Cutting silk - the japanese way

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highanddry

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Sep 14, 2007
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I would like to know if anyone could endorse or refute this statement, extracted from an article on the net, http://met.iisc.ernet.in/~rangu/text.pdf, page 68.

"The finest Japanese swords could gently slice through a square of silk dropped out of the air onto their upturned edges."


Thanks,
Ricardo
 
Yes, that has been seen in print many times. Also that a blade can cut a leaf floating downstream over an upturned blade.

I don't see why not, a good blade is as sharp as a razor.
 
Nonsense! (I'm being polite here. ;)) A straight razor can't do that, so how can a sword do it, any sword. It has also been said that a Samurai sword can cut a Browning machine gun barrel is half without damaging the edge. That's just more hype and urban legend.

I had one guy in a gun shop told me that his 500 year old katana could cut any modern made blade in half. So I went out to my truck and got a Grohmann R4S that I keep in a kit and offered it to him to prove his statement. After a lot of shuckin' and jivin', BS walked.
 
Here's how to do this silk cut...

Take your sword and place the handle in a vise, edge up. use a fair size square of silk for the test. You'll also need 2 large magnets, a pound each. Tie the corners of the silk to the magnets...
 
For what ever reason the link doesn’t work.


The silk thing comes up from time to time.
Cutting requires the sharp sword/knife to be “drawn” across the face of the target. The target “falling” onto the sword/knife is a “chopping” motion.

In order to cut something the object cutting has to over come the mechanical limits of the target. This is done with applied force to sword and collected energy. The applied force comes from the user in the form of strength and technique the collected energy is the mass of the sword times it’s velocity.

The sword in (in most telling of this story) is level and static therefore has no applied force and no collected energy. The silk has no applied force to it so it falls and strikes the edge of the sword with only the amount of energy it collects by falling. Because it’s collected energy does not exceed it’s own mechanical limits the silk falls and drapes over the sword with out being cut.
This is the reason why I believe this is nothing more than an urban legend.

In a different telling the sword blade is angled point towards the ground allowing the silk to slide down the edge. I don’t believe this would work either for the same reasons stated above that is there just simply is not enough acting force to part/cut the silk.

Silk is not UV stable and degrades so perhaps the piece of silk used in the legend was old but then again I’m not sure that even this would help.

As an experiment I tried to cut a silk shirt tossed in to the air with a couple of sharp knifes. One knife was a Damascus buck 110 shaving sharp the other a Cold steel tanto also shaving sharp. Repeated attempts only produced very ragged holes about an inch or so in length. The raggedness of the edges is caused by the silk fibers breaking and not being cut.


After about 10 or so hours of polishing both knives I tried it again. This time the knives produced long cuts (leaving smooth edges) clean through the shirt. The edges on the knives were so keen it rendered them practically unusable for any normal cutting chores. They dulled very quickly.

After playing around I came to the conclusion that silk is difficult to cut and most “sharp” knives are not up to the task.

As for the cutting a machine gun barrel well, I’m not entirely convinced that it could not be done.
 
"As for the cutting a machine gun barrel well, I’m not entirely convinced that it could not be done."

Yes, it could be done, but you would have to use the same method that Buck used to cut through a bolt. Place the machine gun barrel on a solid surface, place the edge of the blade on the barrel and tap the back of the blade with a hammer. If you have a good blade, you should be able to eventually cut through the barrel. The blade will be damaged. BUT, that's not the story. The story goes that the barrel was cut with one slash of the sword blade. It ain't gonna happen.

There is a reason why these tales are called stories. They are just that, stories. Believe what you want and don't forget Santa Clause, The Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.

Japanese sword blades varied from very good to very poor. Just because a blade is 500 years old does not make it good. I doubt that even the best of them would fair very well against modern tool steels.
 
>>For whatever reason the link doesn’t work.

I don´t know what happened. I tried now and it worked fine. It takes a little while to load entirely, however.
It´s a paper on wootz steel.

