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Hitori Hanzo Steel
The most beautiful piece of metalwork that I have ever seen in my entire life was a 14th century Japanese sword. Through a pair of acquaintances I managed to gain an “audience” with a very interesting gentleman here on the island, who, at the time, was the president of the Japanese Sword Society of Canada, under the auspices of delivering groceries from the local health food store where I was employed at the time.
The gentlemen in question knew about my work with chainmail and interest in blacksmithing, so showed me many, many, beautiful swords that afternoon, but there is one that I remember with perfect clarity. It was from the 14th century and was what he referred to as a “100 point” sword, meaning that on a scale of 1 to 100, it was considered “perfect” (I am sorry to report that I can’t remember the maker’s name).
He allowed me to hold the sword (which had just returned from 2 years in Japan, where it had been expertly polished) at certain angles in the sunlight, so that various details of the pattern-welded blade could be observed. This kind of blade is made from layers of low and high carbon steel, welded together and folded in layers (no easy feat, as low and high carbon steel have different optimal working temperatures). The softer, low carbon steel is used for the back of the blade, where flexibility is required. The harder, high carbon steel is used for the edge of the blade, where it is suited to holding the sharpest edge possible.
However, this is not the only secret of Japanese blade construction, which also employs a very tricky form of tempering (hardening through heating and quenching), where a layer of thin clay is painted on the back for the blade in order for only the cutting edge of the blade to take the temper. The result is a unique “shadowing’ along the edge of the blade between the tempered and non-tempered zone. If you look closely at replica Japanese blades, you will see a very bland form of this technique. However, in this sword, the tempering was a work of art unto itself. It’s very hard to describe, other than to say that it was if the sword-maker had captured a living silver flame along the edge of the blade!
The owner must have sense my awe, as he instructed me to not drop the sword, as it would most likely cut through his office desk and a good deal of the floor, if not my foot. He also showed me how one could observe reflections from micro-crystalline structures in the surface of the steel, which he told me also contributed to the strength and sharpness of the blade.
Now, besides being an amazing piece of technical engineering, the function of a Japanese sword is also ingenious; everything from the curve of the blade, to the lever action of the two-handed hilt, makes these swords simply amazing cutting tools.
To demonstrate just how amazing these blades are (which he assured me would just cut directly though any chainmail it encountered) he showed me a piece of bamboo about 4 inches in length and 1.5 inches in diameter, with one flat end and one end that had been cut at a 45 degree angle. He said that the piece had been part of a demonstration with a sword very similar to the one I had been examining in the sunlight.
A replica of a human spine was constructed by bundling four large sections of dried bamboo to represent the major spinal bones and several groupings of thinner bamboo to represent muscle, sinew and all the other good stuff that goes into a spinal column.
The “dummy” spine had been positioned upright in front of a master swordsman, while the gentleman and other interesting parties observed from a safe distance.
The sword master drew and swung the sword once, transecting the bamboo on the horizontal plane, but nothing happened, the bamboo appeared undamaged, the informal audience thought that he had missed the target completely. Then, in the blink of an eye, the master completed a second, reverse stroke, cutting through the bamboo at a 45 degree angle and causing the top of the spine, which was in fact severed twice, to clatter to the floor. The first stroke had been so perfect that it had actually cut through the faux spine horizontally and left the top section unmoved from the bottom. It was only with the angle of the second stroke sending all the bamboo to the floor that the first was revealed, which explained the flat and angled ends of the piece I was now examining.
Now, it’s at this point in my tale that I always choose to correct an earlier statement, for it is simply incorrect to say that this piece of bamboo had been cut. As the ends, upon close inspection, bore no resemblance to any cut I had ever seen before. There were no marks, no tearing, nothing except what appeared to be perfectly polished material, as if the very molecules of the bamboo had been severed. It was then that I realized that he was correct, this blade would probably go through just about any chainmail (or other armour) and was pretty much the most awe inspiring killing machine I had ever had the pleasure of holding.
Oddly enough, that entire story was just the preamble for an interesting little article that I came across last night. It seems that scientists testing “Damascus Steel” blades from the 17 century on a microscopic level have discovered that these infamous pattern-welded blades actually contain “nanotube” and “nanowire” structures that contribute to their legendary strength.
According to this article, the secrets of how Damascus Steel was constructed have been lost, but I’m sure they’re not all that different from Japanese pattern welding techniques (which the president of the sword society assured me were all stolen from Korea anyhow), but it’s still interesting to imagine that they were unknowingly creating something that today’s technology is just beginning to figure out!
Posted by Dylon on November 18, 2006 8:52 PM |
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Comments
wow... imagine what the old world was capiable of ... if we only had the patience and time of those lost times..
good read
April 2008