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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 s
by 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 agoI 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 agoYeah, 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 agoI think that's probably a bit of a simplification. My understanding is that the Japanise swordsmiths were able to forge weld a higher carbon cutting edge onto a softer steel blade. That is what gave them the properties of strength and edge keeping.
- readams 6y agoWrought iron is not steel.
- hef19898 6y agoBecause spring steel is even better. Before that, European swordsmiths did the same with Damast-steel. Spring steel made stuff like rapiers, short swords and so on possible. And long-swords, which only worked with spring steel against solid plate armor. Katanas retain their sharpness better, so, as they are harder. And carried in wooden scabords and not metal ones as European sabres and such.