The samurai sword represents the pinnacle of sword design and manufacturing techniques. The Japanese blacksmiths of old solved the swordmakers' enigma, which is make a sword that's both hard enough to take a very sharp edge and yet not so brittle that it shatters upon impact. These smithing techniques are still used today in modern wood-carving tool construction for the same reasons. This particular technique is very demanding of the smith and requires years of practice to perfect. According to an article called "The Japanese Sword" in Swordmansion.com, there are only a few hundred swordsmiths in the world capable of producing an authentic and modern Japanese sword.
Instructions
1. Smelt the ore. Separate the metal from the stone by cooking it in the crucible, then pour the metal out into a long narrow strip roughly 4 inches wide and 48 inches long and about 1/8 inch thick. When cooled, break this strip into roughly 4-by-6-inch wafers and stack the wafers into a 4-by-6-by-4-inch block. Wrap this with rice paper, then coat it with a clay/water slurry. Immediately place in forge and boil the steel for about 15 minutes.
2. Remove the block from the forge and place it on the anvil. Have the helper hammer the block while you handle it and turn it to direct the hammer hits. The hammering process removes impurities and spreads out the block. Refire the block and hammer it out until it can be folded, then roll it in rice straw to replace the carbon lost by the steel to the forging process. Refire and refold a dozen times or so.
3. Beat the block into a horseshoe shape.This is to become the jacket of the blade. Insert a horseshoe of softer, milder steel into the inside of the jacket horseshoe to be the blade. Reheat and rehammer the composite into the final sword shape.
4. Perform the final hardening on the sword-shaped composite. Apply clay to the backside of the blade, then push it up away from the cutting edge in a scalloped fashion to produce the wavy hamon line. Fire the whole unit, then allow it to cool. The exposed edge will cool quickly, be very hard and hold a razor edge. The back of the blade that is covered in clay cools slowly and retains its softer, springier qualities.
5. Polish the blade. Polishing is done by rubbing the blade with dry whetstone dust.
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