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Is it true that Japanese sword makers were forced to do their famous process (bend and work the metal again and again) because of some other deficiency in their

Is it true that Japanese sword makers were forced to do their famous process (bend and work the metal again and again) because of some other deficiency in their process (either source material or knowledge), and Europeans swords were just as good, but much faster to make because of superior starting materials/knowledge? So in a sense, the superiority of Katana swords is a myth?

Waterluvian 6y ago
I have to find the source. I’m not sure how good it is. But I’ve heard katanas are junk swords that work just fine because most of the time any cuttystabbything will do just fine. There’s also that somewhat famous (infamous?) Lindy Beige video on the subject on YouTube. But I get a sense that there’s a lot of opinion and subjectivity when it comes to a historian’s perspective.
- cyphar 6y ago
  I'd think that it's more likely that all swords are about as good as any other. If katanas really were junk swords to the point where it made a material difference, Shogun would've used imported western sword designs (pre-isolation) and today's modern katanas would have ended up being just western swords. I'd have assumed thay "any cuttystabbything will do" applies to basically any kind of sword.
  - Waterluvian 6y ago
    That sounds sensible. Probably really didn’t need the quality we can muster today, just quantity and capacity for repairs. Now I’m curious and have to explore this further.
  - antepodius 6y ago
    People focus too much on swords, anyway. Pole weapons were the primary melee weapons for most combatants, including samurai, with swords being akin to sidearms. But there are certainly trade-offs in design. Katanas are good at chopping unarmoured opponents and being sharp. The crossguard of a longsword can and was used to bludgeon an armored opponent, who would be basically immune to cuts. So if I abducted you and forced you to pick a sword from a lineup, then fight someone to the death, you'd want to know who you were fighting and what they had, and pick based on that.
- hef19898 6y ago
  Lindy is maybe not the best source. People with knowledge in metalurgy and the use of swords in the historic context would be better.
hef19898 6y ago
That is true. The same reason why mediaval swords used a similar process, not folding but twisting the steel. The reason are impurities in the ore deposits. Japans deposits have more of them than e.g. European ones. Which kind of enabled more advanced metalurgy in Europe, ultimately leading to stuff like spring steel. The folding and reforging reomves these impurities from the steel and changes the carbon content, making the stell more flexible or harder and thus sharper but also more brittle. Quite ingenious, if you aske me. Nowadays, Japanese deposits can be exploited with electromagnets, resulting in basically pure iron ore making all that metalurgy more or less unnecessary. Not that Japanese swords were bad, they were as good as any other sword in killing people. So no katana superiority, but neither any deficiencies compared to European swords. Also be aware that swords used to be the medival equivalent of modern day pistols. More or less.
cyphar 6y ago
I'm not a metalworker at all (I just spent a bunch of time last year researching it while diving down a rabbit hole of forging YouTube videos). However, I did stumble upon a longer explanation of this. Folding steel is only required to remove impurities, so in theory high-quality steel doesn't require much folding (if any). However in Japan due to the volcanic nature of the land, the iron deposits are full of impurities which lead to the need for folding. After you've done enough folding you end up with a billet which is basically the same quality as western steel. In other words, there's nothing intrinsically better about the steel in a finished Japanese sword (if anything the starting materials are worse). But again, I'm only speaking a someone who read about this and other bits of metalworking last year in a spurt of interest in the subject. Wikipedia claims otherwise: > The folding removes impurities and helps even out the carbon content, while the alternating layers combine hardness with ductility to greatly enhance the toughness. But in my mind this does raise the question "why don't all modern swordsmiths all use this technique if its objectively superior?"
- VBprogrammer 6y ago
  I don't think that's quite right. An early name for Steel is Wrought Iron. The Iron had to be wrought, or worked, to remove the impurities. The main one is reducing the carbon content, when the metal is folded it allows the carbon to burn off as carbon dioxide, when the process is repeated often enough you can get the carbon content down to the low single digits. Until the invention of crucible steel this was the only way of producing steel. Certainly perhaps the Japanese steel may have contained other impurities and been harder to refine but certainly European Iron had to be worked to make Steel.
