Who can prove that an ancient Katana blade is more durable than a modern high carbon steel blade?

Question

Medevel Japanese swords actually had extremely poor metallurgy, as Japan had very little in the way of high-quality iron deposits. Most Japanese bladeware was made from a steel similar to W1 (same thing that many files are made from today), sometimes forged around a solid iron core. W1 is a very brittle steel. The amazing thing about Japanese swords is not that the materials were very good, but that the smiths were able to get such impressive performance out of such substandard materials.

Answer 1

Well any  iron can be made into a high quality blade if the smith knows what they're doing.

The thing with Japanese steel is that they use thousands of layers of soft and hard steel, so it keeps a sharp edge like hard steel, but is more flexible because of the softer steel.

It has nothing to do with the quality of the iron deposites. It's all about the forging.  

Answer 2

i cant prove it without a katana. if you get an el cheapo butchers cleaver from walmart it will cut a katana in half.

the answer is in the tempering. brittle steel is very bad for a sword but the how spine of the katana was not brittle. when the blade was tempered, the spine of the blade ( a few v shaped pieces running to the blade) were coated in clay. this changed how fast the heat was absorbed during the tempering process.  the places coated with this clay were soft. this kept the blade from shattering if it struck a hard surface. the blade  was also folded over hundreds of times. this will give it hight strength.

look into Japanese fighting styles. the katana was originally a religious item kept in a temple. samurai fought with bow and arrow from horseback. not until the a civil broke out did anyone use swords for fighting.

in the Japanese style of sword fighting, the sword is not used for defense. it was rare that sword to sword contact was intentional. i dont know if this had to do with the brittleness of the sword or its religious value. for something to shatter it must hit something that is harder. without sword to sword contact, the only thing that could shatter it was a rock. that is why it is said that a katana never has to be sharpened the only thing it ever cut was leather armor and flesh. they did not bang there swords together like the Europeans.

Answer 3

Nova did a great program about the samurai and their swords last fall.  I was actually taking a metallurgy course at the time.

The key was the use of two different grades of steel, the way they were mated, forged and tempered.

Check it out: