Single wielding Kensai?

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Thanks a lot Auger. I guess I'll go for grand mastery in Long swords and the rest of the *s in Bastard swords.

 

ull find that... dare i say it, ninja used the katana and the kodachi, the wakizashi was more of i spiritual honour weapon, it wasnt used in battle, while the katana was a symbol of the clans strength

Katana's have a 3' blade, then the hilt will vary in length below the suba, which is a guard to protect ur hands when u parry, the hilt could then be used to store items for the nin-ja (meaning "he who endures") such as food, shuriken, dust or any number of things.

[This message has been edited by Shoshino (edited August 29, 2001).]

 

Soshino also talking sh#t about metallurgy although I can't speak to his other comments. I'm sure he knows about using swords than I do. ....Carbon is added to iron and steel alloys because it allows an alloy to be hardened by heat treatment. Try as you might to harden a mild steel alloy (one without carbon) and all you will get is no result.

 

The Green Destiny, I concur, would probably be a long sword or a bastard sword. The kensai is probably the character closest to Chow Yun Fat's Li Mubai character --- the ascetic swordmaster so common in Chinese fantasy fiction. In your standard Chinese wuxia tradition, the greatest warriors are almost always either swordsmen/women who use "true" swords like the Green Destiny --- that is double-edged, straight swords --- or those who fight without any weapons at all. In Mandarin, the word "jian," or sword, stands only for this "true" sword. Almost every other blade, including the curved blades like the ones Michelle Yeoh used, are called "dao," or knives, although this could mean anything from a gigantic scimitar-like broadsword to a butterknife.

 

Hmm, steel & carbon, high-carbon steel & low-carbon steel ... confusing ... it seems that there is a need to fix terminology

Some basic matallurgy and revealing the sercret of steel (while remembering physics and chemistry lessons in school)

Steel (the basic material of virtually any sword) *always* consists of carbon and iron, carbon is the most important stuff in the steel. The portion of carbon in the steel is decisive for the characteristics of the steel.
Generally: a very low carbon portion is the absolute necessity to to forge the steel later and that's why there is oxygen added in the *blast*-furnace - to burn the carbone in the iron down to a portion of 2%. Steel with more than 4% carbon cannot be forged at all for it is hard and brittle.

Portions of other metals like chrome, vanadium, wolfram, nickel and mangan have a great impact on the characteristics of the steel, especially hardness and elasticity. So they are added to produce a steel with characteristics needed for a special application. So steel is a very wide term.

Comments to Shoshimo:
-"using two metals and carbon"
-About cooling: The characteristics of steel are determined by it's chrystalline structure. The various methods of treatment like heat-threatment and cooling do modify the christalline structure but this just affects the characteristics in terms of toughness and hardness.
-However, to some point you in fact *are* right: The raw blade of a katana is made of a tough steel core coated with softer steel, some of the best katanas were made of a few hundret layers (resembling the russian matrushka - the mother-in-the-mother-in-the-mother-in-the-mother-in-the-mother-in-the-mother-in-the-mother... ).
This becomes visible when you go to a museum and look at an old katana blade: You will see the different layers of steel when you have a closer look at the edge. The layers of soft and hard steel are visible as tiny wave-like lines. Tha arab smiths made these lines and patterns visible (as a quality sign) by etching the blade.
I, however, still don't trust in the theory that cooling makes the blade curve backward: Since the blade is fully enclosed on *three* sides (the back of the blade and both sides) it would equally curve to both sides and backward (and look like a corkscrew) So, to the contrary, I think the blade will keep in shape *due to* the multiple layers since they are stabilising each other. So the curvature of the katana blade is just a result of the smithing itself.

Comments to Subra:
-Hardness in *not* necessarily better! It totally depends on what you want the steel to do.
Hard blades cannot easily be re-sharpened; there are some cheap and *incredibly sharp* kitchen knifes offered (usually on commercial presentations on tv ) made of very hard steel. Once dull they can be thrown away, they are also subject to breakage. In other words: There is a reason why professional cooks still prefer knifes made of softer steel for their everyday work.

Knifes made of (at best: non-rust-resistant) softer steel are usually sharper and easier sharpened again resulting in a better tool. This, on the other hand, leads to a knife that needs to be conserved and regularly sharpened.

This is the reason why arab and japanese smiths developed their forging techniques, combining the advantages of both hard *and* soft steels in a single blade by forging multiple layers into a sandwich structure. A blade like this will be less subject to break and less subject to get dull.

