7 ms·

Japan being a world leader in scissors does not surprise me after listening to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History episode on Japan: https://www.dancarlin.com/produc

by acl777 7y ago

Japan being a world leader in scissors does not surprise me after listening to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History episode on Japan: https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-62-supernova-in-the-east-i/ https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-62-supern... Dan brought insight into Japan that I did not have, explaining that Japan is a society of extremes. For Japan to be world leader in anything the Japanese society sets their mind to does not surprise me at all now. (side note: I worked and lived in Japan for seven years and my wife is Japanese too. I thought I knew what Japanese people were, but Dan's explanation crystalized what being Japanese is for me.)

derefr 7y ago
I would more describe this as a natural extension of a large artisanal tradition of sword-makers—swords at one point being as common in Japan as guns are in America today, unlike most of Europe where the average personal-carry weapon was a knife. There were tons of swordsmiths around to fill all that demand (and no automation to let just a few swordsmiths fill it); and the descendants of all those sword-makers still have some of that knowledge, and nothing useful to do with it (there being only so much demand for decorative and ceremonial swords today to sustain a few swordsmiths.) So what do they turn their knowledge of swordsmithing to? Making tinier pieces of metal sharp using the same techniques. Like scissors. Or fountain-pen nibs. Or just using those skills to entertain, like this guy: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/nek3wk/rice-kitchen-knife-kiwami-japan-youtube https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/nek3wk/rice-kitchen-knife...
- samstave 7y ago
  You both may like this video: “Making $35,000 bonsai scissors” https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TD2XGwmRJi8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TD2XGwmRJi8
- sandworm101 7y ago
  The legend of Japanese swordmaking is much overplayed. Swords were common, but swordmaking wasn't. Swords were far more valuable in japan due to the lack of some basic resources (metals). Japanese swords were therefore passed down rather than destroyed, as opposed to viking culture where swords were often buried. So a smaller pool of Japanese sword makers making a relatively small number of swords could supply a larger population. Japanese swords are also much softer than enthusiasts like to admit. They are very pure carbon+iron steel but that is limiting. Again, due to nature of the available resources, Japanese sword makers did not utilize other elements, impurities, that strengthen steel beyond what can be done with iron+carbon. And all that famous folding was not unique to Japan. The average viking sword demonstrates much the same level of craftsmanship, at least in terms of the actual steel. Japanese swords are certainly better looking but they were never the magical objects often portrayed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wootz_steel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wootz_steel "For reasons that are not entirely clear, but possibly because sources of ores containing trace amounts of tungsten and/or vanadium needed for its production were depleted, the process was lost to the middle-eastern metalsmiths around 1750. It has been eagerly sought by many since that time." https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/d/Damascus_steel.htm https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/d/Damasc...
  - jbay808 7y ago
    Do you have a source for this opinion, or are you a sword expert?
    - tofof 7y ago