  - cyphar 6y ago
    Yeah, you're quite right. I guess I should've said it required more folding (given how much the folded aspect of Japanese steel is sold as being a key aspect of what makes it "unique")?
    - VBprogrammer 6y ago
Athas 6y ago
Japan is notoriously mineral-poor, so they had to put in extra effort that is not necessary with better raw materials. Further, I suppose this scarcity means that swords become more of a prestige item, meaning that you can put in more effort when manufacturing one. In contrast, when decent steel is cheap (relatively; we're still taking pre-industrialisation), then you might do something more akin to mass-production.
elp 6y ago
I've always wondered that myself. Those blades would have been so expensive in relative terms that I truly wonder how much real combat they were used in. In any war the peon's get the worst of it. Anyone rich/ senior enough to have them wasn't going to be on the front line. Then there's the fact that the handle was usually attached by a single mekugi ( bamboo or ivory peg ) which is not strong from an engineering point of view and completely at odds with that engineering marvel of a blade but perfect for swapping out the handle to match the fashion occasion.
- hef19898 6y ago
  As always, there were crap ones and expensive ones. Same as everywhere. Also quite funny, the most expensive part, even today, of a katana from a Japanese smith is not the blade but all the other stuff. IMHO, Katanas became or rather retained their religious status with Japan closing down and more or less freezing social development. The knighlty sowrd was somewhat replaced in that role in Europe with the introduction of firearms and the fall of Knights.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  > Those blades would have been so expensive in relative terms that I truly wonder how much real combat they were used in. In any war the peon's get the worst of it. Anyone rich/ senior enough to have them wasn't going to be on the front line. There are parallels in modern warfare. Javelin missiles cost $175k, and are fired by troops making $20k/year. It gets even more disparate when you move into things like fighter jets.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
exDM69 6y ago
Yes, Japanese blacksmithing and metal industry is very highly skilled to compensate the poor quality of iron ore available in the region. The "ore" (called Tamahagane) is sandy/rocky stone material which needs to be forged repeatedly to remove impurities and get a higher carbon content in the steel. Then the forged bars are broken down, pieces sorted by carbon content and forge welded back together. This is a very labor and skill intensive process. There was a really good blacksmithing video in YouTube about making a Katana from Tamahagane. Unfortunately I can't find it now, but my searches come up with many low quality vids on the subject. If you're feeling adventurous, you can buy some Tamahagane sword steel ore from here: https://www.dictum.com/en/steel-cca/japanese-sword-steel-tamahagane-750-1000-g-719608 https://www.dictum.com/en/steel-cca/japanese-sword-steel-tam...
- masklinn 6y ago
  > The "ore" (called Tamahagane) is sandy/rocky stone material which needs to be forged repeatedly to remove impurities and get a higher carbon content in the steel. FWIW tamagahane is already a steel, made from processing ironsand. Tamahagane is not the raw material. Ironsand is found throughout the world, but outside of the japanese few made actual iron (or steel) out of it historically, because there are usually better sources of iron available. NZ is an other country which is very poor in iron ore but it has a lot of ironsand, some of its beaches are ironsand (which is genuinely dangerous: it heats up quickly and very high in the sun). While the japanese were largely the only historical users of ironsand, I think NZ is the only one which industrially smelts ironsand.
  - exDM69 6y ago
    Thanks for clarification! There aren't any iron ore mines in my corner of the world either. The material traditionally used was called "lake ore", which is iron-rich stones collected from lakes that are the result of activity from iron-consuming freshwater bacteria. Some blacksmithing enthusiasts still work with lake ore for a fun challenge.
pjc50 6y ago
There is a lot of mythology in this area about steel folding, which acts to even out the amount of carbon in the steel and remove impurities as slag. The corresponding Western process is "Damascus steel" and you can still get decorative "damascening" (which is often just faked on the surface). The blog I would refer people to is https://acoup.blog/2020/10/02/collections-iron-how-did-they-make-it-part-iii-hammer-time/ https://acoup.blog/2020/10/02/collections-iron-how-did-they-... (in general as well as that post); I don't think they've covered katanas specifically but they are great on detail.