I was suspicious that "the falling-silk cut" was just a tall tale, and after Bors' and Uffda's comments I am quite sure it's just that.

It amazes me that even on a so-called scientific paper on the most famous ancient high carbon steel, things like that go happilly unchecked. No wonder archaeologists and historians get a bad rap sometimes.

Many thanks,

Ricardo
 
UffDa said:
"As for the cutting a machine gun barrel well, I’m not entirely convinced that it could not be done."

Yes, it could be done, but you would have to use the same method that Buck used to cut through a bolt. Place the machine gun barrel on a solid surface, place the edge of the blade on the barrel and tap the back of the blade with a hammer. If you have a good blade, you should be able to eventually cut through the barrel. The blade will be damaged. BUT, that's not the story. The story goes that the barrel was cut with one slash of the sword blade. It ain't gonna happen.

There is a reason why these tales are called stories. They are just that, stories. Believe what you want and don't forget Santa Clause, The Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.

Japanese sword blades varied from very good to very poor. Just because a blade is 500 years old does not make it good. I doubt that even the best of them would fair very well against modern tool steels.
Click to expand...

I ran across something awhile ago regarding the British Sten machine gun. Apparently late in the war when alloy steel was in short supply some were made with rolled seamed low alloy barrels. This got me to thinking the Japanese WWII weapons are considered to be among the worst made. If a high quality sword was indeed used on a poorly constructed weapon could it cut through it. Who knows it might be possible. I’ve heard versions where the sword has cut through every type of machine gun. If we are strictly talking about cutting through a modern chromium steel barrel then I’m afraid the sword will fail miserably.

Another thing to consider is some Japanese machine guns were made with what looks like rolled receivers. If these receivers were made from cold roll due to material shortages it might be possible for the sword to cut the receiver in half just behind the barrel. Which could easily be re-told as cutting the barrel off.

I totally agree that Japanese swords ran the spectrum as far as quality. Age has absolutely nothing to due with it. In reality this is more than likely an urban legend however, You never know it’s not to far out of the realm of possibility.
 
Another version of the story like yours: One of the great myths about swords was that when Richard the III (I think or some other number) met Saladin during the crusades they compared swords. Saladin took out his damascus scimitar and cut a silk scarf in two in mid-air. Richard then pulled out his broad sword and chopped a metal helmet in half. So which was better?
 
UffDa said:
It has also been said that a Samurai sword can cut a Browning machine gun barrel is half without damaging the edge. That's just more hype and urban legend.
Click to expand...

Mythbusters tested the hell out of THAT legend.
A legend it was, busted as all hell.
Sounded cool though.
 
zman308 said:
Another version of the story like yours: One of the great myths about swords was that when Richard the III (I think or some other number) met Saladin during the crusades they compared swords. Saladin took out his damascus scimitar and cut a silk scarf in two in mid-air. Richard then pulled out his broad sword and chopped a metal helmet in half. So which was better?
Click to expand...

I heard the same story...

Yin and Yang, one requires skillful finesse of technique and the other brute strength and technique. In the end which one won......
 
Bors said:
I heard the same story...

Yin and Yang, one requires skillful finesse of technique and the other brute strength and technique. In the end which one won......
Click to expand...

There was more finesse in the European styles than many people think; at least that's what I've gotten from reading various old fight books and modern works on Medieval swordsmanship.
Oriental styles just got all the play because they retained the use of the sword for longer, after Europe had gone down the path of the gun mostly.
 
link doesn't work.......it sounds a lil unrealistic, but there's a vid of a guy shooting a 50cal machine gun at a katana though(well i think it's a 50cal...), it cut 7 bullets and then broke.

[youtube]HO8Ot10hIiA&[/youtube]
 
>>Link doesn't work.......it sounds a lil unrealistic, but there's a vid of a guy shooting a 50cal machine gun at a katana though(well i think it's a 50cal...), it cut 7 bullets and then broke.