[This message has been edited by Ragusa (edited August 29, 2001).]

 

If I am not mistaken the Katana/Wakisashi whatever series of weaponry were exclusivly JAPANESE, not oriental inclusive. Japan, being as xenophobic as it was, maintained no foreign relations or foreign trade up until the mid 19th century therefore were not present in middle age china and thus are not valid if one is making a character representing that culture.

The curvature of the Japanese weapons I believe to be less a flourish of the weaponsmith than a notable design improvement. The katana is a slashing weapon, and its curvature improves it by allowing you to perform a deep slash without making a crude hack, all requiring no more than a simple hip pivot, thus allowing the creating of sword-fighting styles far more eloquent than thier western counterparts.

Still confused? Here:
http://www.geocities.com/alpha_omicron/katanademo.bmp
Excuse the crudness I made it in about a minute with mircosoft paint.
As you can see you can effortlessly disembowl poor sucker while with a traditional striaght blade it would require far more unnessessary work, plus you have a greater risk of getting your blade stuck.

I hope that cleared up some common misconceptions.

Edit: OK geocities is being incredibly gay and not letting me hyperlink into it so you'll hafta copy/paste that link into your browser if you really want to see it. (Which i doubt anyone really does )


[This message has been edited by Alex (edited August 29, 2001).]

 

I agree with Alex that the curvature of swords is based on fighting styles.
- swords are generally too heavy to be good for stabbing, so even straight ones often were not pointed
- a straight sword will generally hack like an axe, this needs strong blades, lest you want to resharpen after every slash. They are good against heavy armor.
- a curved blade will meet the target at an angle, thus generating more of a cutting motion. This is not very goot against heavy (steel) armor but certainly enough for cutting heads, guts et al. This goes easier on the blades, so they can be softer (sharper, less brittle) and lighter (faster).

Without being an expert in medevial arms, I content that heavy swords were used in environments that needed a fighter to slash at heavy armor:
heavy infantry in greek & roman times stood in close phalanx; there was no room for fancy techniques; lines often fought for hours face to face, denting shields and armor but without substantial kills. (roman infantry had short but strong, heavy swords)

medieval knights hard to beat when they charged in formation; in single combat, where there was room for technical fighters, they were lousy

Light blades were found (successfully used) in environments with light armor. I have never seen a historic display of an oriental fighter in really heavy armor (the like of plate armor). A I don't thinnk that fighting styles like the greek phalanx ever took hold there. So even big battles always dissolved into many single combats, which favours technical fighting with sharp light blades.

 

i personally prefer a straighter Katana, in any sword technique after u have cut from Dai-jodan no kamae u lunge the blade and literally run ur opponent through,
with a cut, u slash and then slide the blade along ur opponent, most slashes will aim taking into account that Uke may be wearing armour, so the simple strikes go for the straps which hold it together, since a katana cannot cut through armour (1 of kendo's fall backs is that they dont take this into account)
when an opponent isnt wearing armour the slice isnt so imporant, it is prefered to slide the blade along the persons flesh, then it will cut straight through


here is a picture of 1 of my swords: http://www.websitegalaxy.com/ka6emusha/_uimages/prac20kat.jpg

u can see the slight curve in the blade caused by the cooling of the metal, and if u look close enough there is even inconsistancies in the edge, where a part of the blade is blunt (which im pissed about)

 

Talking about the difference of teh Katana and the Long Sword (I'm no weapon expert ) but isn't the biggest difference how broad the weapon is, instead of a small curve in teh steel or not?

 

well, ur typical long sword was just a stylish club, using the weight of the weapon to smash the opponent's bones, quite effective, the only point at which they were sharp was the tip where they could stab the opponent

 

Actually, Headbanger, the difference is much more significant than that. It is not the shape of the blade that led to a different way of using it, but rather the different way of using it that led to the shape of the blade.

The earliest Japanese blade was the Chokuto. This was a long, double edged sword very similar to western, some arab, and other asian swords.

However, people began to feel that a straight sword was too hard to draw. Smiths then began to curve the blade (which also helped the slashing technique). Tachi (Great swords) which were first straight, became curved. They were still very long, however, often in excess of 4 feet! So the curve was not do to the cooling process (although it helped to some degree) but was instead a design consideration (congratulations Ragusa).

After a while, horsemanship in Japan became rarer and fighters needs a curved sword that could be used while on foot - thus the katana.

So the katana is curved and thinner because of the way it was meant to be used. Also, I can't thank of any other way to wear a 4 foot blade at you waster than to curve it!