed weapon becomes much more difficult.
PHOTO: pikabu.ru
To properly center the sword, you need to hold it on one index finger and move it left and right until the structure is balanced.
How to make a sword out of wood with your own hands
Wooden bladed weapons do not take long to be turned; the main thing is to first prepare all the equipment for the work process. Such options are most often made by grandfathers for their grandchildren for games and training. And if you make a carved sword from a board, it will fit as one of the objects of a historical collection.
PHOTO: whitelynx.ru
What materials and tools should you keep on hand?
As a rule, no special tools are required to make a sword from wood. Usually every man has all this in his household. To carve a sword from wood you will need:
- wood saw or;
- a sharp knife, a simple pencil (preferably a painter's pencil, it's stronger);
- sandpaper;
- tape measure, ruler and measuring tape
- chisel;
- drawing of a sword for sawing out of wood.
PHOTO: rock-cafe.info
Crafting a Weapon Kit
Firstly, to make a wooden sword with your own hands, you must create a template and make blanks using it as an example. This is done as follows.
| Illustration | Description of action |
 | We sand the board well, and then transfer the sketch from the template to its front side. Draw clear lines |
 | Using a jigsaw, we cut out the workpiece along with the handle and the blade itself |
 | Using a chisel, we make the corners on the handle more rounded and symmetrical on both sides. |
 | We sand all corners and cut ends. We completely remove all nicks until the material is completely smooth. |
The part is ready for further processing and finishing touches. Using thinner wood, you can create a wooden sword for children with your own hands.
Final stage: sword assembly
Initially, we will make all the corners more rounded and safer, then we will proceed to the next stage of creating the weapon.
| Illustration | Description of action |
 | Using a chisel, we make a pattern on the handle, thereby separating it from the blade |
 | Additionally, we sand the product and measure the handle to see if it fits the hand. If not, we perform minor trimming with a chisel to optimal parameters. We get the perfect DIY wooden sword holder |
If necessary, you can paint the structure, or attach metal plates of the same type on the sides in place of the handle using.
On a note! If you remember your childhood, most kids and girls made swords from ordinary sticks.
How to make a katana sword with your own hands from metal
Training edged weapons should be used only for their intended purpose. It is necessary to maintain safety during fencing, as this design is dangerous. Only adults work with her.
In order to forge a sword you need:
- sheet of metal (even an old one will do) 3-5 mm thick;
- and a grinding machine;
- vice;
- other tools for metal processing.
You can make an iron sword for fencing with your own hands using a simple algorithm.
| Illustration | Description of action |
 | We make a sketch of the future product on a piece of metal, then cut it out along the contour with a grinder. If there are weld seams on the material, they are sanded. Two identical parts are created and one is flat. These three elements are welded together so that identical parts form a small angle |
 | As a result, this should be the shape of the blade. It is additionally beaten with a hammer to slightly flatten it. The welded handle is ground together with the blade |
 | Then a steel plate is put on the border of the handle and bent using a vice |
 | We create a limiter template and put it on the handle with pre-shaped washers |
 | We create a handle from a wooden block, frame it with metal plates and cover it with leatherette on top |
All that remains is to glue the handle to the sword, making it a braid of red leatherette. This makes it possible to make an almost real sword.
We make a simple sword with our own hands at home: simple ideas that will delight a child
Which boy hasn't dreamed of becoming a real warrior? Believe me, creating a toy sword will bring your child a lot of joy and pleasure from the process. Moreover, the toy will be as safe as possible.
PHOTO: tytrukodelie.ru
DIY plywood sword
Plywood can always be obtained at any hardware store. Working with this material is quite easy, as it has a thin but quite durable texture.
- We prepare a template or drawing on the basis of which we will make a sword with our own hands.
- We redraw it onto a sheet of plywood, and then cut it out with a hand or electric jigsaw.
- Using sandpaper, we sand all the edges well and paint the workpiece.
- Next we treat it with varnish or a waterproofing agent.
- We leave the weapon to dry for several days.
PHOTO: in.pinterest.com
This product looks great not only as a toy, but also as a decorative element. To make a sword at home that looks more impressive, you can make a carved blade, for example, with interesting teeth on the inside.
PHOTO: in.pinterest.com
PHOTO: dxfprojects.com
How to make a sword out of cardboard with your own hands
A cardboard product is made according to the same principle as a plywood product. For the design you will only need packaging boxes from any household appliances. Next, we make edged weapons according to the algorithm.
The Japanese sword leaves few weapon connoisseurs indifferent. Some believe that this is the best sword in history, the unattainable pinnacle of perfection. Others say that this is a mediocre craft that cannot stand comparison with swords of other cultures.
There are also more extreme opinions. Fans may argue that the katana cuts steel, that it cannot be broken, that it is lighter than any European sword of similar dimensions, and so on. Detractors say that the katana is at the same time fragile, soft, short and heavy, that it is an archaic and dead-end branch of the development of edged weapons.
The entertainment industry is on the fans' side. In anime, movies and computer games, Japanese-type swords are often endowed with special properties. The katana can be the best weapon of its class, or it can be the mega sword of the protagonist and/or the villain. Suffice it to recall a couple of Tarantino films. You can also remember the action films about ninjas from the 80s. There are too many examples to seriously mention.
The problem is that, due to the massive pressure of the entertainment industry, some people's filter, designed to separate the real from the fictional, fails. They begin to believe that the katana is truly the best sword, “after all, everyone knows it.” And then a natural desire for the human psyche arises to reinforce one’s point of view. And when such a person encounters criticism from the object of his adoration, he takes it with hostility.
On the other hand, there are people who have knowledge about certain shortcomings of the Japanese sword. Such people often react to fans who uncontrollably praise the katana with initially quite healthy criticism. Most often, in response - remember about the hostile reception - these critics receive an inadequate tub of slop, which often infuriates them. The argumentation on this side also goes towards the absurd: the advantages of the Japanese sword are hushed up, the shortcomings are exaggerated. Critics turn into scolders.
So there is an ongoing war, fueled on the one hand by ignorance, and on the other by intolerance. As a result, most of the available information about the Japanese sword comes from either fans or detractors. Neither one nor the other can be taken seriously.
Where is the truth? What exactly is a Japanese sword, what are its strengths and weaknesses? Let's try to figure it out.
Iron ore mining
It is no secret that swords are made of steel. Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon. Iron comes from ore, carbon comes from wood. In addition to carbon, steel may contain other elements, some of which have a positive effect on the quality of the material, while others have a negative effect.
There are many varieties of iron ore, such as magnetite, hematite, limonite and siderite. They differ, essentially, in impurities. In any case, the ores contain iron oxides, and not pure iron, so iron always has to be reduced from the oxides. Pure iron, not in the form of oxides and without significant amounts of impurities, is extremely rare in nature, not on an industrial scale. These are mainly fragments of meteorites.
In medieval Japan, iron ore was obtained from so-called iron sand or satetsu (砂鉄), containing grains of magnetite (Fe3O4). Iron sand is still an important source of ore today. Magnetite from sand is mined, for example, in Australia, including for export to Japan, where iron ore has long since run out.
You need to understand that other types of ore are no better than iron sand. For example, in medieval Europe, an important source of iron was bog ore, bog iron, containing goethite (FeO(OH)). There are also many non-metallic impurities there, and they need to be separated in the same way. Therefore, in a historical context, it is not very important what kind of ore was used to make steel. What is more important is how it was processed before and after smelting.
The controversy over the quality of the Japanese sword begins with a discussion of ore. Fans claim that satetsu ore is very pure and makes very advanced steel. Detractors say that when ore is mined from sand, it is impossible to get rid of impurities, and the resulting steel is of low quality, with a large number of inclusions. Who is right?
It’s paradoxical, but both are right! But not at the same time.
Modern methods of purifying magnetite from impurities actually make it possible to obtain very pure iron oxide powder. Therefore, the same swamp ore is commercially less interesting than magnetite sand. The problem is that these cleaning methods use powerful electromagnets that are relatively new.
The medieval Japanese had to either make do with clever methods of cleaning the sand using coastal waves, or separate grains of magnetite from the sand by hand. In any case, if you mine and refine magnetite using truly traditional methods, you will not get pure ore. There will remain quite a lot of sand, that is, silicon dioxide (SiO2), and other impurities.
The statement “Japan had bad ore, and therefore the steel for Japanese swords is by definition of low quality” is incorrect. Yes, Japan actually had less iron ore than Europe. But qualitatively it was no better and no worse than the European one. In both Japan and Europe, in order to obtain high-quality steel, metallurgists had to get rid of impurities that inevitably remained after smelting in a special way. For this, very similar processes were used, based on forging welding (but more on that later).
Therefore, statements such as “satetsu is a very pure ore” are true only in relation to magnetite, separated from impurities by modern methods. In historical times it was a dirty ore. When modern Japanese make their swords in the “traditional way,” they are lying because the ore for these swords is refined with magnets, not by hand. So these are no longer traditional steel swords, since the raw materials used for them are of a higher quality. Gunsmiths, of course, can be understood: there is no practical sense in using obviously inferior raw materials.
Ore: conclusion
Steel for nihonto, produced before the industrial revolution came to Japan, was made from ore that was dirty by modern standards. The steel for all modern nihonto, even those forged in the most remote and authentic Japanese villages, is made from pure ore.
If sufficiently advanced steel smelting technologies are available, the quality of the ore is not particularly important, since impurities will be easily separated from the iron. However, historically in Japan, as in medieval Europe, there were no such technologies. The fact is that the temperature at which pure iron melts is approximately 1539° C. In reality, you need to reach even higher temperatures, with a margin. It’s impossible to do this “on your knees”; you need a blast furnace.
Without relatively new technologies, achieving temperatures sufficient to melt iron is very difficult. Only a few cultures were able to do this. For example, high-quality steel ingots were produced in India, and merchants were already transporting them all the way to Scandinavia. In Europe, they learned to normally reach the required temperatures somewhere around the 15th century. In China, the first blast furnaces were built as early as the 5th century BC, but the technology did not spread outside the country.
The traditional Japanese cheese oven, tatara (鑪), was a fairly advanced device for its time. She coped with the task of obtaining the so-called tamahagane (玉鋼), “diamond steel.” However, the temperature that could be reached in Tatar did not exceed 1500 ° C. This is more than enough to reduce iron from its oxides, but not enough for complete melting.
Complete melting is necessary primarily to separate out the undesirable impurities inevitably contained in traditionally mined ore. For example, sand releases oxygen when heated and turns into silicon. This silicon turns out to be imprisoned somewhere inside the iron. If iron becomes completely liquid, then unwanted impurities like silicon simply float to the surface. From there they can be scooped out with a spoon or left so that they can later be removed from the cooled pig.
Iron smelting in the Tatar, as in most similar ancient furnaces, was not complete. Therefore, the impurities did not float to the surface in the form of slag, but remained in the thickness of the metal.
It should be mentioned that not all impurities are equally harmful. For example, nickel or chromium make stainless steel, while vanadium is used in modern tool steel. These are so-called alloying additives, the benefit of which will be at a very low content, usually measured in fractions of a percent.
In addition, carbon should not be considered an impurity at all when it comes to steel, because steel is an alloy of iron and carbon in a certain proportion, as noted earlier. However, when melting in Tatar we are dealing not only and not so much with alloying additives of the type mentioned above. Slag remains in the steel, mainly in the form of silicon, magnesium, and so on. These substances, as well as their oxides, are significantly worse in terms of hardness and strength characteristics than steel. Steel without slag will always be better than steel with slag.
Steelmaking: conclusion
Nihonto steel, smelted using traditional methods from traditionally mined ore, contains a significant amount of slag. This degrades its quality compared to steel produced using modern technologies. If you take modern, pure ore, the resulting “almost traditional” steel will turn out to be of noticeably higher quality than truly traditional steel.
The Japanese sword is made from a traditionally prepared steel called tamahagane. The blade contains carbon in different concentrations in different areas. The steel is folded in several layers and is zone hardened. These are widely known facts; you can read about them in almost any popular article about the katana. Let's try to find out what this means and what impact it has.
To get answers to these questions, you will need an excursion into metallurgy. We won't go into too much depth. Many nuances are not mentioned in this article; some points are deliberately simplified.
Material properties
Why are swords even made of steel and not, say, wood or cotton candy? Because steel as a material has more suitable properties for creating swords. Moreover, for creating swords, steel has the most suitable properties of all materials available to mankind.
Not much is required from a sword. It should be strong, sharp and not too heavy. But all three of these properties are absolutely necessary! A sword that is not strong enough will quickly break, leaving its owner without protection. A sword that is not sharp enough will be ineffective in causing damage to the enemy and will also not be able to protect its owner. A sword that is too heavy, at best, will quickly exhaust the owner, and at worst, it will be completely unsuitable for combat.
Now let's look at these properties in detail.
During operation, swords are subject to powerful physical impacts. What will happen to the blade if you hit it on a target, whatever it may be? The result depends on what the target is and how you hit it. But it also depends on the design of the blade with which we hit.
First of all, the sword must not break, that is, it must be durable. Strength is the ability of objects not to break from internal stresses arising under the influence of external forces. The strength of a sword is mainly influenced by two components: geometry and material.
With geometry, everything is generally clear: a crowbar is more difficult to break than a wire. However, the crowbar is much heavier, and this is not always desirable, so you have to resort to tricks that minimize the weight of the weapon while maintaining maximum strength. By the way, you can immediately notice that all types of steel have approximately the same density: approximately 7.86 g/cm3. Therefore, reducing mass is achievable only by geometry. We'll talk about it later, for now let's move on to the material.
In addition to strength, hardness is important for a sword, that is, the ability of the material not to deform under external influence. A sword that is not hard enough can be very strong, but it will not be able to stab or cut. An example of such a material is rubber. A sword made of rubber is almost impossible to break, although it can be cut - again the lack of hardness affects it. But more importantly, its blade is too soft. Even if you make a “sharp” rubber blade, it can only cut cotton candy, that is, an even less hard material. When trying to cut even wood, a blade made of a sharp but soft material will simply bend to the side.
But firmness is not always useful. Often, instead of hardness, plasticity is needed, that is, the ability of a body to deform without self-destruction. For clarity, let’s take two materials: one with a very low hardness - the same rubber, and the other with a very high hardness - glass. In rubber or leather boots, which dynamically bend with your foot, you can walk calmly, but in glass boots, you just can’t. A glass shard can cut rubber, but a rubber ball will easily break window glass without causing injury.
A material cannot simultaneously have high hardness and at the same time be plastic. The fact is that when deformed, a body made of solid material does not change shape, like rubber or plasticine. Instead, it first resists and then breaks, splitting - because it needs somewhere to put the strain energy that accumulates in it, and it is not able to extinguish this energy in a less extreme way.
At low hardness, the molecules that make up the material are not tightly bound. They move calmly relative to each other. Some soft materials return to their original shape after deformation, others do not. Elasticity is the property of returning to its original shape. For example, stretched rubber will come back together unless you overdo it, and plasticine will retain the shape that it is given. Accordingly, rubber deforms elastically, and plasticine deforms plastically. By the way, solid materials are more elastic than plastic: at first they do not deform, then they deform slightly elastically (if you let go here, they will return to shape), and then they break.
Types of steel
As mentioned above, steel is an alloy of iron and carbon. More precisely, it is an alloy containing from 0.1 to 2.14% carbon. Less is iron. More, up to 6.67% – cast iron. The more carbon, the higher the hardness and the lower the ductility of the alloy. And the lower the ductility, the higher the fragility.
In reality, of course, everything is not so simple. It is possible to obtain high-carbon steel that will be more ductile than low-carbon steel, and vice versa. There is much more to metallurgy than one iron-carbon diagram. But we have already agreed to simplify.
Steel containing very little carbon is ferrite. What is “very little”? Depends on various factors, primarily temperature. At room temperature, this is somewhere up to half a percent, but you need to understand that you should not look for excessive clarity in an analog world full of smooth gradients. Ferrite is close in properties to pure iron: it has low hardness, is deformed plastically and is ferromagnetic, that is, it is attracted to magnets.
When heated, steel changes phase: ferrite turns into austenite. The easiest way to determine whether a heated steel workpiece has reached the austenite phase is to hold a magnet close to it. Unlike ferrite, austenite does not have ferromagnetic properties.
Austenite differs from ferrite in having a different crystal lattice structure: it is wider than that of ferrite. Everyone remembers about thermal expansion, right? This is where it shows up. Thanks to the wider lattice, austenite becomes transparent to individual carbon atoms, which can, to a certain extent, travel freely within the material, ending up right inside the cells.
Of course, if you heat the steel even higher, until it completely melts, then carbon will travel in the liquid even more freely. But now this is not so important, especially since with the traditional Japanese method of producing steel, complete melting does not occur.
As molten steel cools, it first becomes hard austenite and then changes back to ferrite. But this is a general case for “ordinary” carbon steels. If you add nickel or chromium to steel in an amount of 8-10%, then upon cooling the crystal lattice will remain austenitic. This is how stainless steels are made, in fact alloys of steel with other metals. As a rule, they are inferior to ordinary alloys of iron and carbon in terms of hardness and strength, so swords are made of “rusting” steel.
With modern metallurgical technologies, it is quite possible to obtain stainless steel comparable in hardness and strength to high-quality samples of historical carbon steel. Although modern carbon steel will still be better than modern stainless steel. But, in my opinion, the main reason for the lack of stainless steel swords is market inertia: gunsmiths’ clients do not want to purchase swords made of “weak” stainless steel, plus many value authenticity - despite the fact that this is essentially fiction, as discussed in the previous article .
Getting Tamahagane
We take iron ore (satetsu magnetite) and bake it. We would like to completely melt it, but it won’t work – the Tatara can’t handle it. But nothing. We heat it, bring it to the austenitic phase and continue heating until it stops. We add carbon by simply pouring coal into the stove. Add satetsu again and continue baking. It is still possible to melt some of the steel, but not all. Then let the material cool.
As the steel cools, it tries to change phase, turning from austenite to ferrite. But we added a significant amount of unevenly distributed coal! Carbon atoms, which moved freely inside liquid iron and normally existed inside a wide austenite lattice, when compressed and changed phase, begin to be squeezed out of a narrower ferrite lattice. It’s okay from the surface, there is somewhere to squeeze out, just into the air - and that’s good. But in the thickness of the material there is nowhere to go.
As a result of the transition of iron from austenite, part of the cooled steel will no longer be ferrite, but cementite, or iron carbide Fe3C. Compared to ferrite, it is a very hard and brittle material. Pure cementite contains 6.67% carbon. We can say that this is “maximum cast iron”. If there is more carbon in any part of the alloy than 6.67%, then it will not be able to disperse into iron carbide. In this case, the carbon will remain in the form of graphite inclusions without reacting with the iron.
When the tatara cools, a steel block weighing about two tons forms at its bottom. The steel in this block is not uniform. In those areas where satetsu borders on coal, there will not even be steel, but cast iron containing a large amount of cementite. In the depths of the satetsu, far from the coal, there will be ferrite. In the transition from ferrite to cast iron there are various structures of iron-carbon alloys, which for simplicity can be defined as pearlite.
Perlite is a mixture of ferrite and cementite. During cooling and the phase transition from austenite to ferrite, as already mentioned, carbon is squeezed out of the crystal lattice. But in the thickness of the material there is nowhere to squeeze it out, only from one place to another. Due to various inhomogeneities during cooling, it turns out that part of the lattice squeezes out this carbon, turning into ferrite, and the other part accepts, turning into cementite.