If you google "wootz steel", it is the fifth entry, top to bottom.

I have seen a number of these videos. Impressive as they are, I guess high carbon steel with the proper edge geometry may well beat copper (or whatever) jacketed lead, until a stress rises at some point of the blade. Is that correct guys?

Thanks,
Ricardo
 
I've seen pictures of SOG knives cutting bullets fired at them as well, of unknown caliber though. The barrels on the guns used on Mythbusters were very thick, but IRC, they tried a Thompson .45 cal submachine gun as well, and the blade still wouldnt cut through it, although when they heated up the barrels, to simulate extended firing, they did manage to bend them. I've read somewhere that Alfred Pendray uses his modern wootz blades to cut silk, but he lets the silk fall, and slashes upward. For anyone who wants to try the barrel cutting, try the cheapest piece of pipe you can find of a reasonable diameter, 1" or 0.5" or so. The sword will definately cut into the pipe, but cutting through the pipe is a different story. It would take more force than any person is able to generate I would think.
 
UffDa said:
Nonsense! (I'm being polite here. ;)) A straight razor can't do that, so how can a sword do it, any sword. It has also been said that a Samurai sword can cut a Browning machine gun barrel is half without damaging the edge. That's just more hype and urban legend.

I had one guy in a gun shop told me that his 500 year old katana could cut any modern made blade in half. So I went out to my truck and got a Grohmann R4S that I keep in a kit and offered it to him to prove his statement. After a lot of shuckin' and jivin', BS walked.
Click to expand...

well the reason is simple, a sword has a cutting edge 100 times longer than a razor, so it has a longer opportunity to cut as the silk runs down it.


Bors

It wasn't a Sten gun barrel, which is just an itty bitty submachine gun, it was the barrel of a Lewis Gun which is long and slender and is normally surronunded by a water jacket. It is a WW1 weapon (1914 - 1918). From memory, the sword was presented to King George V by the emperor of Japan and the barrel was cut by his swordsmith by way of demonstration, who wiped the sword with a silk cloth and returned the sword to the emperor who then presented it to George V.

The sword is displayed at Windsor Castle and I have seen it and have a picture of it.
 
I would be hard pressed to believe that a sword could cut a Piece of falling silk. I would have to see it done to believe it.
 
A sword can't cut a piece of falling silk or a lotus leaf floating down-stream. But boy, can they cut!!
 
It wasn't a Sten gun barrel, which is just an itty bitty submachine gun, it was the barrel of a Lewis Gun which is long and slender and is normally surronunded by a water jacket. It is a WW1 weapon (1914 - 1918). From memory, the sword was presented to King George V by the emperor of Japan and the barrel was cut by his swordsmith by way of demonstration, who wiped the sword with a silk cloth and returned the sword to the emperor who then presented it to George V.

The sword is displayed at Windsor Castle and I have seen it and have a picture of it.
Click to expand...


I didn’t say a Sten was used. Shortages in materials during war time are common which means concessions have to be made and the Sten is but one example of those concessions.

My reasoning is that a sword will not cut through a chromium steel barrel however, it might and I say “might” be possible if the barrel in question was constructed from low quality steel.

That’s interesting about the Lewis. The Lewis is an air cooled (not water cooled) gas operated drum fed machine gun. The barrel is surrounded by a cooling jacket that dissipates the heat generated by firing. The barrel is relatively small in diameter (along the lines of a modern hunting rifle gun not tapered). Below the barrel and running most of the length is a gas tube which cycles the gun during firing.

Now, the claim is that the sword cut through the barrel however, in doing so it would have also had to cut through the cooling jacket and the gas tube.

From a reasoning stand point I just don’t see this happening even with the absolute best Japanese sword wielded by the best swordsman. This borders somewhat in the realm of light sabers.

Now if the barrel and gas tube were removed leaving just the cooling jacket perhaps then.
 
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