Underground Journal

Katana

A katana is a sword from Japan that has a blade with a single edge and a slight curve.  This sword, sometimes measured in shaku, was designed to allow samurai a faster, more streamlined way of drawing their swords to attack. They did this, in part, by keeping their sword’s blade facing up on their back. This allowed them to remove the sword to slice the enemy with a single motion. A katana was one piece in a set of swords carried by the samurai and involved smaller swords as well. These swords had a similar design as the katana, but just on a smaller scale.

A katana utilizes a steel referred to as Tamahagane, which uses high carbon steel and low carbon steel together as a composite. The high carbon steel is able to have a stronger edge because it is more brittle, while the low carbon steel is more moldable and, for this reason, is more durable. However, the high carbon steel can snap too easily and the low carbon steel becomes dull too easily. By combining these two steels into one, katanas are able to see both of the different steel’s benefits.

The composite steel is created by placing a piece of low carbon steel into the interior of a hollow piece of high carbon steel. With the high carbon steel on the exterior of the composite, it becomes the hard edge of the sword. The low carbon steel becomes the gives the new metal the ability to absorb blows.

By heating and hammering the two steels together they become a single piece of metal, and are then hammered and folded in order to remove impurities. At this stage the katana might not actually have a curve, and instead gains it through the process of quenching. The creator of the blade uses a clay slurry to cover the composite using less on the shard edge of the sword. After heating the clay covered sword and dipping it into water, the katana curves because of the varying amounts of clay on the blade. This is also where the blade gets its characteristic curving line down the center.

Samurai swords can still be seen in movies and different kinds of media. In addition, there is a large number of collectors and some of them have katanas that are incredibly high in value. With the skill, time, and beauty of these blades, this is not difficult to believe. Overall, they can be appreciated by almost anyone as works of art and are a great way to discover Japan.

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