They did great work with the materials they had available, but the materials they had were quite poor. Tamahagane is a very poor steel which requires a great d

They did great work with the materials they had available, but the materials they had were quite poor. Tamahagane is a very poor steel which requires a great deal of forging to work the slag inclusions out. The extensive folding was done to purify the steel; with a higher quality steel doing that isn't necessary. Contemporary Middle East and European metallurgists had better material to work with and their best steel, crucible spring steel, was better than the best Japanese steel.