• The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
    Price is $300 ea (shipped within CONUS). Now open to the forums as a whole. If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges. If there are customs issues? On you.

    User Name
    Serial number request

how good is tamahagane steel?

I

ironclad

Joined
Dec 7, 2007
Messages
43
I saw a show on the discovery channel last night called weaponmasters, which was about the Japanese Katana sword, used by the Samurai.

The hosts of the show went to Japan, and watched the entire process from smelting to forging, and polishing the sword, which was done entirely by hand, other than the air hammer that was used to pound the steel. One of the hosts of the show was charged with duplicating that sword using steel we have in the U.S., and he could use modern equipment.

Apparently the tamahagane steel is very rare, and of an exceptional quality, and only true japanese swordsmith's have access to, and can work this steel in the same way their ancestors have done.

Basically the host of the show was able to duplicate the katana sword, to a degree, however he didnt have the time to put a really good edge on it, but it performed almost as well as the true Japanese Katana.

I dont know if anybody else saw this show, but I had never heard of tamagahane steel before. What makes this steel superior to the steel here in the U.S., or is it truly superior or not?
 
I watched the same show and don't think there is any advantage of one over the other outside of the fact that one is done in a strict traditional sense and the other uses modern methods to forge the blade. What seemed to matter to me which I found interesting is the degree of polish on the flats of the sword had alot to do with how it cut. Also the fella that went to Iowa with that swordsmith didn't put as sharp an edge on the sword as the Japaneese version just cause he didn't have the time to do it.

I think the premise of the show was that how much better would the old style be over the new style. Conclusion at the end was they were pretty darn even save for the polishing process. keepem sharp
 
I think I got the same conclusion from that show as well, but the tamagahane steel supposedly has some interesting characteristics that make it a very durable steel. it supposedly has a higher carbon content than modern steels.
 
It is cool in that it is how they have made it for a very long time, before nice big steel factories. You can't say it is better in any way though, not through anything metallurgically anyhow.
 
Japan has little in the way of natural resources. The small amounts of iron are found in iron bearing sand. Processing it gives you just a plain carbon steel. As the program showed the iron is separated according to the carbon content ,high carbon used for the edge and low carbon for the core. BTW that particular low carbon/high carbon mix is only one of the patterns used. It's not 'miracle steel' just carbon steel. The miracle is that they were able to dig up some sand and make a beautiful and effective blade !!! It should also be understood that even the best smiths had a significant failure rate ! About the best in this country is Howard Clark who uses a 1084 Mod steel to his recipe but it's still a carbon steel. I'm sure his success rate is much higher than the traditional Japanese way though he has his failures too. .. The show is one of a number on weapons - keep watching.
 
I saw the show also. It has a cheesy factor to it but at the same time it's entertaining to watch.
The black sand used to make Tamahagane steel is very pure to began with. The Japanese sword is what it is because of the bringing together of high grade ore and expert craftsmanship and a very very deep understanding.

The comparison between a "traditionally made" vs a modern made sword was poorly done. They made it look like at least to me that a traditionally made sword was nothing better than a roughly forged and polished shade tree sword and that’s just not the case.

I think the comparison would have had more substance if it had been between a Japanese traditionally made tamahagane steel katana and say a Howard Clark L6 Banite. But a test of this nature would have been a significant portion of there filming budget hence the reason it was not done.

It was nice to see James Williams in the show while I don’t personally know him I have watched his demo’s at blade west. He owns Bugei and the swords he sells are highly regarded. He makes it look very easy if you ever get a chance to see him it’s time well spent. I don’t know if he supplied the replica sword/s used in the show but I found it interesting that the replica sword edge chipped on the armor. At the same time the replica sword had no harmonics during the bullet test while the rough sword did. Given how the rough sword was made this really didn’t surprise me.


All in all the show was good entertainment my son enjoyed it.
 
I found it rather irritating in general; sort of a "Swordsmithing for Dummies". While I, along with most other viewers, are not smiths, I prefer a more intelligent discussion than what was presented. PLus, its about a Japanese blade, so a certain "mall ninja" factor applies. I think the show will be a lot more enjoyable when they tackle a a weapon that is less of an icon.
 
Gabe Newell said:
Plenty of bladesmiths have made their own steel from scratch, but it seems to be one of those things that people only do once.
Click to expand...

J.D. Smith and Paul Champagne do it fairly regularly.

As a cutter, my experience has dicated that heat treat and edge geometry are more important than what steel was used.

If you are looking for aesthetics....a good tamahagane blade is unbeatable...for performance, I prefer the Clark bainite L-6.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
 
It is not just plain high Carbon steel. Tatar method I think produce something similar to wootz-bulat - slow cooling and such amount of steel produces quite a bit of dendric structures inside. Then this material with complicated dendric structures were processed by highly skilled smith...

