fighting Ninja Sword

If anyone doubts what Merek is saying about stainless steel sword-like-objects, I suggest that they go over to SwordForum and look up their infamous "stainless steel sword shattering" video clip. While I am very much more into western swords and sword arts than I will ever be into Japanese swords and martial arts, I can appreciate a very finely made weapon or tool from any culture, and the better Japanese swords certainly fit that description. But I can also denigrate junk swords. If you want a decorator piece to hang on a wall, the stainless steel swords are perfect in that they require minimal care, but stainless steel requires considerable skill when made into something as long as a sword. Please do consider the mechanical stress applied to the blade and to the tang of a sword when it is used. If there is a flaw anywhere in the structure, you may be assured that it will break at that point. I have seen too many do just that, even well-made ones. Why do you think that a good sword costs so much money? It requires skill and a lot of work to make one that will survive its normal use. And skill and work cost money.

There are decent swords available at relatively low prices. The Hanwei Practical series are, perhaps, the least expensive of any that are reasonable to use. The Kris Cutlery ones are a bit more expensive. But none of them will have the fine detail finish that many expect of a quality sword. What you get for the money is a very basic user sword that may or may not be too historically accurate. To procure the finer detail work will cost as, generally, will historical accuracy. One that more or less combines the two in a sort of balance is Cold Steel. You may want to look at their offerings. (Note: I am biting my tongue for saying that because I DO NOT like Cold Steel or its owner, but I will give him his due.)

BTW, Will P., as I understand it and Robert Marotz may well correct me, the Japanese did not differentially quench their blades so much as they differentially heat-treated them. They would coat part of the edge in clay before they heated it and this made for the differential heating. It is also what created the clouded "temper" line along the edge of the blades that is called the "hamon".
 
As this is somewhat simplified I will expect some cries of 'not so'. I do not profess to be an expert despite all my research. I am sure there are exceptions in all cases.
Edge to edge contact was avoided as much as possible in sword combat. Training and educated use of something your very life depended on and would, at minimum, be expensive to fix or replace and precluded bashing swords together ala Horrorwood. Weapons training included techniques for flat side blocking to preserve the edge as well as prevent one sword shearing another, damaging both. No 'Highlander' BS. Blade to blade is for fencing and rapier fights where the edge is minimized and the kill is achieved by poking your opponent somewhere vital or repeatedly.
Though they are made of steel, not all steel is equal. Don't even get started on that 'Blade' titanium katana crap. Swords are for cutting flesh and bone.
 
I think that we have run into some semantic problems. There is a difference between hardening and tempering - tempering is done after hardening to alter the structure of the steel.

"Japanese swords, crafted in the traditional style, are not tempered. Not at all. They are selectively hardened, with only the edge area being transformed to martensite. That's what the mud pack allows. It keeps the thicker section at the spine of the blade from hardening. It remains as pearlite and cementite, which is very soft and ductile. The "Hamon" is the line demarcating the transition between the hardened and unhardened zones of the blade. This technology was quite the hot ticket up until about three or four hundred years ago, when the good old Europeans began making high quality steel and tempering it." - Kevin McClung

Yeah, I got sloppy by calling it "quenching". It's clay quenching :).

the curvature is in fact a result of the differential heat treatment
Click to expand...

You're absolutely positively sure about this? The thick part of the blade doesn't get hardened at all. Whay would the sword warp so regularly in a longitudinal direction? Warping produces more of a crookednesss than a even curve. You probably know more than I do about this though...
 
I don't look to get into any pissing contests. As i said I am not an expert but I usually know where to look to get an answer ;) .
I haven't found a definitive answer about the curvature question though i know I have seen it on several respected sites. Possibly SFI (choke) or through this site or its links:
http://www.geocities.com/alchemyst/nihonto.htm
I'll keep poking around but the facts remain that there are no historical examples of the Japanese smiths having used stainless steel and ninjas used the same swords as everyone else....
 
