Blade Show 2009 - Tameshigiri

U

UnknownVT

Joined
Feb 15, 2003
Messages
2,575
No need for words......

Tameshigiri1_090530.jpg
Tameshigiri2_090530.jpg


Tameshigiri3_090530.jpg
Tameshigiri4_090530.jpg


Tameshigiri5_090530.jpg
Tameshigiri6_090530.jpg


Tameshigiri7_090530.jpg
Tameshigiri8_090530.jpg


Tameshigiri9_090530.jpg
Tameshigiri10_090530.jpg


James Williams of Bugei demonstrating with various Paul Chen (CAS Hanwei) swords - Raptor series.

--
Vincent
http://picasaweb.com/UnknownVincent?showall=true
http://UnknownVincent.Shutterfly.com
http://UnknownVT.Shutterfly.com
http://UnknownVT.multiply.com/photos
 
Thanks for the great pix!! I enjoyed watching his demonstrations. Fantastic stuff.
 
Don't feel stupid, Josh - I was thinking the same thing!!!


cool pics, btw!



I never leave my table long enough to see this stuff....I am missing out!!!

Dan
 
Is James Williams the same fella that the Military channel program "Weapon Masters" featured to demonstrate the Japanese sword in action? He looks very familiar.

The host named Chad set out to make a sword that rivaled the performance of the traditional Japanese katana. Chad's sword was more successful in performance. However, I noticed that they only showed the edge of the katana after testing for just a few seconds - you could see the (big) chips in the blade and I always wondered if they really used an authentic $30,000+ sword.
 
Sufler said:
Is James Williams the same fella that the Military channel program "Weapon Masters" featured to demonstrate the Japanese sword in action? He looks very familiar.
Click to expand...

That's him. He was also featured on a couple episodes of "Time Warp" cutting through various things (tameshigiri, pig shoulders, etc).

The host named Chad set out to make a sword that rivaled the performance of the traditional Japanese katana. Chad's sword was more successful in performance. However, I noticed that they only showed the edge of the katana after testing for just a few seconds - you could see the (big) chips in the blade and I always wondered if they really used an authentic $30,000+ sword.
Click to expand...
He was aided by Howard Clark, a very talented swordmaker. He doesn't do them the traditional way (as you saw in the show) with bits of tamahagane, but from modern alloys. Chad's sword was tougher, but not sharper; but that was what he was going for, and the sword wasn't "finished".

And seeing as how James Williams works with Bugei, and he knew the potential damage his blade might suffer, he probably wasn't using a particularly expensive sword.
 
Sufler said:
The host named Chad set out to make a sword that rivaled the performance of the traditional Japanese katana. Chad's sword was more successful in performance. However, I noticed that they only showed the edge of the katana after testing for just a few seconds - you could see the (big) chips in the blade and I always wondered if they really used an authentic $30,000+ sword.
Click to expand...

Not to be argumentative or disagreeable -
Japanese swords have evolved and developed over centuries as a thing to cut humans.

Although modern materials may well rival those historical swords - the design etc is hard to beat for its intended purpose.

Modern material Japanese swords are now available including ones with Howard Clark's input on materials, and they do perform well - in fact James Williams uses swords that are made with those materials - but he also used swords that are economical too - like the CAS Hanwei Raptor series priced well under $400 made from plain old 5160 which he used yesterday for many of the cuts
RaptorSeries.jpg


Let's take a very silly example - test a blade's toughness but cutting concrete(!) - most swords would fail - but a sledgehammer would do the job fine - so is a sledgehammer the tougher sword?

But cutting through flesh and bone - the Japanese sword is acknowledged as one of the finest instruments - a sledgehammer can still kill you - but does it cut as well?

So which performed better?

Apples and oranges -
and we normally don't have humans to test swords on, and are limited to imitations and approximates - so it's not unusual to lose sight of the objective and try tougher and tougher cutting media to show modern swords can out perform old swords......

--
Vincent
http://picasaweb.com/UnknownVincent?showall=true
http://UnknownVincent.Shutterfly.com
http://UnknownVT.Shutterfly.com
http://UnknownVT.multiply.com/photos
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top