Honestly, metallurgy now doing homogenization to get rid of this dendric structures, instead of using it to blade advantage. This part of steel knowledge do not really well know by modern metallurgy, as I understand. It is not needed by mainstream technology, it need to be learned yet.

This is experimental blades from bulat made by Ivan Kirpichev.

knife-83-015.jpg


knife73-04.jpg


You may perfectly see difference between this blades and modern carbon steel blades.

Does this iron-carbon substructures affect property of blade - need to be learned yet, but for sure we can not reject this things, just because modern metallurgy did not know anything about this.

Historical document claims outstanding performance.

Same we may expect from tamahagane.

But to know how good tamahogane is it need to be tested. However blade properties of even modern steel were not really yet tested formally. Also cheapest tanto may cost about $5000, I doubt there is too many owners we have here. From other hand it was well respected by generations in Japan. Of course they were not really such a fighters as they claim, but I think knowing Japanese traditions and outstanding craftsmanship we may expect quite a good results.

Thanks, Vassili.
 
I have never seen dendritic structure [wootz] in a Japanese sword blade. If you have a photo showing it please post it.Wootz is made in a crucible in small amounts and has at least some alloying elements.Tamahagane is made very differently as shown in the film.
 
I did not see this movie - Tatar method - I posted description here few years before (but I can not search for it now). It is about 15 tons coal + 15 tons iron sand burned together 3 days and three nights until it burns out completely by itself. In result they get out of this Keru - huge piece of steel 2.5 tons. After breaking it apart on small pieces they inspect each and sort them by grades - Tamahagane - top grade, Bukera and Kerazuki. Tamahagane - for nihon-to and for tan-to (to means sword), Bukera and Kerazuki - for knives, tools and instruments.

So being burn and cool down for three day and nights - for sure they have dendric structures being developed with this carbon content. Also Japanese did not etch their blade - not etched bulat looks like regular steel. And D2 - if you etch it may show wootz pattern.

Thanks, Vassili.
 
It is my understading that "tamahagane" is not steel, but acually iron that is melted from the soil. Seki-City, Japan was the area chosen for sword making (800 A.D.) because the local soil had a good iron content and the Nagara & Kiso rivers provided the needed water. They use a large fire pit to do this, adding fuel to keep the soil hot enough tout the iron. After a few days, there is a pile of black iron under the pit.

the swordsmith adds the carbon to the iron (to make steel) by drawing the carbon from the charcoal in the forge. By folding the steel in a particular sequence, the swordsmith differentially distributes the carbon to the blade. More carbon in the edge and less at the spine and center.

sal
 
Thank you .That first website especially is an excellent description !! However it is not wootz and has no dendritic pattern . Dendrite comes from the Greek word meaning 'tree like' and is the pattern that comes from the original casting where solidification causes segregation of the phases. If forging is kept to a minimum the dendritic pattern , though distorted, will remain. The Japanese method involves multiple folding and forging which refines the steel [takes out impurities] and removes the dendritic pattern completely.
 
Well, Achim http://playground.sun.com/~vasya/Bulat-Achim.html#English also removing dendric structures, but then restore them thermo-cycling blade - which is what happen during folding process.

However, I am not saying that bulat and tamahagane is same things. There is certain similarity in process. My point is that saying that this is just carbon steel is too simplistic. This area of metallurgy is not yet completely learned yet - no need in mass production, no real attention from modern science.

Thanks, Vassili.
 
I agree with all, who say the hosts are clowns, but the show itself was actually pretty cool, if you could block out those fools. I would much rather watch weaponmasters than most of the garbage on the idiot box these days.

Seeing the craftsmanship that goes into making a Katana old school style kicked a**. The Tamahagane steel obviously can hold its own against the best modern steels, and that says a lot in and of itself. In this day and age of supposed advanced technology, it is good to see that the traditions and precise individual skill with one's hands can still make something that modern technology cannot best.

When and or if the time comes when every single thing is built and or created with machines, and the skills of our ancestors are lost for good, that will be a very sad time indeed....
 
I have found some katana is made k120c steel blade, which is better from imitation tamahagane blade? I guess not all is made 100% tamahagane.
 
guramisakang said:
I have found some katana is made k120c steel blade, which is better from imitation tamahagane blade? I guess not all is made 100% tamahagane.
Click to expand...

this video explains it if you understand japanese:
[video=youtube;bs-T5qYA1Qg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs-T5qYA1Qg[/video]


HEre is my tamahagane camp knife

DSC02494.jpg
 
This is a very beautiful knife. Yeah, I understand the process of Japanese Tamahagane Making. I have found katana that are made from China. Well, they have a Tamahagane but how about the quality? Same process of Japanese Arts?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top