- Raphmedia 6y ago
  You can get actual Damascus items too, not merely the cheap decorative version. For example, there is this smithy that is local to me: https://www.darksword-armory.com/medieval-weapons/elite-series-damascus-steel-swords/ https://www.darksword-armory.com/medieval-weapons/elite-seri...
  - antiterra 6y ago
    From your link: > also known as pattern welded steel swords Pattern welded steel is not the same thing as the ‘original’ Damascus steel from 1000+ years ago. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wootz_steel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wootz_steel
    - btreecat 6y ago
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel
    - Raphmedia 6y ago
      In that sense, I agree. I mainly wanted to highlight that there are "Damascus"-style products that are more than regular steel with laser etched patterns.
  - readams 6y ago
    Nobody makes actual Damascus steel. Layering multiple steels and forge welding them is not how Damascus steel was made.
Raphmedia 6y ago
> So in a sense, the superiority of Katana swords is a myth? It depends on what you mean by superiority. Perfect for local needs? Yes. Very good against an unarmoured target? Yes. It is also an important status symbol because of its price and artistic beauty. It also requires some amount of skill to use, because of its single edge and the angle at which you need to strike in order to cut. That increased its status as an elite tool. They managed to do something that would not have been possible in this part of the world without the elite craftsmen. In that sense, it was superior to its competitors. But was it superior to other swords? It's comparing apples and oranges. It could not deal with the heavy armor seen in the West. But many Western swords could not either. Some could because they were heavier or pointier... but that would have made them poor against unarmoured or low armored targets. You couldn't use it on horseback either, but the Japanese had longer versions for that. It was a very good and beautiful tool, that's what it was.
- viridian 6y ago
  I don't think this is true if you turn your eye towards later sword technology. By the 14th century, Swiss sabers were simply more generally performant than just about anything that came before. They could stab almost as well as a long sword, and slash almost as well as a scimitar, with good balance, and the added advantage of having both a cross guard, and a light basket hand guard. (Personally I think swords are an over-romanticized weapon, and almost wholly inferior to spears in large scale melee combat, but they still evolved like every other piece of military technology, and earlier designs like the katana have a lot of obvious design flaws when compared to what you see on the battlefield in the 14th, 15th, or 16th centuries)
  - fouc 6y ago
    Swiss Saber looks to be primarily one handed, whereas Katana is two handed. They both have somewhat similar long/curved blades though. And they both have the cross guard.
  - Raphmedia 6y ago
    By competitors I meant locally or in areas with similar issues of poor raw materials. Otherwise, I completely agree with you. The Swiss saber was made to deal with similar targets as the Katana, so it performs in similar ways with the added benefit of having all the features you would expect on a western sword. Another sword that is quite similar to the Katana is the Kriegsmessers, which is also two handed. Both benefited from the advance in European warfare technologies while the Katana kind of stalled in it's perceived "perfected" form. Swords are over-romanticized now but I believe that it was also the case in the past. Any hardened soldier could have told you that spears or pikes where what won wars. Yet it's the sword we see and hear the most in art. The myths surrounding the Katana are probably as old as the sword itself.
fatbird 6y ago
I asked a question like this on Ask Metafilter[0] and got some detailed answers. The consensus among metallurgists, rather than swordmakers, is apparently that almost everyone had crap iron to work with, and various techniques for dealing with that; but Japanese process was better overall because the rarity/expense of iron in Japan meant more effort (expense) put into labour. It was easier to get a cheap, crappy blade in Europe. [0] https://ask.metafilter.com/153280/Steel-is-strong-but-flesh-is-stronger https://ask.metafilter.com/153280/Steel-is-strong-but-flesh-...
whatisthiseven 6y ago
No, it is a complete myth, something that virtually all sword makers across the world were doing. Japanese iron ore was actually higher quality than most, and they had plenty of iron ore for sword making (though iron was later imported during the industrial revolution). See this answer on a subreddit dedicated to high quality answers by historians: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/77tq5r/japan_and_its_history_in_refined_steel/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/77tq5r/japan...