I found this which possibly leans the discussion away from curvature due to differential heating. :footinmou ? Both seem reasonable.
"In 280 AD many more iron swords were imported from China to Japan.
It is believed that the art of forging a steel sword came soon after from China and Korea, but the details are unknown. We do know that in the 5th century steel swords were already made in Japan. These were of the straight, single-edged type called chokuto. The method of hardening the steel that is so typical of Japanese swords was first used in 6th century.
The era of the straight sword lasted untill the 8th century. Then the predominant style of warfare changed from fighting on foot to fighting on horseback. To accomodate horseback fighting the swords became curved. These long, curved single-edged swords were called tachi. There were many intermediate forms between chokuto and tachi. The most common of these were kogarasumaru (a curved, two-edged sword) and kenukigatatachi. The term Nipponto or Nihonto (literally 'Japanese sword') is usually reserved to swords with curvature. "
(copied from http://japanese-swords.gungfu.com/ )
Don't know how reliable the site is but I have already told you more than i know....maybe a real expert will chime in soon.... :p
Then there is this...damn. I give up.
http://swordforum.com/sfu/japanese/chokuto.html
 
That little japaneseswords.gungfu.com article has inaccurate dates and mediocre 'facts'.

Yes, the curvature is created predominantly by the quench. Make one and find out for yourself. You can impart some degree of curvature in the beginning if you want, and you can also adjust some variables with the yakiire to "control" curvature.

Tempering is REDUCING hardness, not adding it. A few Japanese swords were also given at the very least a stress relief after the quench to prevent the edge from being easily cracked. The practice of swordmaking on the whole though omitted this aspect.

BTW, Will P., as I understand it and Robert Marotz may well correct me, the Japanese did not differentially quench their blades so much as they differentially heat-treated them. They would coat part of the edge in clay before they heated it and this made for the differential heating. It is also what created the clouded "temper" line along the edge of the blades that is called the "hamon".
Click to expand...
The problems with nomenclature. I'll strip the process down to the essentials:

Application of clay to a more-or-less straight blade.

Depending on technique, the edge area either never has clay applied or has the clay scraped off. Exposed edge, coated body.

When heated, the entire blade + clay assembly will attain the same approximate heat where the crystalline structure changes into a more-or-less transition state. The speed of cooling will dictate what the structure will revert to when cool.

When it [the entire blade] is dunked in water, the edge is exposed and also has a thinner cross section and cools much faster, forcing the structure into a tense, hard one called martensite. The thicker cross section + insulation of the clay on the spine will allow the crystalline state to "relax" back into pearlite, a softer, less tense structure. Due to the different crystalline transitions during this particular type of process, the blade will curve in the direction of the spine. It is not merely an "edge quench", though there are more specific techniques than just a vague "drop the blade into the tank".

If one opts to (not the most common practice in traditional swordmaking apparently), one can heat the blade to a lower temperature for a long period of time to "relax" some of the tense (read: brittle) martensite edge, reducing hardness a little bit but increasing durability. This is not part of hardening, and is more akin to the concept of "tempering". It is another aspect of heat treat, but it is distinct process that occurs AFTER hardening.

If you want to think of nomenclature in terms of result, a term like "selective hardening" is somewhat accurate in that it refers to there being a "hardening" process that leads to the result of "selected hardness". Now think about "differential quench". Is it a process that leads towards a...different...quench? No, the result is what we should be paying attention to. The quench is part of that "selective hardening" process. Clay quenching? Are we quenching in clay? No, we're quenching in water. Clay heat treat? Are we heat treating clay? No, we're heat treating the blade. Differential tempering? Are we producing a "temper"? No, we're hardening.

Perhaps I'm being more confusing than helpful, but I thought I'd try.
 
I KNEW someone had the answer! Thanks Robert.
Are there any materials or chemical properties in clays from different sources which may be imparted into the surface of the steel? Is this the origin of hamon 'styles' or are those caused by another process or handling? :confused:
 
Meh! They are curved because they were initially designed to be used on horse back. Its got nothing to do with the HT, meaning its not curved solely because of the HT.

As times and fighting conditions changed so did the blades, look at a jap sword from 1200 or so then one from 1500 them to 1800 you will see a general straightening of the blade.
 