When cut, perlite looks like zebra skin: a sequence of light and dark stripes. Most often, cementite is perceived as whiter than dark gray ferrite, although this all depends on lighting and viewing conditions. If there is enough carbon in pearlite, then the striped areas will be combined with purely ferritic ones. But this is all perlite too, just low-carbon.
The furnace walls are destroyed and the steel block is broken into pieces. These pieces are gradually crushed into very small pieces, meticulously inspected, and, if possible, cleaned of slag and excess carbon-graphite. Then they are heated to a soft state and flattened, resulting in flat ingots of arbitrary shape, reminiscent of coins. During the process, the material is sorted by quality and carbon content. The highest quality pieces of coins go to the production of swords, the rest go anywhere. With carbon content, everything is quite simple.
Ferrite obtained from tamahagane is called hocho-tetsu (包丁鉄) in Japanese. The correct English notation is “houchou-tetsu” or “hōchō-tetsu”, possibly without the hyphen. If you search as “hocho-tetsu” you won’t find anything good.
Perlite is precisely tamahagane. More precisely, the word “tamahagane” refers to both the resulting steel as a whole and its pearlite component.
Hard cast iron made from tamahagane is called nabe-gane (鍋がね). Although there are several names for cast iron and its derivatives in Japanese: nabe-gane, sentetsu (銑鉄), chutetsu (鋳鉄). If you are interested, then you can figure out for yourself when which of these words is correct to use. Not the most important thing in our business, to be honest.
The traditional Japanese method of steel smelting is not something highly sophisticated. It does not completely eliminate the toxins that are inevitably present in traditionally mined ore. However, it copes well with the main task - producing steel. The output is small pieces of iron-carbon alloys, similar to coins, with varying carbon content. Various types of alloys are involved in the further production of the sword, from soft and ductile ferrite to hard and brittle cast iron.
Composite steel
Almost all technological processes for producing steel for the production of swords, including Japanese, produce steel of different grades, with different carbon content, and so on. Some varieties are more hard and brittle, others are soft and flexible. Gunsmiths wanted to combine the hardness of high-carbon steel with the strength of low-carbon steel. So, independently of each other, in different parts of the world, the idea of producing swords from composite steel appeared.
Among fanatics of Japanese swords, the fact that the objects of their veneration were traditionally made in this way, from “many layers of steel”, is extolled as some kind of achievement that distinguishes the Japanese sword from other, “primitive” types of weapons. Let's try to figure out why this view of things is wrong.
Elements of technology
The general principle: pieces of steel of the desired shape are taken, assembled in one way or another and welded by forging. To do this, they are heated to a soft, but not liquid state, and driven into each other with a sledgehammer.
Assembly (piling)
The actual formation of a workpiece from pieces of material, most often with different characteristics. The pieces are welded by forging.
Typically, rods or strips are used along the entire length of the product so as not to create weak points along the length. But you can assemble it in different ways.
Random structural assembly is the most primitive method in which pieces of metal of arbitrary shape are assembled at random. A random-structural assembly is usually also a random-compositional one.
Random compositional assembly - with such swords it is not possible to identify a meaningful strategy for distributing strips of material with different carbon and/or phosphorus content.
Phosphorus has not been mentioned before. This additive is both beneficial and harmful, depending on the concentration and type of steel. For the purposes of this article, the properties of phosphorus in alloys with steel are not particularly important. But in the context of assembly, it is important that the presence of phosphorus changes the visible color of the material, or more precisely, its reflective properties. More on this later.
Structural assembly is the opposite of random structural assembly. The strips from which the workpiece is assembled have clear geometric outlines. There is a certain intention in the formation of the structure. However, such blades can still be randomly composed.
Composite assembly is an attempt to intelligently arrange different grades of steel in different areas of the blade - for example, creating a hard blade and a soft core. Composite assemblies are always structural.
It is worth mentioning exactly what structures were usually formed.
The simplest option is to stack three or more strips, with the top and bottom strips forming the surface of the blade, and the middle strip forming its core. But there was also its complete opposite, when the workpiece was assembled from five or more rods lying nearby. The outer rods form the blades, and everything between them forms the core. Intermediate, more complex options were also encountered.
For Japanese swords, assembly is a very common technique. Although not all Japanese swords were assembled in the same way, and not all of them were assembled at all. In modern times, the most common option is the following: the blade is hard steel, the core and back are soft steel, the side planes are medium steel. This variant is called sanmai or honsanmai, and it can be considered a kind of standard. When we talk about the structure of a Japanese sword in the future, we will have in mind just such an assembly.
But, unlike modern times, most historical swords have a kobuse structure: a soft core and back, a hard blade and side planes. They are indeed followed by sanmai swords, then by a large margin - maru, that is, swords not made of composite steel, just hard. Other tricky options, such as Orikaeshi Sanmai or Soshu Kitae, attributed to the legendary blacksmith Masamuna, exist in homeopathic doses and are mostly simply the products of experimentation.
Folding
It involves folding a fairly thinly flattened piece in half, heated to a soft state.
This element of technology, together with its manifestation from the next paragraph, is probably promoted more than others as the basis for the perfection of Japanese swords. Everyone has probably heard about the hundreds of layers of steel that Japanese swords are made of? So here it is. Take one layer and fold it in half. It's already two. Double again - four. And so on, in powers of two. 27=128 layers. Nothing special.
Fagging
Homogenization of material through repeated folding.
Bunching is necessary when the material is far from perfect - that is, when working with traditionally obtained steel. In fact, by “special Japanese folding” they mean stacking, because it is to remove impurities and homogenize slag that Japanese sword blanks are folded about 10 times. When folded ten times, the result is 1024 layers, so thin that they are no longer there - the metal becomes homogeneous.
Bagging allows you to get rid of impurities. With each thinning of the workpiece, more of its contents become part of the surface. The temperature at which all this happens is very high. As a result, some of the slag burns out, contacting oxygen in the air. Unburned pieces from repeated processing with a sledgehammer are sprayed in a relatively even concentration throughout the entire workpiece. And this is better than having one specific large weakness somewhere in a certain place.
However, bundling also has its downsides.
Firstly, the slag, consisting of oxides, does not burn out - it has already burned out. This slag partially remains inside the workpiece, and it is impossible to get rid of it.
Secondly, carbon burns out along with unwanted impurities when folding steel. This can and should be taken into account when using cast iron as a raw material for future hard steel, and hard steel for future soft steel. However, it’s already clear here that you can’t endlessly batch - you’ll end up with iron.
Thirdly, in addition to the slag, at the temperatures at which folding and packaging takes place, the iron itself burns, that is, oxidizes. It is necessary to remove iron oxide flakes that appear on the surface before folding the workpiece, otherwise a defect will result.
Fourthly, with each subsequent folding, the iron becomes less and less. Some of it burns, going into oxide, and some of it just falls off the edges or needs to be cut off. Therefore, it is necessary to immediately calculate how much more material will be needed. But it's not free.
Fifthly, the surface on which packaging is performed cannot be sterile, and neither can the air in the forge. With each folding, new impurities enter the workpiece. That is, up to a certain point, packaging reduces the percentage of contamination, but then begins to increase it.
Taking into account the above, it can be understood that folding and packaging is not some kind of super technology that allows you to obtain some unprecedented properties from metal. This is just a way to, to a certain extent, get rid of the defects of the material inherent in traditional methods of producing it.
Why aren't swords cast?
In many fantasy films, a beautiful montage shows the process of making a sword, usually for the main character or, conversely, for some evil antagonists. A common image from this montage: molten orange metal being poured into an open mold. Let's look at why this doesn't happen.
Firstly, molten steel has a temperature of about 1600° C. This means that it will not glow a soft orange, but a very bright yellowish-white color. In the movies, some alloys of soft and more fusible metals are poured into molds.
Secondly, if you pour the metal into an open mold, the top side will remain flat. Bronze swords were indeed cast, but in closed molds, consisting, as it were, of two halves - not a flat saucer, but a deep and narrow glass.
Thirdly, in the movie it is meant that after hardening the sword already has its final shape and, in general, is ready. However, the material obtained in this way, without further processing by forging, will be too fragile for weapons. Bronze is more ductile and softer than steel; everything is fine with cast bronze blades. But the steel billet will have to be forged long and hard, radically changing its size and shape. This means that the workpiece for further forging should not have the shape of the finished product.
In principle, you can pour molten steel into the form of a workpiece with the expectation of further deformation from forging, but in this case the distribution of carbon inside the blade will turn out to be very uniform or, at least, difficult to control - as much liquid as was in the frozen area, so much will remain. In addition, let us remember that completely melting steel is a very non-trivial task, one that few people solved in pre-industrial times. That's why no one did that.
Composite steel: output
The technological elements of composite steel production are not something complicated or secret. The main advantage of using these technologies is that they compensate for the shortcomings of the source material, making it possible to obtain a completely usable sword from low-quality traditional steel. There are many options for assembling a sword, more and less successful.
Types of composite steel
Composite steel is an excellent solution that allows you to assemble a very high-quality sword from mediocre starting materials. There are other solutions, but we'll talk about them later. Now let's figure out where and when composite steel was used, and how exclusive is this technology for Japanese swords?
Quite a lot of examples of ancient steel swords from Northern Europe have survived to the present day. We are talking about truly ancient weapons, made 400-200 BC. These are the times of Alexander the Great and the Roman Republic. The Yayoi period began in Japan, bronze blades and spear tips were in use, social differentiation appeared and the first proto-state formations arose.
Research into these ancient Celtic swords has shown that hammer welding was in use even back then. At the same time, the distribution of hard and soft material was quite diverse. Apparently this was an era of empirical experimentation, since it was not entirely clear which options were more useful.
For example, one of the options is completely wild. The central part of the sword was a thin strip of steel, onto which strips of iron were riveted on all sides, forming the surface planes and the blades themselves. So yes, a hard core with soft blades. This can only be explained by the fact that the soft blade is easy to straighten with a hammer at rest, and the hard core, made of steel with still not too much carbon content, keeps the sword from deforming. Or the fact that the blacksmith was not himself.