Waterluvian 6y ago

I have to find the source. I’m not sure how good it is. But I’ve heard katanas are junk swords that work just fine because most of the time any cuttystabbything will do just fine. There’s also that somewhat famous (infamous?) Lindy Beige video on the subject on YouTube. But I get a sense that there’s a lot of opinion and subjectivity when it comes to a historian’s perspective.

cyphar 6y ago
I'd think that it's more likely that all swords are about as good as any other. If katanas really were junk swords to the point where it made a material difference, Shogun would've used imported western sword designs (pre-isolation) and today's modern katanas would have ended up being just western swords. I'd have assumed thay "any cuttystabbything will do" applies to basically any kind of sword.
- Waterluvian 6y ago
  That sounds sensible. Probably really didn’t need the quality we can muster today, just quantity and capacity for repairs. Now I’m curious and have to explore this further.
- antepodius 6y ago
  People focus too much on swords, anyway. Pole weapons were the primary melee weapons for most combatants, including samurai, with swords being akin to sidearms. But there are certainly trade-offs in design. Katanas are good at chopping unarmoured opponents and being sharp. The crossguard of a longsword can and was used to bludgeon an armored opponent, who would be basically immune to cuts. So if I abducted you and forced you to pick a sword from a lineup, then fight someone to the death, you'd want to know who you were fighting and what they had, and pick based on that.
hef19898 6y ago
Lindy is maybe not the best source. People with knowledge in metalurgy and the use of swords in the historic context would be better.

hef19898 6y ago

That is true. The same reason why mediaval swords used a similar process, not folding but twisting the steel. The reason are impurities in the ore deposits. Japans deposits have more of them than e.g. European ones. Which kind of enabled more advanced metalurgy in Europe, ultimately leading to stuff like spring steel. The folding and reforging reomves these impurities from the steel and changes the carbon content, making the stell more flexible or harder and thus sharper but also more brittle. Quite ingenious, if you aske me. Nowadays, Japanese deposits can be exploited with electromagnets, resulting in basically pure iron ore making all that metalurgy more or less unnecessary. Not that Japanese swords were bad, they were as good as any other sword in killing people. So no katana superiority, but neither any deficiencies compared to European swords. Also be aware that swords used to be the medival equivalent of modern day pistols. More or less.

cyphar 6y ago

I'm not a metalworker at all (I just spent a bunch of time last year researching it while diving down a rabbit hole of forging YouTube videos). However, I did stumble upon a longer explanation of this. Folding steel is only required to remove impurities, so in theory high-quality steel doesn't require much folding (if any). However in Japan due to the volcanic nature of the land, the iron deposits are full of impurities which lead to the need for folding. After you've done enough folding you end up with a billet which is basically the same quality as western steel. In other words, there's nothing intrinsically better about the steel in a finished Japanese sword (if anything the starting materials are worse). But again, I'm only speaking a someone who read about this and other bits of metalworking last year in a spurt of interest in the subject. Wikipedia claims otherwise: > The folding removes impurities and helps even out the carbon content, while the alternating layers combine hardness with ductility to greatly enhance the toughness. But in my mind this does raise the question "why don't all modern swordsmiths all use this technique if its objectively superior?"

VBprogrammer 6y ago
I don't think that's quite right. An early name for Steel is Wrought Iron. The Iron had to be wrought, or worked, to remove the impurities. The main one is reducing the carbon content, when the metal is folded it allows the carbon to burn off as carbon dioxide, when the process is repeated often enough you can get the carbon content down to the low single digits. Until the invention of crucible steel this was the only way of producing steel. Certainly perhaps the Japanese steel may have contained other impurities and been harder to refine but certainly European Iron had to be worked to make Steel.
- cyphar 6y ago
  Yeah, you're quite right. I guess I should've said it required more folding (given how much the folded aspect of Japanese steel is sold as being a key aspect of what makes it "unique")?
  - VBprogrammer 6y ago