Merek said:
I KNEW someone had the answer! Thanks Robert.
Are there any materials or chemical properties in clays from different sources which may be imparted into the surface of the steel? Is this the origin of hamon 'styles' or are those caused by another process or handling? :confused:
Click to expand...

It's my understanding that the hamon styles are mostly different because of the way the clay is applied
 
So was I Triton, and furthermore certain styles of Hamon were particularly popular at certain times.
 
Temper said:
Meh! They are curved because they were initially designed to be used on horse back. Its got nothing to do with the HT, meaning its not curved solely because of the HT.

As times and fighting conditions changed so did the blades, look at a jap sword from 1200 or so then one from 1500 them to 1800 you will see a general straightening of the blade.
Click to expand...
They are curved because of the quench. You can control that with a reasonable command of certain variables in the process, but the fundamental process leads to a curved blade. Simple as that. Furthermore, the sword was not somehow magically invented that way by the Japanese, it was adopted from a form of Chinese dao (possibly with Korean influences as Korea seems to act as a filter for a lot of things that are transmitted from China to Japan). This style of dao was straight and is very very similar to what you see in "chokuto" or pre-heian straight blades. There was not a sudden rapid change of battlefield tactics around the time of yakiire's development, so the appearance of the curved blades does not directly correspond to a change in combat. The method of usage and aesthetics of the time influenced the degree of curvature generally found for a given period of course, though one might able able to say the adoption of yakiire technique and appeal of its result to a developing methodology are complementary.
 
The ninja-to does have a blade similar to the kiri-ha tachi that were used in the Koto, Nara and into the Heian era, but the mounting was entirely different, and that style of blade went out over 1,000 years ago when they figured out how to make better swords.

Oops, Robert already mentioned this. I also read somewhere that they developed the curved laminated blade because the old straight bladed swords were ineffective against Mongolian leather armor.
 
Anytime you differentially quench any blade it is going to curve. On small blades it is usually not noticeable but on a sword it is quite pronounced. The only way to make a straight blade with a hard edge and a softer back is to bend it the wrong way before heat treating. Different types of curvatures have been in fasion in different time periods and for different uses. The most basic shape is just a smooth gentle curve such as would be created by differentially quenching a straight blade. Some swords have more curve towards the handle and are almost straight from about the midpoint to the tip. These swords usually start out as an S shape with the tip bent forward. others are the opposite with the tip curved and the handle end fairly straight. Most that I've seen though have a very even curvature.


As for hamons the most common way is to coat the back of the blade with clay with ashi lines extending to the edge. It is the size, spacing, and orietation of the ashi lines that control how the hamon will appear. Don Fogg has produced some pretty wild hamons using only ashi lines and no clay backing at all. If you can interupt the quench after the thinner edge section has transformed into martensite then the back will remain perlite just like you would get with clay insulating it.
 
Home combat? I'd say one of these:

http://www.gungfu.com/cart-htm/swords_wooden_foam.htm

Foam would probably give the most fun but wood is ok if you're sensible. Metal blades WILL break unless you spend a small fortune not to mention destroy most of your house, housemates etc.

You may now continue discussing the finer points of Japanese sword construction :rolleyes: (yeah like "Omega Doom" NEEDS a real sword).

---- EDIT ----

Check out some of Omega Doom's other threads XD
 
I did check out his other threads. Afterward.
I have reversed my stand and now encourage him to take it to the street. ;)
 
Koreans used straight blades- Maybe the ninja just got all of their swords from Korean (joke)-

LosT
 
If you're going to get a real sword go for a katana of wakizashi:

Bugei, Paul Chen and Last Legend are the major 'commercial' makers/importers.
Morgan Valley Forge/Howard Clark (who makes for Bugei), Slobodian Swords, Rick Barrett/Live Blades (swords and bare blades) are high end customs. Wally Hayes also makes a straight bladed one.
 
I couldnt help but notice some people say that the ninja sword is a made up thing from hollywood. I know that the sword that ninja's used were shorter, but as for straight bladed, I am not sure.

Lee
 
It's true that straight bladed swords were used in Japan, but this was about 500 years before any "ninja" would appear. Ninja would have used curved swords like everybody else.
 
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