But more often, Celtic blacksmiths simply haphazardly folded strips of iron and mild steel, or did not bother with multi-layering at all. At that time, too little knowledge was accumulated to form specific traditions. For example, no traces of hardening were found, and this is a very important point in the production of a high-quality sword.
In principle, on the issue of the exclusivity of composite steel for Japanese swords, we could end here. But let's continue, the topic is interesting.
Roman swords
Roman writers mocked the quality of Celtic swords, claiming that their domestic ones were much cooler. Surely not all of these statements were based solely on propaganda. Although, of course, the successes of the Roman military machine were mainly due not to the quality of equipment, but to general superiority in training, tactics, logistics, and so on.
Composite steel was, of course, used in Roman swords, and in a much more orderly manner than in Celtic ones. There was already an understanding that the blade should be rather hard, and the core should be rather soft. In addition, many Roman swords were hardened.
At least one blacksmith working around 50 AD used all the components of a perfect composite steel in his production. He selected different types of steel, homogenized them by multi-layer hammering, intelligently collected strips of hard and soft steel, forged it well into one product, knew how to harden and either used tempering or hardened very precisely, without overdoing it.
The Yayoi period continued in Japan. About 700-900 years passed before the original traditions of producing steel swords of the Japanese type known to us appeared there.
The traditions of producing Roman swords, despite the presence of all the necessary knowledge, were not perfect at the beginning of our era. There was a lack of some kind of systematicity, an explanation for the results of empirical observations. This was not engineering work, but almost biological evolution with mutations and culling of unsuccessful results. Nevertheless, taking all this into account, the Romans produced very high-quality swords for several centuries in a row. The barbarians who conquered the Roman Empire adopted and subsequently improved their technology.
Somewhere between 300 and 100 BC, Celtic blacksmiths developed a technology called pattern welding. Many swords have come down to us from Northern Europe, made in 200-800 AD in Northern Europe using this technology. Pattern welding was used by both the Celts and Romans, and, later, almost all residents of Europe. Only with the advent of the Viking era did this fashion end, giving way to simple and practical products.
Swords forged with pattern welding look very unusual. In principle, it is quite easy to understand how to achieve such an effect. We take several (many) thin rods consisting of different types of steel. They may vary in the amount of carbon, but the best visual effect comes from adding phosphorus to some of the rods: this steel turns out whiter than usual. We collect this thing into a bundle, heat it and twist it into a spiral. Then we make a second similar bundle, but we launch the spiral in the other direction. We cut the spirals into parallelepiped bars, weld them by forging and give them the desired shape, flattening them. As a result, after polishing, parts of rods of one type or another will appear on the surface of the sword - respectively, of different colors.
But actually doing such a thing is very difficult. Especially if you are not interested in chaotic stripes, but in some beautiful ornament. In fact, not just any rods are used, but pre-packaged (folded and forged a dozen times) thin layers of different grades of steel, carefully assembled into a kind of layer cake. On the sides of the final structure, rods of ordinary hard steel are riveted to form the blades. In particularly advanced cases, several flat plates with ornaments were made, which were riveted to the core of the blade made of medium steel. And so on.
It looked very colorful and joyful. There are a lot of technical nuances that are not important for understanding the general essence, but are necessary for the production of a real product. One mistake, one element of metal in the wrong place, one extra blow with a hammer that spoils the drawing - and everything is lost, the artistic intent is ruined.
But one and a half thousand years ago they somehow managed.
The influence of pattern welding on the properties of a sword
It is now believed that this technology does not provide any advantages over conventional high-quality composite steel, other than aesthetic ones. However, there is one significant caveat.
Obviously, creating a sword decorated with pattern welding is much more expensive and labor-intensive than making just an ordinary sword, even one with a full-fledged compositional assembly, but without all these decorative bells and whistles. So, this complication and rise in price of the product led to the fact that blacksmiths behaved much more carefully and thoughtfully when making weapons with pattern welding. The technology itself does not provide any advantages, but the fact of its use led to increased control at all stages of the process.
It’s not particularly scary to ruin an ordinary sword; anything can happen in production; a certain percentage of defects is acceptable and inevitable. But to screw up a job that went into a blade with pattern welding is a shame. That is why swords with pattern welding were, on average, of higher quality than ordinary swords, and the technology of pattern welding itself had only an indirect relationship to quality.
This same nuance should be kept in mind when it comes to any such fancy technology that magically improves the quality of a weapon. Most often, the secret is not in decorative tricks, but in increased quality control.
It's no secret that people often use certain words without understanding their meaning. For example, the so-called “Damascus” or “Damascus” steel has nothing to do with the capital of Syria. Someone illiterate once decided something for himself, and others repeated it. The version “blades made of steel of this variety came to Europe from Syria” does not stand up to criticism, since steel of this variety would not surprise anyone in Europe.
What is meant by “Damascus”?
In most cases - variations on the theme of patterned weaving. It is not at all necessary to stop at a “puff pastry” of thin layers of steel with different contents of carbon and phosphorus. Blacksmiths in different parts of the world came up with very diverse ways to achieve a beautiful visual effect on the surface of expensive blades. For example, in modern times, when they want to get “Damascus”, they usually do not use phosphorus steel and soft iron, since these materials are not very good. Instead, you can take normal carbon steel and add manganese, titanium and other alloying additives. Steel, alloyed with understanding and/or according to a competent recipe, will not be worse than ordinary carbon steel, but may differ visually.
Speaking about the quality of weapons made from such steel, we remember the reasons for the high quality of swords with pattern welding. Expensive, beautiful swords were made carefully and carefully. It would be possible to make the same quality sword out of “regular” steel, without all those fancy designs, but it would be harder to sell for very big money.
Bulat
There are probably no fewer legends associated with damask steel than with Japanese swords. And even more. Absolutely unimaginable properties are attributed to it, and it is believed that no one knows the secrets of its manufacture. An unprepared mind, when confronted with such tales, becomes foggy and begins to wander dreamily, in especially difficult cases reaching ideas like “I wish I could learn how to make damask steel and make tank armor from it!”
Bulat is a crucible steel made in ancient times using various tricks to bring the iron-carbon mixture to melt and not turn it into cast iron. Crucible means completely melted in a crucible, a ceramic pot that isolates it from fuel decomposition products and other contaminants inside the furnace.
It is important. Damask steel, unlike “ordinary” steel, is not simply somehow restored from oxides by prolonged baking, like Tamahagane and other ancient types of steel from cheese-blowing furnaces, but brought to a liquid state. Complete melting makes it easy to get rid of unwanted impurities. Almost everyone.
The iron-carbon diagram is indispensable here. We are not interested in all of it now, we are only looking at the top part.
The curved line going from A to B and then to C indicates the temperature at which the iron-carbon mass completely melts. Not just iron, but iron with carbon. Because, as can be seen from the diagram, when carbon is added up to 4.3% (eutectic, “easy melting”) the melting point drops.
Ancient blacksmiths could not heat their stoves to 1540° C. But up to 1200° C was enough. But it is enough to heat iron with 4.3% carbon to approximately 1150 ° C to obtain a liquid! But, unfortunately, when solidified, the eutectic mixture is completely unsuitable for the production of swords. Because what you get is not steel, but brittle cast iron, from which you can’t even forge anything - it simply breaks into pieces.
But let's take a closer look at the process of solidification of liquid steel, that is, crystallization. Here we have a pot, closed with a lid with a small hole for venting gases. A molten mixture of iron and carbon splashes in it in a proportion close to eutectic. We took the pot out of the oven and left it to cool. If you think a little, it will become obvious that the solidification will be uneven. First, the pot itself will cool, then the part of the melt adjacent to its walls will cool, and only gradually the solidification and formation of crystals will reach the center of the mixture.
Somewhere near the inner wall of the pot, an irregularity occurs and a crystal begins to form. This happens at many points at once, but we are now concerned about one, any of them. It is the eutectic mixture that hardens most easily, but the distribution of carbon in the mixture is not entirely uniform. And the hardening process makes it even less uniform.
Let's look at the diagram again. From point C, the melting line goes both to the right, to D - the melting point of cementite - and to the left, to B and A. When a certain area solidified first, it can be assumed that it was the eutectic proportion that solidified. The crystal begins to spread, “absorbing” the easily solidifying mixture with 4.3% carbon.
But in addition to the eutectic regions, our melt also contains regions with a different proportion, more refractory. And, if we haven’t gone too far with carbon, then it’s more likely that these will be more refractory areas with a lower carbon content than vice versa. Moreover: the solidifying crystal “steals” carbon from neighboring areas of the molten mixture. Therefore, as a result, the further away from the walls of the vessel, the less carbon there will be in the frozen pig.
Unfortunately, if you do everything as is, you will still end up with cast iron, from which it is not possible to isolate possible small areas of steel suitable for forging. But you can be more cunning. There are so-called fluxes or fluxes, substances that, when added to a mixture, reduce its melting point. Moreover, some of them, such as manganese, in reasonable proportions are an additive that improves the properties of steel.
Now there is hope! And rightly so. So, we take the iron obtained previously in a cheese-blowing oven like the same Tatara that everyone had. We crush it as finely as possible. Ideally, it would be reduced to a state of dust, but this is very difficult to achieve with ancient technologies, so it is as it is. We add carbon to the iron: you can use either ready-made coal or unburned plant matter. Don't forget the correct amount of flux. We distribute all this in a certain way inside the crucible pot. How exactly depends on the recipe, there may be different options.
Using these and some other tricks, after melting and proper cooling in the central part of the crucible mass, the carbon content can be increased to 2%. Strictly speaking, it's still cast iron. But with the help of certain tricks, which are completely unnecessary to talk about here, ancient metallurgists obtained interesting structures for the distribution of crystals in this 2% material, which made it possible, with certain difficulties and precautions, to forge swords from it.
