Ralf, my dear and close friend. I DID NOT compare the Cold Steel product with Nihonto. COLD STEEL DID
quote outlined in stars)
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San Mai means "three layers". It is the term given to the traditional laminated blades used by the Japanese for swords and daggers.
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I am aware of the Scandanavian practice of hard steel being placed between outer layers of softer steel (I seem to even recall many years ago a tungsten carbide center).
Whether or not this has value is not relevent; Cold Steel said their San Mai was based on the design of Nihonto. Nothing can be further from the truth. It borders on false advertising.
I think further that you seem to contradict yourself in your post. You say first:
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Even the Japanese swords have an ultra hard edge made of high carbon steel. They are usually compounded of four pieces. Soft center, harder sides and hardest edge.
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Then you say:
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And how can you say they got it backwards? Would you put the softer steel in the middle with the harder parts on the outside? What kind of edgeholding would you get in that case?
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Well, Ralf, I think that you got it right both times. The soft steel goes inside, and the hard steel on the outside. That is the way the Japanese sword smiths did it, and it has worked for 1200 years.
Perhaps you would benefit from perusal of the site I listed above. I can give you several other sites, which also have pictures of construction of Nihonto.
The motherboard site, which lists several links is:
http://www.gemlink.com/~rstein/sites.htm
Hope this helps, Walt