what is the difference between a katana and a sword?

[oldwarhorse]

from what i understand the katana was made of wood while the sword was made of steel.

but not sure what the katana was used for?

anyone have more info on this?

[DeathOnaPaleHorse]

Its like the difference between apples and fruit. A katana is a type of sword, and it is definately not made of wood, but metal. A katana is perhaps the most perfect edged weapon ever. Samurai wore the katana as a mark of their place in society.

[oldwarhorse]

well then what are those sword like things made of wood?

[Cheetah]

The wooden swords are called "bokken" and made for training purposes. Quite a lot of martial arts include bokken training, for instance Aikido (i.e. Aiki-ken) and kempo. Kendo is a bit different for several reasons, most obvious of all is that here the "swords" are made out of bamboo instead of wood.

[This message has been edited by Cheetah (edited 04-04-2002).]

[Vanya]

No no no! You got it all wrong!

A 'sword' is a fresh blade that has never been used.

A 'katana' is a blade that has tasted blood.

A 'Ramen Noodle' is a blade that has been soaked in blood so long that the blood and death are mixed into the steel creating an unearthly alloy...

A 'Ramen Noodle' is also just a noodle. Good eats!

Thus, a 'Ramen Noodle', when referring to a sword, is a blade that feasts off the living.

http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/rolleyes.gif

[Kraellin]

with vanya's 'colorful' statements aside ;)... a katana was a special sword. it was extremely strong, flexible and sharp. it would hold its edge much better than most. it could hew bone quite easily. the secret, or at least one of them, was that the steel in the manufacturing process was folded over and over again upon itself. a 'common' katana would have at least 200 folds, some had as many as a million. this effectively amounted to a sword that was like 200, or however many folds it had, separate swords all banded together, each being incredibly thin. this is what gave it its flexibility and strength and why it could hold an edge so well; it takes much longer to dull 200 swords than it does one.

oddly, vanya's statements come very close to one part of the katana's 'mysticism'. katana's were often considered 'good' or 'evil', depending on how they were used. they were said to take on the characteristics of the owner and how he utilized them. katana's were also often considered to be an extension of the owner's arm; a part of his body.

and as an interesting aside, most samurai were also buddhist. buddhism is one of the most peaceful religions and this would tend to set up a conflict within the samurai himself. on the one hand he was a peaceful buddhist and on the other he was a fierce warrior. finding a balance between the two was often often a difficult task. this was often expressed by saying that one's karma at being a samurai was to be cursed to being a samurai in one's next life....or something like that.

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[Toda Nebuchadnezzar]

As said before Katana's were a type of sword typically noted for being the best the world has ever seen. This is because of the way the were produced.

For the Europeans among us, Spanish steel is said to be the best of Europe and so on but a Katana could cut a spanish sword in half with ease. "Like a hot knife through butter"

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He is the Messiah
No i'm not the Messiah
Only the true Messiah would deny it.
Alright then I am the Messiah.
HE IS THE MESSIAH HOORAY!!!

[Vanya]

Quote Originally posted by Toda Nebuchadnezzar:
..."Like a hot knife through butter"...
[/QUOTE]

A hot knife, when thrust into a block of frozen butter, will still experience resistance despite its nature.

[BakaGaijin]

What about a cold knife through hot butter?

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"If your soul is imperfect, living will be difficult." -- Ryo Hayabusa, DOA2

"Hey, why are the enemy throwing their cookware at us?" *KABOOM* -- Thunderbomber sneak attack!

[evilc]

you make a mess

[GlobalCrills]

Shorter blade longer grip?

The Katana is the best hand to hand weapon ever constructed. Here is an extract from the Way of the Daimyo:

Quote
Samurai were the only people allowed to carry two swords, a pair called the daisho, (the "long and short") as a badge of their unique warrior status. These two weapons, the long katana and the shorter wakizashi, were worn together although rarely used as a pair of weapons in combat. Miyamoto Musashi, the sword-saint and writer of the best-known book on swordsmanship, A Book of Five Rings, was unusual in that his "Two Heavens" fighting style did use two swords at the same time. One other sword is worth mentioning at this point, the no dachi. These enormous two-handed weapons were only ever used on foot.

The samurai used the katana to defend as well as attack and as a result never adopted shields, unlike the knights of Europe. They never needed to, because of the superb metalwork in the katana was good enough to act in both capacities.

A samurai sword was carefully constructed out of many layers of steel and iron. The two would be hammered out and folded over many times to produce a "sandwich" of many layers. Each repeated forging doubled the number of layers of metal in a sword, in some cases 2²º — 4,194,304 — layers of metal would be the result. The maximum number of folds recorded is some 2³º (or 10,736,461,824!) layers of forged metal. This gave the sword enormous strength when the iron and steel were welded together. The iron at the sides and back edge gave flexibility to the blade, while the steel core could be hardened to make a perfect edge.

The final process in the forging was particularly clever. The blade was coated with clay built up to a different thickness across the blade: thin at the cutting edge and thick towards the back. When the sword — in its clay overcoat — was heated and then quenched, it cooled at different speeds and the metal crystals in each part in the blade ended up as different sizes. They were large where the clay had been thick, which meant that they were flexible, but small at the cutting edge, so they would form a hard edge that could be sharpened. Once the sword blade was polished, the change from the softer steel and the harder edge could show up as the yakiba, a line that resembles a breaking wave. Once the blade had been signed by the smith and hilt and guard fitted, the sword was ready for use.

The result of all of this was a sword that could cut a man in two — literally. Occasionally condemned criminals were used to test new swords, but it was more common to use a bundle of rushes and bamboo or to use corpses. Some swords had details of their testing carved into the tang (the piece of the sword inside the hilt).

Thanks to the resilience of such a blade, a samurai could block and turn blows that would have shattered any ordinary steel weapon. Its razor sharp edge gave him the ability to cut through an opponent right down to the bone. These two contrasting qualities were the result of the skills and experience that Japanese sword smiths had accumulated over centuries. No other sword, even the famous blades from Toledo in Spain, ever equalled these Japanese weapons. The katana is still probably the best hand-to-hand weapon ever produced.

A sword became the "soul of samurai" who carried it and many became family heirlooms. As late as the Second World War some officers had their family blades placed in army-issue fittings then carried them into action. Officers’ swords that were carried home by Allied soldiers as war souvenirs from Pacific battlefields are still occasionally identified as ancient, incredibly valuable blades even today.

[/QUOTE]

And finally here is a pic of a katana:

http://www.bytheblade.net/images/products/lrg/p1070lg.jpg

Tera

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Proud member of Clan Kenchikuka (http://www.totalwar.org/kenchikuka).
evil is within us... http://www.totalwar.org/site/emomalta.gif

[james]

that looks really good,i wish i had one

You can buy one from an auction (ebay) or brand new from many websites around. They're quite cheap, most of them are ornamental of course; a true warfare katana would cost much much more...

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Proud member of Clan Kenchikuka (http://www.totalwar.org/kenchikuka).
evil is within us... http://www.totalwar.org/site/emomalta.gif

[Shiro]

Japanese History Forum (http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/ubb/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&number=3&SUBMIT=Go). Thread moved.