This is damask steel - very hard, very brittle, but much more durable than cast iron. Containing virtually no unnecessary impurities. In comparison with raw steel such as Tamahagane, yes, damask steel had certain interesting properties, and a specially trained blacksmith could create an impressive weapon from it. Moreover, this weapon, like almost all swords since Celtic times, was composite, including not only crucible damask steel, but also good old strips of relatively soft material.
More advanced smelting processes, which can heat the furnace to 1540°C or higher, simply eliminate the need for damask steel. There is nothing mythical about it. In the 19th century in Russia it was produced for some time, out of historical nostalgia, and then abandoned. Now it is also possible to produce it, but no one really needs it.
Carolingian-type swords, often called Viking swords, were common throughout Europe from 800 to about 1050. The name “Viking sword,” which has become a commonly used term in modern times, does not correctly convey the origin of this weapon. The Vikings were not the authors of the design of this sword - it logically evolves from the Roman gladius through the spatha and the so-called Wendel-type sword.
The Vikings were not the only users of this type of weapon - it was distributed throughout Europe. And finally, the Vikings were not seen either in the mass production of such swords, or in the creation of any particularly outstanding specimens - the best “Viking swords” were forged in the territory of future France and Germany, and the Vikings preferred imported swords. They imported, of course, robbery.
But the term “Viking sword” is common, understandable and convenient. Therefore, we will use it too.
Pattern welding was not used in swords of this era, so compositional assembly became easier. But it was not degradation, but the opposite. Viking swords were made entirely of carbon steel. Neither soft iron nor steel with a high phosphorus content was used. Forging technologies had already reached perfection during the period of pattern welding, and there was nowhere to develop in this direction. Therefore, development moved towards improving the quality of the starting material - technologies for producing the steel itself developed.
During this era, weapon hardening became widespread. Early swords were also hardened, but not always. The problem was the material. All-steel blades made from high-quality prepared metal could already be guaranteed to withstand hardening according to some reasonable recipes, whereas in earlier times the imperfection of the metal could fail the blacksmith at the very last moment.
The blades of Viking swords differed from older weapons not only in material, but also in geometry. The fuller was used everywhere to lighten the sword. The blade had a lateral and distal narrowing, that is, it was narrower and thinner near the tip and, accordingly, wider and thicker near the cross. These geometric techniques, combined with more advanced material, made it possible to make a solid all-steel blade quite strong and at the same time light.
In the future, composite steel in Europe did not disappear anywhere. Moreover, from time to time, long-forgotten pattern welding emerged from oblivion. For example, in the 19th century, a kind of “renaissance of the early Middle Ages” arose, within the framework of which even firearms, not to mention bladed ones, were made by pattern welding.
So what's in Japan? Nothing special.
Fragments of the future workpiece are packaged from pieces of steel coins with different carbon contents. Then a blank of one or another composition is assembled and given the desired shape. Next, the blade is hardened and then polished - we'll talk about these steps later. Moreover, if we measure manufacturability, then in terms of the “technological level” of the material, damask steel beats everyone, including the Japanese. In terms of assembly perfection, pattern welding is no worse, if not better.
At the stage of assembly and actual forging of the sword, there is no specificity that makes it possible to distinguish Japanese blades from the weapons of other cultures and eras.
Composite steel: another conclusion
Steel baling, which produces a homogeneous material with an acceptable quantity and distribution of slag, has been used throughout the world almost since the beginning of the Iron Age. A well-thought-out composite blade assembly appeared in Europe no later than two thousand years ago. It is the combination of these two techniques that gives the legendary “multi-layer steel”, from which, of course, Japanese swords are made - like many other swords from all over the world.
Quenching and tempering
After a blade has been forged from one steel or another, the work on it is not completed. There is a very interesting way to obtain a material much harder than ordinary perlite, from which the blade of a more or less perfect sword is made. This method is called hardening.
You've probably seen in movies how a hot blade is dipped into a liquid, it hisses and boils, and the blade quickly cools down. This is what hardening is. Now let's try to understand what happens to the material. We can look again at the already familiar iron-carbon diagram, this time we are interested in the lower left corner.
For further hardening, the blade steel must be heated to an austenitic state. The line from G to S represents the austenite transition temperature of normal steel, without too much carbon. It can be seen that further from S to E the line grows steeply upward, that is, with excessive addition of carbon to the composition, the task becomes more complicated - but in almost any case this is already excessively brittle cast iron, so we are talking about lower concentrations of carbon. If the steel contains from 0 to 1.2% carbon, then the transition to the austenitic state is achieved at temperatures up to 911 ° C. For a composition with a carbon content of 0.5 to 0.9%, a temperature of 769 ° C is sufficient.
In modern conditions, measuring the temperature of a workpiece is quite easy - there are thermometers. In addition, austenite, unlike ferrite, is not magnetic, so you can simply apply a magnet to the workpiece and, when it stops sticking, it will become clear that this is steel in the austenitic state. But in the Middle Ages, blacksmiths did not have thermometers or sufficient knowledge about the magnetic properties of the various phases of steel. Therefore, we had to measure the temperature by eye in the literal sense of the word. A body heated to a temperature above 500° C begins to emit radiation in the visible spectrum. Based on the color of the radiation, it is quite possible to approximately determine body temperature. For steel heated to austenite, the color will be orange, like the sun at sunset. Due to these subtleties, hardening, which included preheating, was often carried out at night. In the absence of unnecessary lighting sources, it is easier to determine by eye whether the temperature is sufficient.
The differences between the crystal lattices of austenite and ferrite have already been discussed in one of the previous articles in the series. Briefly: austenite is a face-centered lattice, ferrite is a body-centered lattice. Taking into account thermal expansion, austenite allows carbon atoms to travel within its crystal lattice, whereas ferrite does not. It has also already been discussed what happens during slow cooling: austenite quietly transforms into ferrite, while the carbon inside the material disperses into strips of cementite, resulting in pearlite - ordinary steel.
And now we finally get to hardening. What happens if you don't give the material time to cool slowly at the usual rate of carbon on the cementite strips in perlite? So, let’s take our workpiece, heated to austenite, and put it in ice water, just like in the movies!..
...Most likely the result will be a split workpiece. Especially if we use traditional steel, that is, imperfect, with a bunch of impurities. The reason is extreme stresses resulting from thermal compression that the metal simply cannot cope with. Although, of course, if the material is clean enough, then you can put it in ice water. But traditionally, they often used either boiling water, so as not to drop the temperature too low, or even boiling oil. The temperature of boiling water is 100° C, oil is from 150° to 230° C. Both are very cool compared to the temperature of the austenitic workpiece, so there is nothing paradoxical in cooling with such hot substances.
So, let’s imagine that everything is fine with the quality of the material, and the water is not too cold. In this case the following will happen. Austenite, inside which carbon travels, will immediately turn into ferrite, while no delamination into pearlite strips will occur; carbon at the microlevel will be distributed quite evenly. But the crystal lattice will not be the usual smooth cubic one for ferrite, but wildly broken due to the fact that it is simultaneously formed, compressed by cooling and has carbon inside.
The resulting variety of steel is called martensite. This material, full of internal stress due to the peculiarities of the lattice formation, is more fragile than pearlite with the same carbon content. But martensite is significantly superior to all other types of steel in terms of hardness. It is from martensite that tool steel is made, that is, tools designed to work on steel.
If you look closely at the cementite in the composition of perlite, you will notice that its inclusions exist separately and do not touch each other. In martensite, the crystal lines are intertwined like wires from headphones that have been in your pocket all day. Pearlite is flexible because areas of hard cementite dissolved in soft ferrite simply move relative to each other when bent. But in martensite nothing like this happens; the regions cling to each other - therefore it is not prone to changing shape, that is, it has high hardness.
Hardness is good, but brittleness is bad. There are several ways to compensate for or reduce the brittleness of martensite.
Zone hardening
Even if you temper the sword exactly as described above, the blade will not be entirely made of homogeneous martensite. The blade (or blades, for a double-edged sword) cool quickly due to its thinness. But the blade in the thicker part, be it the back or the middle, cannot cool at the same rate. The surface is fine, but the inside is no longer there. However, this alone is not enough; anyway, a weapon hardened in this way without additional tricks turns out to be too fragile. But since the cooling is not uniform, you can try to control its speed. And this is exactly what the Japanese did, using zonal hardening.
A workpiece is taken - of course, already with the correct compositional assembly, formed blade, and so on. Then, before heating for further hardening, the workpiece is coated with a special heat-resistant clay, that is, a ceramic composition. Modern ceramic compositions can withstand temperatures of thousands of degrees in the solid state. The medieval ones were simpler, but the temperature was also needed lower. No exotic stuff is required, it’s almost ordinary clay.
The clay is applied unevenly to the blade. The blade is either left without any clay at all, or is covered with a very thin layer. The side planes and back, which do not need to turn into martensite, on the contrary, are coated with all their hearts. Then everything is as usual: heat it up and cool it down. As a result, a blade without thermal insulation will cool very quickly, turning into martensite, and everything else will easily form pearlite or even ferrite, but this already depends on the types of steel used in the assembly.
The resulting blade has a very hard edge, as if it were made entirely of martensite. But, due to the fact that most weapons consist of perlite and ferrite, they are much less fragile. In the event of an inaccurate blow or in a collision with something excessively hard, a pure martensite blade can break in half, because there is too much stress inside it, and if you overdo it a little, the material simply will not withstand it. A Japanese-type sword will simply bend, perhaps with the appearance of a dent on the blade - a piece of martensite will still break, but the blade as a whole will retain its structure. It is not very convenient to fight with a bent sword, but it is better than with a broken one. And then it can be straightened out.
Let us dispel the myth about the exclusivity of zone hardening: it is found on ancient Roman swords. This technology was generally known everywhere, but it was not always used because there was an alternative.
Jamon
A distinctive feature of Japanese swords, made and polished in the traditional way, is the hamon line, that is, the visible border between different types of steel. Zone hardening professionals knew how and are able to make jamon of various beautiful shapes, even with ornaments - the only question is how to mold the clay.