      It's too early in my morning to provide a source for him, but I can at least concur. My wife studied East Asian culture extensively and I'm a WWII buff and so we could each tell the other, for example, about the change in policy under MacArthur on destroying swords during the US occupation (in particular, destroying the cheap stamped swords issued post-1930 vs 'preserving' i.e. letting US soldiers loot and take home the historial ones). As far as either of us know, it's common knowledge among anyone other than the 'katanas can cut steel beams' crowd that Japan was very very iron-poor, was alloying-elements-poor, that their folding technique was not unique by any means, and that noone including Japan sharpened swords to a single molecule's thickness on the cutting edge for good reasons relating to durability. (You could, if you wanted to, fairly trivially sharpen your kitchen knives at least near that degree. You wouldn't want to, for the same durability reason.) My wife is now professionally a neuroscientist, and they do use scalpels that precisely sharp, or even sharpened tungsten wire 'grown' chemically into that configuration for precision work like cutting into a single cell of your choice under high power microscopy. But all of those are nearly single-use-only instruments. To the extent they can be reused, it's because they only touched very soft cellular material and never contacted something anywhere as hard as a cutting board, much less a bone -- as both kitchen knives and combat swords would do routinely in use. You really don't want the tip of your blade folding over upon itself, which happens almost immediately with a blade that thin. If curious on this topic, investigate the advantages of a beveled (multi-angle) grind, common on a chef's knife, vs a hollow ground edge like you might find on a santoku kitchen knife -- particularly pay attention to the difference in maintenance required of each. I expect googling for 'japan iron-poor' and 'sword folding technique' would immediately shed light on either of those areas, if you're still in search of a citation.
      - bluGill 7y ago
        You can search woodworking saws and come to the same conclusions: Japanese developed pull saws because they couldn't create (for lack of raw materials) the high quality steel required to make a western style push saw.
- magduf 7y ago
  Their mechanical pencils are fantastic too. They also make amazing kitchen knives.
  - LanceH 7y ago
    I've had the experience with pens. We see some of the innovations here -- gel, smaller ball points, etc., but we see them years later and in less variety. And while I understand that it makes sense that rice is so much more important in Japan, I was blown away at the options on a rice cooker. In particular I like the feature where I tell it what time I want something to be done as opposed to when it should start. Waking up to warm oatmeal is incredible.
    - magduf 7y ago
      Lots of consumer stuff in Japan is way ahead of the US, and for good reason: American consumers simply won't buy it. They'd rather spend all their money on McMansions (with huge power bills) and giant SUVs.
      - watersb 7y ago
        I cannot recall a succinct term, but certainly people come to accept certain limits and price points. It is possible to live in the United States and limit time spent in automobiles, size of houses, but sure can be difficult to get friends and family to understand such unorthodox priorities.
        magduf 7y ago
        It is possible, sure, but most Americans don't do it willingly. Usually they do it because they're poor, in which case they don't have much money for Japanese consumer goods. The ones who do just aren't very numerous, so it doesn't make business sense to try to sell many things in the American market because too few people will buy them.
- PhasmaFelis 7y ago
  Is there a source for swords being substantially more common in Japan than Europe? I hadn't heard that before.
- chewz 7y ago
  I had purchased nail clippers in samurai swords workshop. Best in my life.
- cwkoss 7y ago
  Japanese manufacturing industry is a really interesting blend of manual artisanship combined with cutting edge technology. One of my favorite shows is "Supreme Skills!" - a 'reality competition' produced by NHK where teams of engineers/fabricators compete making "impossible" objects. Watch a guy on a lathe go head to head against an EDM to drill a hole through a pencil lead lengthwise https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCtWPbTDbuY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCtWPbTDbuY
- contravariant 7y ago
  It seems to me that that tradition is just an example of the phenomenon the OP is referring to.