Athas 6y ago

Japan is notoriously mineral-poor, so they had to put in extra effort that is not necessary with better raw materials. Further, I suppose this scarcity means that swords become more of a prestige item, meaning that you can put in more effort when manufacturing one. In contrast, when decent steel is cheap (relatively; we're still taking pre-industrialisation), then you might do something more akin to mass-production.

elp 6y ago

I've always wondered that myself. Those blades would have been so expensive in relative terms that I truly wonder how much real combat they were used in. In any war the peon's get the worst of it. Anyone rich/ senior enough to have them wasn't going to be on the front line. Then there's the fact that the handle was usually attached by a single mekugi ( bamboo or ivory peg ) which is not strong from an engineering point of view and completely at odds with that engineering marvel of a blade but perfect for swapping out the handle to match the fashion occasion.

hef19898 6y ago
As always, there were crap ones and expensive ones. Same as everywhere. Also quite funny, the most expensive part, even today, of a katana from a Japanese smith is not the blade but all the other stuff. IMHO, Katanas became or rather retained their religious status with Japan closing down and more or less freezing social development. The knighlty sowrd was somewhat replaced in that role in Europe with the introduction of firearms and the fall of Knights.
ceejayoz 6y ago
> Those blades would have been so expensive in relative terms that I truly wonder how much real combat they were used in. In any war the peon's get the worst of it. Anyone rich/ senior enough to have them wasn't going to be on the front line. There are parallels in modern warfare. Javelin missiles cost $175k, and are fired by troops making $20k/year. It gets even more disparate when you move into things like fighter jets.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

exDM69 6y ago

Yes, Japanese blacksmithing and metal industry is very highly skilled to compensate the poor quality of iron ore available in the region. The "ore" (called Tamahagane) is sandy/rocky stone material which needs to be forged repeatedly to remove impurities and get a higher carbon content in the steel. Then the forged bars are broken down, pieces sorted by carbon content and forge welded back together. This is a very labor and skill intensive process. There was a really good blacksmithing video in YouTube about making a Katana from Tamahagane. Unfortunately I can't find it now, but my searches come up with many low quality vids on the subject. If you're feeling adventurous, you can buy some Tamahagane sword steel ore from here: https://www.dictum.com/en/steel-cca/japanese-sword-steel-tamahagane-750-1000-g-719608 https://www.dictum.com/en/steel-cca/japanese-sword-steel-tam...

masklinn 6y ago
> The "ore" (called Tamahagane) is sandy/rocky stone material which needs to be forged repeatedly to remove impurities and get a higher carbon content in the steel. FWIW tamagahane is already a steel, made from processing ironsand. Tamahagane is not the raw material. Ironsand is found throughout the world, but outside of the japanese few made actual iron (or steel) out of it historically, because there are usually better sources of iron available. NZ is an other country which is very poor in iron ore but it has a lot of ironsand, some of its beaches are ironsand (which is genuinely dangerous: it heats up quickly and very high in the sun). While the japanese were largely the only historical users of ironsand, I think NZ is the only one which industrially smelts ironsand.
- exDM69 6y ago
  Thanks for clarification! There aren't any iron ore mines in my corner of the world either. The material traditionally used was called "lake ore", which is iron-rich stones collected from lakes that are the result of activity from iron-consuming freshwater bacteria. Some blacksmithing enthusiasts still work with lake ore for a fun challenge.

pjc50 6y ago

There is a lot of mythology in this area about steel folding, which acts to even out the amount of carbon in the steel and remove impurities as slag. The corresponding Western process is "Damascus steel" and you can still get decorative "damascening" (which is often just faked on the surface). The blog I would refer people to is https://acoup.blog/2020/10/02/collections-iron-how-did-they-make-it-part-iii-hammer-time/ https://acoup.blog/2020/10/02/collections-iron-how-did-they-... (in general as well as that post); I don't think they've covered katanas specifically but they are great on detail.