Not every good sword, or even every Japanese sword, has visible hamon. It cannot be seen without a specific procedure: special “Japanese” polishing. Its essence lies in the consistent polishing of the material with stones of varying hardness. If you simply polish everything with something very hard, then it will be impossible to distinguish any jamon, since the entire surface will be smooth. But if after this you take a stone that is softer than martensite, but harder than ferrite, and polish the surface of the blade with it, then only ferrite will be ground off. Martensite will remain intact, but pearlite may retain convex lines of cementite. As a result, the surface of the blade at the micro level ceases to be perfectly smooth, creating a play of light and shadows that is aesthetically pleasing.
Japanese polishing in general and hamon in particular have no effect at all on the quality of the sword.
Tempering and spring steel
Due to its structure, martensite has a large number of internal stresses. There is a way to relieve these tensions: vacation. Tempering is the heating of steel to a much lower temperature than the one at which it turns into austenite. That is, up to approximately 400° C. When the steel turns blue, it is heated enough, tempering has occurred. Then it is allowed to cool slowly. As a result, the stresses partially disappear, the steel acquires ductility, flexibility and springiness, but loses hardness. Therefore, spring steel cannot be as hard as tool steel - it is no longer martensite. And, by the way, this is why overheated instruments lose their hardening.
Spring steel is called such because it is used to make springs. Its main distinguishing property is elasticity. The blade, made of high-quality spring steel, bends upon impact, but immediately returns to its shape.
Flexible, springy swords are monosteel - that is, they consist entirely of steel, without pure ferrite inserts. Moreover, they are completely hardened to martensite and then completely tempered. If the structure of the blade before hardening includes fragments not made of martensite, then it will not be possible to make a spring.
A Japanese sword usually has such fragments: pearlite along the planes and ferrite in the middle of the blade. In general, it is mainly made of iron and mild steel; there is quite a bit of martensite there, only on the blade. So no matter how you harden the katana and don’t release it, it won’t spring back. Therefore, a Japanese sword either bends and remains bent, or breaks but does not spring, like a European monosteel tempered martensite blade. A slightly bent katana can be straightened without significant consequences, but often pieces of the martensite blade simply break off when bent, forming jagged edges.
The katana, unlike the European blade, is not at least fully tempered, so its blade retains hard martensitic steel, with a hardness of about 60 Rockwell. And the steel of a European sword can be in the region of 48 Rockwell.
There are several traditional ways to form the layered structure of a Japanese sword. Two of them do not use ferrite. The first is maru, which is simply hard high-carbon steel all over the blade. Of course, such a sword requires local hardening, otherwise it will break at the first blow. The second is warha tetsu, where the body of the blade, with the exception of the tip, consists of medium-hard steel, that is, perlite.
Why weren’t maru and warha tetsu made springy? Exactly unknown. Maybe in Japan they didn’t know at all about the tempering properties of steel. Or they simply did not consider it necessary to make swords springy. We should not forget that for Japan, even more than for the rest of the world, following traditions was important. A significant number of variations in the design of Japanese (and not only) swords does not make any sense from a practical point of view, pure aesthetics. For example, a wide fuller on one side of the blade and three narrow fullers on the other side, or in general swords with asymmetrical geometry on the cut. Not everything can and should be explained rationally, in relation to the battle itself.
Modern blacksmiths make Japanese-style swords with a spring base blade and a martensite blade. The most famous is the American Howard Clark, who uses L6 steel. The base of his swords is made of bainite rather than pearlite and ferrite. The blade, of course, is martensitic. Bainite is a steel structure that was not discovered until 1920; it has high hardness and strength with high ductility. Spring steel is bainite or something close to it. Despite all the external similarities with the Nihonto, such a weapon can no longer be considered a traditional Japanese sword; it is of much higher quality than historical prototypes.
In a monostal sword you can also differentiate by hardness zones. If, after hardening, the martensitic workpiece is not tempered evenly, but by heating only the plane of the blade directly, then the heat reaching the edges will be insufficient to transform the martensitic blades into spring steel. At least in the modern production of knives and some tools, similar tricks are used. It is unknown how the increased fragility of the blades of such weapons will affect practice.
What is better: high hardness without flexibility or a decrease in hardness with the acquisition of flexibility?
The main advantage of a hard blade is that it holds an edge better. The main advantage of a flexible blade is the increased likelihood of its survival when deformed. When hitting a target that is too hard, the katana blade is likely to break off, but thanks to the softness of the rest of the blade, the sword will not break; rather, it will simply bend. If a monostal flexible blade breaks, it is usually in half - but breaking it with adequate use is very difficult.
Theoretically, hard steel should be able to cut through more materials than soft steel, but in practice, bones can be easily chopped with European swords, and armor steel cannot be pierced by any chopping sword.
If we talk about working with a blade against plate armor, then no one will cut anything there: they will stab into areas of the body unprotected by armor, which are still covered with at least a gambeson, or even chain mail. The very high flexibility of a spring blade is not suitable for thrusting, but special European swords for fighting against plate armor were not flexible. They, on the contrary, were equipped with additional stiffening ribs. That is, special anti-armor swords have always been inflexible, no matter what steel they were made of.
In my opinion, in battle it is better to have a stronger sword that is difficult to damage. It is not so important that it cuts a little worse than a harder one. A hard zone-hardened blade may be more useful in calm, controlled situations, such as tameshigiri, when there is plenty of time to aim and no one is trying to hit the sword from the weak side.
Quenching and tempering: conclusion
The Japanese had the technology of hardening, which was also known in Ancient Rome from the beginning of our era. There is nothing extraordinary about zonal hardening. In medieval Europe, they used a different technology to combat the fragility of steel, deliberately abandoning zonal hardening.
The blade of a Japanese sword is harder than that of most European ones - that is, it does not need to be sharpened as often. However, with active use, it is highly likely that the Japanese sword will have to be repaired.
Design and geometry
From a practical point of view, it is important that the sword is good enough. It must perform the tasks for which it was created - be it priority on slashing power, improved thrusts, reliability, durability, and so on. And when it's good enough, it doesn't really matter how it's made.
Statements like “a real katana must be made in the traditional way” are unfair. The Japanese sword has certain characteristics, including advantages. It doesn’t matter how these benefits are achieved. Yes, the Japanese style bainite swords from Howard Clark are not traditionally made katanas. But they are certainly katanas in the broad sense of the word.
It's time to move on to the more commonly discussed aspects of the sword, such as blade geometry, balance, hilt, and so on.
Slash Effectiveness
The katana is famous for being good at cutting things. Of course, based on this simple fact, fanatics create an entire mythology, but we will not become like them. Yes, it’s true - a katana cuts things well. But what does “good” even mean? Why does Nihonto cut things well, compared to what?
Let's start in order. What is “good” is a somewhat philosophical question, it smacks of subjectivity. In my opinion, this is what good chopping qualities are made of:
With a weapon it is enough to simply deliver an effective blow; even a person without training will be able to cut through a target of low complexity.
Cleaving does not require enormous force and/or impact energy, it is based on the sharpness of the warhead and precisely on dividing the target into two parts, and not on tearing.
If used properly, the weapon is unlikely to fail, meaning it is quite durable. It is advisable, of course, to have a margin of safety even for not very correct operation. When a sword is carried around like a sack, it is not as impressive as when a tree is cut down with a few careless blows.
It is really very easy to cut with a Japanese sword. The reasons will be discussed below, but for now let’s just remember this fact. I note that a significant portion of the mythologization of Japanese swords stems from it. For an inexperienced but diligent person, all other things being equal, it will be easier to cut a target with a katana than with a European long sword, simply because the katana is more patient with small mistakes. An experienced practitioner will not notice much of a difference.
For cutting itself, and not tearing the target, you need to have a fairly sharp cutting edge. Here the Japanese sword is in perfect order. Sharpening using traditional Japanese methods is very advanced. In addition, a martensite blade, when sharpened, retains its sharpness for quite a long time, although this rather relates to the next point. However, it should be noted that a sword, even without a martensite blade, can be sharpened and made very sharp. It will just become dull faster, meaning it will need to be re-sharpened sooner. In any case, the number of blows after which a sword needs to be sharpened is measured in tens and hundreds, so from a practical point of view, in a single episode, the hardness of a martensite blade does not give anything special, since two freshly sharpened swords will be used for a hypothetical comparison.
But the durability of the Japanese sword is much worse than that of its European counterparts. Firstly, from a sufficiently strong blow to an excessively hard surface, the martensite blade will simply break off, leaving a notch on the blade. Secondly, with a combination of excessive force and low accuracy of the blow, you can bend the sword without any problems even when hitting a fairly soft target. Thirdly, the stresses inside the material are such that a Japanese sword still has high strength when struck with the blade forward, but when struck in the back it has every chance of breaking, even if the blow seems very weak.
Voltages
To understand what stress is, let's conduct a thought experiment. You can also look at its schematic representation in the illustration. Let’s imagine a rod made of a material that doesn’t really matter – let it be an elastic tree. Let's place it horizontally, secure the ends and leave the middle hanging in the air. A kind of letter “H”, where the horizontal jumper is our rod. The vertical columns are not fixed too rigidly; they can bend towards each other. (Position 1).
If we neglect gravity, which can be done since the rod is very light, then the stresses in the rod material known to us are small. If they exist, they clearly balance each other. The rod is in stable condition.
Let's try to bend it in different directions. The columns between which it is secured will bend towards the rod, but if you release it, it will return to the starting position, pushing the columns to the sides. If we do not bend it too much, then nothing special will happen from such deformations, and, more importantly, we do not feel any difference between which way we bend the rod. (Position 2).
Now let's hang a significant weight from the middle of the rod. Under its weight, the rod will be forced to bend towards the ground and remain in this state. Now there is obvious tension in our rod: its material “wants” to return to a straight state, that is, to bend from the ground, in the direction opposite to the bend. But he can’t, the load is in the way. (Position 3).