by acl777 7y ago

derefr 7y ago

I would more describe this as a natural extension of a large artisanal tradition of sword-makers—swords at one point being as common in Japan as guns are in America today, unlike most of Europe where the average personal-carry weapon was a knife. There were tons of swordsmiths around to fill all that demand (and no automation to let just a few swordsmiths fill it); and the descendants of all those sword-makers still have some of that knowledge, and nothing useful to do with it (there being only so much demand for decorative and ceremonial swords today to sustain a few swordsmiths.) So what do they turn their knowledge of swordsmithing to? Making tinier pieces of metal sharp using the same techniques. Like scissors. Or fountain-pen nibs. Or just using those skills to entertain, like this guy: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/nek3wk/rice-kitchen-knife-kiwami-japan-youtube https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/nek3wk/rice-kitchen-knife...

samstave 7y ago
You both may like this video: “Making $35,000 bonsai scissors” https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TD2XGwmRJi8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TD2XGwmRJi8
sandworm101 7y ago
The legend of Japanese swordmaking is much overplayed. Swords were common, but swordmaking wasn't. Swords were far more valuable in japan due to the lack of some basic resources (metals). Japanese swords were therefore passed down rather than destroyed, as opposed to viking culture where swords were often buried. So a smaller pool of Japanese sword makers making a relatively small number of swords could supply a larger population. Japanese swords are also much softer than enthusiasts like to admit. They are very pure carbon+iron steel but that is limiting. Again, due to nature of the available resources, Japanese sword makers did not utilize other elements, impurities, that strengthen steel beyond what can be done with iron+carbon. And all that famous folding was not unique to Japan. The average viking sword demonstrates much the same level of craftsmanship, at least in terms of the actual steel. Japanese swords are certainly better looking but they were never the magical objects often portrayed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wootz_steel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wootz_steel "For reasons that are not entirely clear, but possibly because sources of ores containing trace amounts of tungsten and/or vanadium needed for its production were depleted, the process was lost to the middle-eastern metalsmiths around 1750. It has been eagerly sought by many since that time." https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/d/Damascus_steel.htm https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/d/Damasc...
- jbay808 7y ago
  Do you have a source for this opinion, or are you a sword expert?
  - tofof 7y ago
    It's too early in my morning to provide a source for him, but I can at least concur. My wife studied East Asian culture extensively and I'm a WWII buff and so we could each tell the other, for example, about the change in policy under MacArthur on destroying swords during the US occupation (in particular, destroying the cheap stamped swords issued post-1930 vs 'preserving' i.e. letting US soldiers loot and take home the historial ones). As far as either of us know, it's common knowledge among anyone other than the 'katanas can cut steel beams' crowd that Japan was very very iron-poor, was alloying-elements-poor, that their folding technique was not unique by any means, and that noone including Japan sharpened swords to a single molecule's thickness on the cutting edge for good reasons relating to durability. (You could, if you wanted to, fairly trivially sharpen your kitchen knives at least near that degree. You wouldn't want to, for the same durability reason.) My wife is now professionally a neuroscientist, and they do use scalpels that precisely sharp, or even sharpened tungsten wire 'grown' chemically into that configuration for precision work like cutting into a single cell of your choice under high power microscopy. But all of those are nearly single-use-only instruments. To the extent they can be reused, it's because they only touched very soft cellular material and never contacted something anywhere as hard as a cutting board, much less a bone -- as both kitchen knives and combat swords would do routinely in use. You really don't want the tip of your blade folding over upon itself, which happens almost immediately with a blade that thin. If curious on this topic, investigate the advantages of a beveled (multi-angle) grind, common on a chef's knife, vs a hollow ground edge like you might find on a santoku kitchen knife -- particularly pay attention to the difference in maintenance required of each. I expect googling for 'japan iron-poor' and 'sword folding technique' would immediately shed light on either of those areas, if you're still in search of a citation.
    - bluGill 7y ago
      You can search woodworking saws and come to the same conclusions: Japanese developed pull saws because they couldn't create (for lack of raw materials) the high quality steel required to make a western style push saw.
magduf 7y ago
Their mechanical pencils are fantastic too. They also make amazing kitchen knives.
- LanceH 7y ago
  I've had the experience with pens. We see some of the innovations here -- gel, smaller ball points, etc., but we see them years later and in less variety. And while I understand that it makes sense that rice is so much more important in Japan, I was blown away at the options on a rice cooker. In particular I like the feature where I tell it what time I want something to be done as opposed to when it should start. Waking up to warm oatmeal is incredible.
  - magduf 7y ago
    Lots of consumer stuff in Japan is way ahead of the US, and for good reason: American consumers simply won't buy it. They'd rather spend all their money on McMansions (with huge power bills) and giant SUVs.
    - watersb 7y ago
      I cannot recall a succinct term, but certainly people come to accept certain limits and price points. It is possible to live in the United States and limit time spent in automobiles, size of houses, but sure can be difficult to get friends and family to understand such unorthodox priorities.
      - magduf 7y ago
        It is possible, sure, but most Americans don't do it willingly. Usually they do it because they're poor, in which case they don't have much money for Japanese consumer goods. The ones who do just aren't very numerous, so it doesn't make business sense to try to sell many things in the American market because too few people will buy them.
PhasmaFelis 7y ago
Is there a source for swords being substantially more common in Japan than Europe? I hadn't heard that before.
chewz 7y ago
I had purchased nail clippers in samurai swords workshop. Best in my life.
cwkoss 7y ago
Japanese manufacturing industry is a really interesting blend of manual artisanship combined with cutting edge technology. One of my favorite shows is "Supreme Skills!" - a 'reality competition' produced by NHK where teams of engineers/fabricators compete making "impossible" objects. Watch a guy on a lathe go head to head against an EDM to drill a hole through a pencil lead lengthwise https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCtWPbTDbuY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCtWPbTDbuY
contravariant 7y ago
It seems to me that that tradition is just an example of the phenomenon the OP is referring to.