Raphmedia 6y ago
You can get actual Damascus items too, not merely the cheap decorative version. For example, there is this smithy that is local to me: https://www.darksword-armory.com/medieval-weapons/elite-series-damascus-steel-swords/ https://www.darksword-armory.com/medieval-weapons/elite-seri...
- antiterra 6y ago
  From your link: > also known as pattern welded steel swords Pattern welded steel is not the same thing as the ‘original’ Damascus steel from 1000+ years ago. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wootz_steel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wootz_steel
  - btreecat 6y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel
  - Raphmedia 6y ago
    In that sense, I agree. I mainly wanted to highlight that there are "Damascus"-style products that are more than regular steel with laser etched patterns.
- readams 6y ago
  Nobody makes actual Damascus steel. Layering multiple steels and forge welding them is not how Damascus steel was made.

Raphmedia 6y ago

> So in a sense, the superiority of Katana swords is a myth? It depends on what you mean by superiority. Perfect for local needs? Yes. Very good against an unarmoured target? Yes. It is also an important status symbol because of its price and artistic beauty. It also requires some amount of skill to use, because of its single edge and the angle at which you need to strike in order to cut. That increased its status as an elite tool. They managed to do something that would not have been possible in this part of the world without the elite craftsmen. In that sense, it was superior to its competitors. But was it superior to other swords? It's comparing apples and oranges. It could not deal with the heavy armor seen in the West. But many Western swords could not either. Some could because they were heavier or pointier... but that would have made them poor against unarmoured or low armored targets. You couldn't use it on horseback either, but the Japanese had longer versions for that. It was a very good and beautiful tool, that's what it was.

viridian 6y ago
I don't think this is true if you turn your eye towards later sword technology. By the 14th century, Swiss sabers were simply more generally performant than just about anything that came before. They could stab almost as well as a long sword, and slash almost as well as a scimitar, with good balance, and the added advantage of having both a cross guard, and a light basket hand guard. (Personally I think swords are an over-romanticized weapon, and almost wholly inferior to spears in large scale melee combat, but they still evolved like every other piece of military technology, and earlier designs like the katana have a lot of obvious design flaws when compared to what you see on the battlefield in the 14th, 15th, or 16th centuries)
- fouc 6y ago
  Swiss Saber looks to be primarily one handed, whereas Katana is two handed. They both have somewhat similar long/curved blades though. And they both have the cross guard.
- Raphmedia 6y ago
  By competitors I meant locally or in areas with similar issues of poor raw materials. Otherwise, I completely agree with you. The Swiss saber was made to deal with similar targets as the Katana, so it performs in similar ways with the added benefit of having all the features you would expect on a western sword. Another sword that is quite similar to the Katana is the Kriegsmessers, which is also two handed. Both benefited from the advance in European warfare technologies while the Katana kind of stalled in it's perceived "perfected" form. Swords are over-romanticized now but I believe that it was also the case in the past. Any hardened soldier could have told you that spears or pikes where what won wars. Yet it's the sword we see and hear the most in art. The myths surrounding the Katana are probably as old as the sword itself.

fatbird 6y ago

I asked a question like this on Ask Metafilter[0] and got some detailed answers. The consensus among metallurgists, rather than swordmakers, is apparently that almost everyone had crap iron to work with, and various techniques for dealing with that; but Japanese process was better overall because the rarity/expense of iron in Japan meant more effort (expense) put into labour. It was easier to get a cheap, crappy blade in Europe. [0] https://ask.metafilter.com/153280/Steel-is-strong-but-flesh-is-stronger https://ask.metafilter.com/153280/Steel-is-strong-but-flesh-...

whatisthiseven 6y ago

No, it is a complete myth, something that virtually all sword makers across the world were doing. Japanese iron ore was actually higher quality than most, and they had plenty of iron ore for sword making (though iron was later imported during the industrial revolution). See this answer on a subreddit dedicated to high quality answers by historians: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/77tq5r/japan_and_its_history_in_refined_steel/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/77tq5r/japan...