If you apply sufficient force in this direction, opposite to the load and corresponding to the direction of stress, the rod can straighten. However, as soon as the force is stopped, it will return to its previous bent state. (Position 4).
If you apply a relatively small force towards the load, opposite to the direction of the stress, the rod may break - the stress will have to escape somewhere, the strength of the material will no longer be enough. In this case, the same or even much more powerful force in the direction of stress will not lead to damage. (Position 5).
It's the same with the katana. The impact in the direction from the blade to the back goes in the direction of stress, “lifting the load” and, one might say, temporarily relaxing the material of the blade. The impact from the back to the blade goes against the tension. The strength of the weapon in this direction is very low, so it can easily break, like a rod on which too much weight is hung.
Again the effectiveness of the slash
Let's return to the previous topic. Let's now try to figure out what is needed in principle to cut a target.
It is necessary to strike correctly orientated.
The blade of the sword must be sharp enough to cut the target, and not just crush and move it.
You need to give the blade a sufficient amount of kinetic energy, otherwise you will have to cut, not chop.
You need to put enough force into the blow, which is achieved both by accelerating the blade and making it heavier, including through optimizing the balance for chopping, perhaps even to the detriment of other qualities.
Blade orientation upon impact
If you've ever tried tameshigiri, that is, chopping objects with a sharp sword, then you should understand what we're talking about. The orientation of the blade upon impact is the correspondence between the plane of the blade and the plane of impact. Obviously, if you hit a target with a plane, it definitely won’t be cut, right? So, much smaller deviations from the ideally accurate orientation already lead to problems. That is, when attacking with a sword, it is necessary to monitor the orientation of the blade, otherwise the blow will not be effective. With batons this question does not arise, it doesn’t matter which side to hit - but the blow will turn out to be impact-crushing, and not chopping-cutting.
In general, let's compare bladed and impact-crushing weapons, without being tied to specific samples. What are their mutual advantages and disadvantages?
Advantages of the sword:
A slash to a part of the body unprotected by armor is much more dangerous than just a club. Although a club (a club with spikes) and a mace (a metal club with a developed warhead) cause significant damage, a sword is still more dangerous.
Usually there is a somewhat developed hilt that protects the hand. Even a cross or tsuba is better than a completely smooth handle.
Geometry and balance, coupled with sharpness, allow the weapon to be made comparatively longer without becoming overweight or losing impact power. A knight's sword and a mace of the same mass differ in length by one and a half to two times. You can make a long, light club, but a blow with it will be much less dangerous than a blow with a sword.
Significantly better stabbing capabilities.
Advantages of the baton:
Easy to manufacture and low cost. This is especially true for primitive clubs and clubs.
Developed varieties of impact-crushing weapons (mace, six-fin, war hammer) are specially sharpened for fighting against opponents in armor. A knight's or long sword against a man-at-arms is much less effective than a six-sword.
In the general case, excluding highly specialized war hammers and knives, it is easier to deliver an effective blow to a fairly close target with a club or mace. There is no need to monitor the orientation of the blade upon impact.
Let us again pay attention to the last of the listed advantages of impact-crushing weapons, which, accordingly, is a disadvantage of bladed weapons.
What can be said about the orientation of the blade when striking with a katana? That everything is fine with her.
A slight bend slightly increases the windage of the surface: leading a Japanese sword forward with the plane, and not with the blade or back, is a little more difficult than a straight blade of the same dimensions. Thanks to this windage, air resistance upon impact helps the blade to rotate correctly. To be fair, it should be noted that this effect is very weak and can easily be reduced to insignificance by applying the principle “you have the power, you don’t need the mind.” But if you still use your mind, you should first work the Japanese sword through the air - slowly, then quickly, then slowly again. This will help you feel when he walks without any noticeable resistance at all, cutting through the air, and when something slightly interferes with him.
The Japanese sword has one blade, and the thickness of the blade at the back is quite large. These geometric characteristics, as well as the materials used in nihonto, increase rigidity, that is, “inflexibility.” The katana is a sword that does not bend as easily as its European counterparts, which at some point began to be made from spring steel (bainite) to increase strength.
High rigidity coupled with a very hard blade leads to an interesting effect, which is what makes cutting with a katana so simple. It is clear that upon impact, deviations from the ideal orientation are likely. If deviations are completely or almost absent, then Japanese and European swords cut the target equally well. If the deviations are significant, then neither one nor the other sword will be able to cut the target, and the likelihood of damaging a Japanese sword is higher.
But if there are already deviations, but they are not too large, then the Japanese martensitic-ferritic and European bainite swords behave differently. The European sword will bend, spring back and bounce off the target with virtually no damage - just as if the deflection were higher. In this case, the Japanese sword will cut the target as if nothing had happened. A blade that enters a target at an angle cannot spring back and rebound due to its hardness and rigidity, so it bites at the angle at which it can, and even corrects the orientation of the blade to some extent.
Once again: this effect only works for small mistakes. It is better to deal a really bad blow with a European sword than with a Japanese one - he is more likely to survive.
Blade sharpening
The sharpness of the blade depends on the angle at which the cutting edge is formed. And here the Japanese sword has a potential advantage over the European double-edged sword - however, like any other single-edged blade.
Take a look at the illustration. It shows sections of the profiles of various blades. All of them (with obvious exceptions) can be fit into a 6x30 mm rectangle, that is, the blades at the point of cutting and analysis have a maximum thickness of 6 mm and a width of 30 mm. In the top row there are sections of one-sided blades, for example, nihonto or some kind of saber, and in the bottom row - double-edged swords. Now let's delve into it.
Look at swords 1, 2 and 3 - which one is sharper? It is quite obvious that 1, because the angle of its cutting edge is the most acute. Why is that? Because the edge is formed as much as 20 mm before the blade. This is a very deep sharpening and is used quite rarely. Why? Because this sharp blade becomes too fragile. When hardened, you will end up with more martensite than you would want to have on a sword designed to last more than one blow. Of course, it is possible to correct the formation of martensite using ceramic insulation during hardening, but such a cutting edge will still be less strong than duller options.
Sword 2 is already a normal, more durable option, which you don’t need to worry about with every blow. Sword 3 is very good, a reliable tool. There is only one drawback: he is still quite stupid and nothing can be done about it. More precisely, something can be done by sharpening it, but the reliability will just go away. Swords 2 and especially 1 are good for cutting targets at tameshigiri competitions, and sword 3 is good for training before competitions. It’s hard to study, but it’s easy to “combat”, where by combat we mean competition. If we talk about fighting with military weapons, then sword 3 is again preferable, since it is much stronger than 2 and especially 1. Although sword 2 can perhaps be considered something universal, much more serious research must be carried out before to say this.
The most interesting thing about sword 3 is the blue narrowing lines of the blade, which are not yet a cutting edge. If they were not there, and the edge remained the same short, 5 mm, then its angle would be 62°, and not a more or less decent 43°. Many Japanese and other swords are made using a similar taper, turning into a “blunted” blade, as this is an excellent way to make a weapon at the same time quite light, reliable and not too dull. A blade with an edge length of not 5, but at least 10 mm, like sword 2, with the same narrowing to 4 mm at the beginning of the blade will already have a sharpness of 22° - not bad at all.
Sword 4 is an abstraction, a geometrically sharpest blade within given dimensions. Has all the problems of Sword 1 in a more severe form. Sharp, yes, you can’t take that away, but extremely fragile. It is unlikely that a martensitic-ferritic structure will withstand such a geometry. If you take spring steel, it may hold up, but it will dull very quickly.
Let's move on to double-edged blades. Sword 6 is a Viking-type blade made in the dimensions specified above, having the profile of a flattened hexagon with fullers. The fullers do not have any effect on the sharpness of the blade; they are shown in the illustration for a certain integrity of the images. So, in terms of sharpness, this blade corresponds to one-sided sword 2. Which is not so bad. Better yet, historically Viking-type swords had completely different proportions, being thinner and wider - as can be seen in sword 7, which is as sharp as sword 1. Why is this so? Because instead of the martensitic-ferritic structure, other materials are used here. Sword 6 will dull faster than sword 1, but it is less likely to break.
The disadvantage of sword 6 is its very low rigidity - it is the most flexible of the blades presented here. Excessive flexibility interferes with a slashing blow, but you can live with it, but with a piercing blow it is of no use at all. Therefore, in the late Middle Ages, the profile of the blade changed to a rhombic one, like that of sword 7. It is more or less sharp, although it does not reach swords 1 and 6. However, unlike sword 6, it is much less flexible. The maximum blade thickness of 6 mm makes it more rigid, which is great when stabbing. Compared to sword 6, sword 7 clearly sacrifices the slashing ability in favor of the piercing one.
Sword 8 has a purely piercing blade. Despite the sharpness of 17°, such a weapon will no longer be able to cut normally. After penetrating the target to a depth of 13 mm, the impact will be slowed down by stiffening ribs that have an angle of as much as 90°. But the mass of this blade is clearly less than that of sword 7, and its rigidity is even higher.
As a result, we have the following consideration: yes, a katana, in principle, can have a very sharp blade due to the geometry of the one-sided blade, which allows you to start sharpening or narrowing not from the middle, but from the back, without losing rigidity. However, martensitic-ferritic blades of Japanese swords do not have sufficient strength qualities to realize the maximum of what the geometry of a single-sided blade is capable of. We can say that the sharpness of a Japanese sword does not exceed a European one - especially when you consider that in Europe there were also single-sided blades, often made from materials more suitable for sharp sharpening.
Kinetic energy
E=1/2mv2, that is, the kinetic energy depends linearly on the mass and quadratically on the impact speed.
The weight of the katana is normal, perhaps a little higher than that of European swords of the same dimensions (and not vice versa). Of course, despite the general external similarity, there are Japanese swords of very different weights, which is not visible in the pictures. But the katana is primarily a two-handed weapon, so the increased mass does not particularly interfere with accelerating the blade to high speed.
