You can often meet the question: "What is a katana?" Many people interested cannot find the difference and believe that this is a simple samurai sword. In fact, katana is a very interesting and difficult weapon that you need to know a little better.
Difference
In Japanese, this word is used to refer to a curved, single-blade sword. Katana can be called a blade of any origin, but it has some differences:
- One blade.
- Subtlety.
- Square or round hand protection design.
- The handle is long enough to hold the sword with both hands.
- Very high sharpness.
- The blade has a special bend that simplifies cutting.
- A large variety of blades.
History of creation
In order to fully answer the question of what a katana is, it is necessary to study the appearance of the legendary sword. The blade was invented as a competitor to the direct tati and originates in the Kamakura period.
In those days, a split second was enough to win the battle. Therefore, katana has become widespread due to the speed when removing from the scabbard.
The length of the sword remained virtually unchanged. It became a little smaller in the XV century, but by the end of the XVI century it again returned to its size (70-73 cm).
Today, real katanas are a serious weapon that has killer acuity.
Manufacture
To understand how to make a katana, you should carefully study the process of its manufacture. It consists of a large number of stages:
- The choice of steel. Traditionally, refined steel (tamahagane grade) is used to make the blade. Not every brand can have the properties that are necessary to create a real weapon.
- Steel cleaning. During manufacture, individual pieces of metal are taken, which are forged into ingots. Then they are made up of each other and again, having heated up, they are returned to their original form.
- Slag removal and carbon distribution. Pieces are folded and poured with a solution of clay and ash. When unnecessary additives come out of the metal, the pieces are heated and forged again. The process can be repeated up to 12 times. After that, the carbon will be distributed evenly over the entire plane, and the number of layers reaches 30 thousand. When specialists are asked what katana is, the master first indicates a large number of folding pieces of metal.
- Adding mild steel to resist dynamic loads.
- Forging. May take several days. At this time, the whole block diverges in length. To prevent excessive heat and protect against oxidation, liquid clay is applied.
- Drawing on the cutting part of a special drawing called jamon.
- Quenching. It is performed differentially. The front is exposed to more heat than the rear. As a result of heat treatment, the blade receives bending and high hardness.
- Vacation Relieving internal stresses by heating steel and slow cooling.
- Polishing. It becomes first rough and then thin stones. Work takes about 5 days. With its help, the Japanese katana is sharpened, it is given a mirror shine, jamon stands out and minor imperfections are removed.
- Dressing pens lasts several days.
