katana, Japanese sword

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mano

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Anyone know anything about katana swords? I'm looking for something around $75 that's not a complete piece of junk. To be used as a display and cutting watermellons and the like in half.
 
At that price point you are still in the "piece of junk" range unfortunately... Why a Katana might i ask? - the CCK watermelon knife is pretty close to your price if your after a bada$$ melon chopper??
 
who wouldn't want a katana? i think the melon is for demos.
 
I too a katana. Actually, if I keep wanting, I will have to eventually make one. I already know a blacksmith who I can learn from, but this project is years away.
 
I too a katana. Actually, if I keep wanting, I will have to eventually make one. I already know a blacksmith who I can learn from, but this project is years away.

hmm, an s grind katana, would be interesting to see a demo of that.
 
hmm, an s grind katana, would be interesting to see a demo of that.

Actually, it is mostly forged to shape and then shaped with scrapers and stones if done traditionally. Very labor intensive process. I will probably take a shortcut and do the scrapers' part on a grinder, but forging and stone finished will stay unchanged.
 
ECG 2015

[video=youtube;Kb8P6Sq9PDU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb8P6Sq9PDU[/video]
 
At $75, it's worst than a toy if you want to do some real cutting, the handle is just a welded rat-tail. It's downright dangerous to the wielder! See how they are made here.

[video=youtube;Ax5H9PSf9g8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ax5H9PSf9g8[/video]

I only know that modern products like 1055 Cold Steel are way more tougher than the traditional, differentially hardened katana, and is like 10 times cheaper.
 
If you get a Cold Steel sword you can also pierce the hood of a car. If you want.
 
At $75, it's worst than a toy if you want to do some real cutting, the handle is just a welded rat-tail. It's downright dangerous to the wielder! See how they are made here.

[video=youtube;Ax5H9PSf9g8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ax5H9PSf9g8[/video]

I only know that modern products like 1055 Cold Steel are way more tougher than the traditional, differentially hardened katana, and is like 10 times cheaper.

much more than 10x cheaper in reality... if you think $6-10k will buy you a real, well made katana, you're in for a surprise.
 
much more than 10x cheaper in reality... if you think $6-10k will buy you a real, well made katana, you're in for a surprise.

Have the prices gone up much in the last decade or so? That price range used to land a reasonably decent piece in simple mountings and polish. Mukansa and top award winner stuff was a lot more, of course, but there were quite a few decent values under 10k. Could be different now, though.
 
Do you really want a cheap katana?
[video=youtube;qrIEdW5A9cs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrIEdW5A9cs[/video]
 
I was lucky enough to have a walk around The Lanes Armoury here in the UK last year, they had WWII Japanese officers swords that started at £300 for basic rough items up to a few thousand, they also have a huge selection from all periods and I think the most expensive in there at the time was around £17,500. Some amazing stuff in there, full sets of Samurai armour, bows, spears etc. Spent ages just staring at everything:biggrin:
 
Have the prices gone up much in the last decade or so? That price range used to land a reasonably decent piece in simple mountings and polish. Mukansa and top award winner stuff was a lot more, of course, but there were quite a few decent values under 10k. Could be different now, though.

i may be mistaken, but the only sword smith i know personally is a mukansa... the prices of his work blow my mind... even at half of that, youre still above $10k easily
 
i may be mistaken, but the only sword smith i know personally is a mukansa... the prices of his work blow my mind... even at half of that, youre still above $10k easily
Collectors really inflate values at the top end...when I was into it, it wasn't uncommon to see unmounted blades in the >35k range (for tachi), especially because they also tended to seek out the top polishers. Of course a general appreciator of weaponry or martial artist shouldn't be looking at the Yoshihara bros or Amada Akitsugu anyway.
 
i may be mistaken, but the only sword smith i know personally is a mukansa... the prices of his work blow my mind... even at half of that, youre still above $10k easily

+1

Considering the material they use, the amount they are allotted, and the labor that goes into making a real katana... I wouldn't trust anything below 10k to be honest. $75 for sure won't get you anything beyond decoration.
 
that watermelon video was amazingly stupid.

i cant see if he lost a digit. gross!!
 