Kinetic energy is not a question of the sword, but of its owner. If you have at least basic skills in working with weapons, everything will be fine. Here the Japanese sword does not have any tangible advantages or disadvantages compared to its European counterparts.
Impact force: balance
F=ma, that is, the force depends linearly on mass and acceleration. We've already talked about mass, but we need to add something about balance.
Imagine an object in the shape of a heavy weight on a 1 meter long handle, a kind of mace. Obviously, if you take this object by the end of the handle farthest from the weight, swing it well and hit it with the weight accelerated at the end of the handle-lever, the blow will be strong. If you take this object by the handle right next to the weight and hit it with the empty end, then the force of the blow will be completely different, despite the fact that an object of the same mass is used.
This is because when struck with a hand weapon, not the entire mass of the weapon is converted into force, but only a certain part of it. The balance of the weapon has a significant impact on what this part will be. The closer the balance point, the center of gravity of the weapon, is to the enemy, the more mass can be put into the blow. As m increases, so does F.
However, usually in everyday life “well balanced” refers to swords with a balance close to the owner of the weapon, and not to the enemy. The fact is that a well-balanced sword is much more convenient to fencing. Let's return mentally to our weight on the handle. It is clear that with the first grip option, making high-speed and unpredictable movements with this weapon will be very problematic due to the monstrous inertia. With the second, there are no problems, the massive mace practically does not have to be moved, it will only spin slightly near the fists, and it is not difficult to swing the light empty end.
That is, the optimal balance for chopping and fencing is different. If you need to cause damage, then the balance should be closer to the enemy. If maneuverability is necessary, and the lethality of a weapon is unimportant or, in the case of modern non-lethal modeling, undesirable, then it is better to have the balance closer to the owner.
The katana's balance for chopping is in perfect order. Nihonto tend to have a very massive blade without the significant distal taper typical of many European swords. In addition, they do not have a massive apple and a weighty crosspiece, and these parts of the hilt greatly shift the balance towards the owner. Therefore, fencing with a Japanese sword is somewhat more difficult, since it feels heavier and more inertial compared to a European analogue of identical mass. However, if the question of subtle maneuvers is not raised and you just need to slash powerfully, then the balance of the katana turns out to be more convenient.
Blade bend
Everyone knows that Japanese swords are characterized by a slight curve, but not everyone knows where it comes from. Since the blade cools unevenly during hardening, thermal compression also occurs unevenly. First, the blade cools, and it immediately contracts, so in the first seconds of the hardening process, the blade of the future Japanese sword has a reverse bend, like kukri and other kopis. But after a few seconds, the rest of the blade cools down, and it also begins to bend. It is clear that the blade is thinner than the rest of the blade, meaning there is more material in the middle and on the back. Therefore, as a result, the back of the blade is compressed more than the blade.
By the way, this effect distributes the stress inside the blade of a Japanese sword so that it can handle a blow from the side of the blade normally, but not from the side of the back.
When hardening a double-edged blade, curvature does not appear by itself, because at all phases of this process, compression on one side is compensated by compression on the other side. Symmetry is maintained, the sword remains straight. The katana can also be made straight. To do this, before hardening, the workpiece must be given a compensating reverse bend. There were such swords, but there weren’t too many of them.
It's time to compare straight and curved blades.
Advantages of straight blades:
For the same mass there is a large length, for the same length there is a smaller mass.
Much easier and better to prick. With curved blades you can thrust in an arc, but this is not as fast and common as a straight thrust.
A straight sword is often double-edged. If the hilt is not specialized for one direction of grip, then if the blade is damaged, it is easy to take the sword “back to front” and continue to fight.
Advantages of curved blades:
When delivering a chopping blow to the side surface of a cylindrical target (and a person is a collection of cylinders and similar figures), the more curved the blade is, the more easily the blow turns into a cutting blow. That is, with the help of a curved sword you can deliver a wounding blow by investing less force than is required for a straight sword.
Upon contact, a slightly smaller surface of the blade comes into contact with the target, which increases pressure and allows you to cut past the surface. For penetration depth, this advantage does not matter.
Thanks to the slightly larger windage of the curve, it is easier to move the blade forward, orienting it correctly upon impact.
In addition, both blades have specific fencing capabilities. For example, a curved blade is more convenient to cover in some stances, and its concave back can be used to influence the enemy’s weapon in an interesting way. A straight blade has the ability to strike with a false blade and is controlled somewhat more intuitively. But these are already details, one might say, balancing each other.
The following differences are significant: the advantage of straight blades in terms of weight/length, optimization of the delivery of injections and, accordingly, the advantage of curved blades in terms of ease of delivering an effective cutting blow. That is, if you need to specifically inflict damage with slashing blows, then a curved blade is better than a straight one. If you rather fencing in a non-lethal simulation, where “damage” is taken into account very conditionally, then it will be more convenient to work with a straight blade. Let me note that this does not mean that a straight blade is a game and training weapon, and a curved one is a real combat weapon. Both can fight and train, it’s just that their strengths manifest themselves in different situations.
A Japanese sword usually has a very slight curve. Therefore, oddly enough, in some sense it can generally be considered direct. It is quite convenient for them to stab in a straight line, although with a rapier, of course, it is better. There is usually no sharpening on the reverse side, but various types of broadswords may not have one. The mass - well, yes, it is quite large, and the sword is still with a chopping balance.
There is an opinion that a straight version of the Japanese sword would be better than the traditional curved ones. I don't share this opinion. The argumentation of the defenders of this opinion did not take into account the main advantage of the bend - enhancing the chopping ability of the blade. More precisely, she took it into account, but guided by incorrect premises. Even a slight bend of the sword already helps to deliver slashing blows with greater ease, and for a specialized slashing sword, which is the katana, this is what is needed. At the same time, there is no particular loss of capabilities inherent in straight swords with such a slight bend. The only thing missing is a double-edged sharpening, but with it it wouldn’t be a katana. Although, by the way, some nihonto have a one-and-a-half sharpening, that is, the back on the first third of the blade is brought together into a cutting edge and sharpened - like late European sabers. Why this didn’t become a standard, I don’t know.
Hilt
The Japanese sword has a very poor guard. Fanatics begin to shout “but the technique of work does not imply protection with a guard, you need to parry blows with a blade” - well, yes, of course it does not imply. Likewise, the absence of a bulletproof vest does not imply readiness to take a bullet in the stomach. The technique is like this because there is no normal guard.
If you take a katana and, instead of the traditional approximately oval tsuba, screw on a kind of “tsuba” with protrusions-kiyons, then it will turn out better, it’s been tested.
Most swords have much better guards than Japanese ones. The crosspiece protects the hand more reliably than the tsuba. I’m generally silent about the bow, twisted hilt, cup or basket. The developed hilt objectively has no significant shortcomings.
You can name a couple of far-fetched ones. For example, the price - yes, of course, a developed hilt is more expensive than a primitive one, but compared to the cost of the blade itself, it’s pennies. You can also say something about changing the balance - but this will not harm most Japanese swords, it will only make fencing easier with them. The words that a developed hilt will interfere with the performance of some techniques are nonsense. If such techniques exist, they can still be performed with a cross. In addition, the lack of a developed hilt prevents the execution of a significantly larger number of techniques.
Why did Japanese swords, with the exception of a short period of imitation of Western-style sabers (kyu-gunto, late 19th and early 20th centuries), never develop a developed hilt?
Firstly, I’ll answer the question with a question: why did developed hilts appear in Europe so late, only in the 16th century? Swords were waved there much longer than in Japan. In short, we didn’t have time to think of it earlier, the corresponding invention simply wasn’t made.
Secondly, traditionalism and conservatism. The Japanese saw European swords, but did not consider it necessary to copy the ideas of these round-eyed barbarians. National pride, symbolism and all that. The correct sword in the Japanese understanding looked like a katana.
Thirdly, nihonto, like most other swords, is an auxiliary, secondary weapon. In battle, the sword was used with powerful gloves. In peacetime, when the katana just appeared from the more ancient tati - see point two. A samurai who had thought of a developed hilt would not have been understood by his fellow classmates. You can figure out the consequences yourself.
It is interesting that after a short era of kyu-gunto, a structurally more advanced weapon than ordinary nihonto, the Japanese returned to traditional type swords. Probably the reason for this was the same second point. A country with growing unhealthy nationalism and imperialist ambitions could not afford to abandon such a significant symbol as the traditional shape of the sword. Moreover, in this era, the sword on the battlefield no longer decided anything.
Once again: the Japanese sword has a very bad guard. This fact cannot be objectively objected to.
Design and geometry: conclusion
The Japanese sword has very good characteristics due to its design. It cuts targets well and easily, and is more tolerant of small imperfections in strikes. Chopping balance, martensitic blade and blade curvature are an excellent combination that allows you to achieve very high results with a controlled blow.
Unfortunately, there are also several noticeable flaws in the design of the Japanese sword. Tsuba protects the hand only slightly better than no guard at all. The strength of the blade when deviating from the ideal strike leaves much to be desired. The balance is such that fencing with a Japanese sword is not very convenient.
Conclusion
If we consider a katana to be an exclusively traditionally made Japanese sword, with all these inclusions in the tamahagana, with a martensitic-ferritic blade and tsuba, then the katana is a very old and, frankly speaking, rather defective sword that cannot stand comparison with newer similar sharpened pieces of iron, which can perform all its functions and even more. The katana is a very far from perfect weapon, despite the high cutting properties of its blade.
On the other hand, a sword is like a sword. It cuts well and has sufficient strength. Not ideal, but not complete crap either.
Finally, you can look at the katana from another side. In the form in which it exists - with this small tsuba, with a slight bend, with a jamon visible during traditional polishing, with stingray skin and a competent braid on the handle - it looks very beautiful. Purely aesthetically pleasing to the eye, it doesn’t look too utilitarian. Surely, its popularity is largely due to its appearance. There is no need to be ashamed of this; people generally love all sorts of beautiful things. And the katana - in any form - is truly beautiful.
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