Okay, I admit it. The guy in the watermelon video is my son and that's who the $75 sword is for. He said, "That stupid sword made me cut my hand and I almost lost a finger!"

Please help because he won't make any more sword videos until he gets another one.
 
I took a japanese sword making class with Howard Clark at the NESM. During that time I did allot of reading and researching the topic. Also Howard does excellent work.

I also sold a version of a damascus katana( the handle was a little longer than standard) made by Jim Hrisoulas last week on ebay for 1500.

You can get plenty of great swords for way under ten grand. That would be like saying you cant get a decent chef knife for under 3k and using examples of Devin, Burke or Kramer. Sure some do cost that much but there not the only game in town either.

That being said, at the 75 dollar price point,I would be afraid of it failing and hurting myself or bystanders. I would think a 75 dollar katana would be like the infamous "saturday night special" pistol. It may work fine or it may hurt you.
 
You mean - you want your son to continue trying to cut off his finger?

Spooner (his given name is Shecky) and I have a dysfunctional relationship. I'm just holding up my end.
 
There's that dry wit I was speaking with you about...
 
So that is your demo next year at my house? Do I need to have you sign a waiver? LOL

Nah, I'm not stupid.


So dope, I even accidentally make smiley faces on that *****.


[video=youtube;bcpBh0f4bzI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcpBh0f4bzI[/video]
 
Authentic Katana is only for collection, way too expensive to be used for real! And too rough handling will bend and chip the blade, as in Japanese kitchen knives, since they are made from the same stuff and technique.
 
Authentic Katana is only for collection, way too expensive to be used for real! And too rough handling will bend and chip the blade, as in Japanese kitchen knives, since they are made from the same stuff and technique.

Actually the construction and the materials of katana is quite different than kitchen knives . In forged kitchen knives you will see sanmai: core steel wrapped in soft cladding or honyaki : monosteel differential heat treated. Real Katana will have a hard steel on the outside for cutting edge and softer steel in the center to give toughness and flexibility . There is many variations of it but this is the most common version. The steel used for katana is tamagahane which will not be used in kitchen knives .Only similarity I see with kitchen knives is hamon like you will see in honyaki blades


Sent from my iPhone using Kitchen Knife Forum
 
Actually the construction and the materials of katana is quite different than kitchen knives . In forged kitchen knives you will see sanmai: core steel wrapped in soft cladding or honyaki : monosteel differential heat treated. Real Katana will have a hard steel on the outside for cutting edge and softer steel in the center to give toughness and flexibility . There is many variations of it but this is the most common version. The steel used for katana is tamagahane which will not be used in kitchen knives .Only similarity I see with kitchen knives is hamon like you will see in honyaki blades

The only thing lacking in laminated kitchen knife is the differential hardening, honyaki aside.

The construction method is totally the same, weld the 2 different metals together and hammer out the shape, just different design for cutting food. Tamahagane, compared to modern steel is pretty much crap. I believe they were like Hitachi SK steel in quality or even worse, just not as pure as the modern white / blue paper steel. Ancient Japan was very poor, they had to fold the poor piece of metal to get the elements well-distributed, and sparks are seen all over the white hot Tamahagane, indication of high impurities. :knife:

San-mai or "hard-steel wrapped around soft core" or not, the blade will get bent when being abused too hard( like chopping through very thick and hard objects, like those tests in Cold Steel videos) Traditional Japanese sword is not flexible at all, once bent, it's bent and you will need a master craftsman to fix, it's just more resistant to shattering. The only good thing is the edge retention. Japanese never temper the blades to spring.

Tamahagane is not as legendary as most people think.
 
sparks are actually not a function of impurities, but in the case of forging, they are due to overheating, and are often an indicator of carbon content. There are numerous papers by PhD metallurgists on sparks and their relation to understanding steel, but for what its worth, its quite easy to tell general steel types based on sparks... i.e. white steel vs blue steel vs v2 vs ginsanko, etc.
 
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