A question about swordsmithing in the 21st centuary

since they are bigger and heavier than a good pocketable 9mm pistol, and a lot less effective, and just as illegal to carry, what's the point of argueing about them, anyway? They've been inferior since the advent of the Colt SA revolver in cartridge format. Get over it, that was 140 years ago.

Originally posted by BadNinja68

What leads people to think a sharp sword would "stick" is the misunderstaning of blade dynamics.
don't think knife.. or axe edge.

a straightrazor with a hollow grind would indeed stick... but we use different edge grinds ( angles) to provide a different type of cutting surface.

you can take a 1/2 inch thick khukuri with a shaving sharp convex grind, and chop a tree as thick as your thigh in half without sticking.

my 1/4 inch thick WSK will shave your face, and chop a fence post into kindling.
No sticking.

You're probably right then. My only experience with blades getting stuck is from sawing down trees. What seems to be happening is that when enough of the tree has been sawn through, the weight of the trunk bears down on the sawblade, and eventually makes it stick.

Do axes ever get stuck in trees? Is the problem that they are simply not sharp enough? Or is it maybe the degree of force, or lack of same, which allows the material to bear down and cause the blade to seize?

Originally posted by BadNinja68

What leads people to think a sharp sword would "stick" is the misunderstaning of blade dynamics.
don't think knife.. or axe edge.

a straightrazor with a hollow grind would indeed stick... but we use different edge grinds ( angles) to provide a different type of cutting surface.

you can take a 1/2 inch thick khukuri with a shaving sharp convex grind, and chop a tree as thick as your thigh in half without sticking.

my 1/4 inch thick WSK will shave your face, and chop a fence post into kindling.
No sticking.

You're probably right then. My only experience with blades getting stuck is from sawing down trees. What seems to be happening is that when enough of the tree has been sawn through, the weight of the trunk bears down on the sawblade, and eventually makes it stick.

Do axes ever get stuck in trees? Is the problem that they are simply not sharp enough? Or is it maybe the degree of force, or lack of same, which allows the material to bear down and cause the blade to seize?

Originally posted by requirement
since they are bigger and heavier than a good pocketable 9mm pistol, and a lot less effective, and just as illegal to carry, what's the point of argueing about them, anyway? They've been inferior since the advent of the Colt SA revolver in cartridge format. Get over it, that was 140 years ago.

Yup, get over it would be the way to go.

reply to post by TrueBrit


I am trying to remember this guys username. I would know it if I heard it! I know he does some sword smithing and he would be able to answer your questions better than anyone I know...

Oh.... let me think about it and I will get back to you!

Originally posted by dr_strangecraft

Originally posted by BadNinja68

What leads people to think a sharp sword would "stick" is the misunderstaning of blade dynamics.
don't think knife.. or axe edge.

a straightrazor with a hollow grind would indeed stick... but we use different edge grinds ( angles) to provide a different type of cutting surface.

you can take a 1/2 inch thick khukuri with a shaving sharp convex grind, and chop a tree as thick as your thigh in half without sticking.

my 1/4 inch thick WSK will shave your face, and chop a fence post into kindling.
No sticking.

You're probably right then. My only experience with blades getting stuck is from sawing down trees. What seems to be happening is that when enough of the tree has been sawn through, the weight of the trunk bears down on the sawblade, and eventually makes it stick.

Do axes ever get stuck in trees? Is the problem that they are simply not sharp enough? Or is it maybe the degree of force, or lack of same, which allows the material to bear down and cause the blade to seize?

axes do stick for a number of reasons.
Mainly the combination of sharpness and grind dynamics.
New axes usually don't stick.. however when they dull, and are sharpened improperly, the edge becomes thinner, and flatter rather than convex.
with a very wide blade, flate ,sharp grind, the blade of the axe cuts depper and becomes wedged in th soft wood as it expands against the axhed's sides.

here's a good site that explains the basics of blade grind dynamics.

backyardbushman.com...

A little about blades, first the bit about a sharp blade getting stuck is BS.
The only bones large enough to get stuck in are the femur or a vertabrae and if the blade goes deep enough to get stuck, that opponent is good as dead.
Second by the 18th century European swords were little more than decoration for officers, blades were to light and or too flexible to make good combat weapons. And the most basic infantry weapon , the spear, made a comeback in the form of a rifle with a bayonet.
Swords changed in response to changes in armor, in Europe swords changed from broad bladed,blunt pointed bone breakers in the early days of mail, to a Sharp pointed long tapering blade that was mainly a thrusting weapon. After the first crusaders brought back corduroy cloth from the middle east , under padding made a big improvement in mail armor and the blunt nosed swords weren't as effective, so there was a shift to sharply tapering swords that could easily pierce and split the rings of even the best mail.
In Italy this was taken to the extreme and the mail piercing blade took on the long taper triangle cross section form that survives to this day as the modern fencing weapon, the eppee.
By the time plate armor was ubiquitous the sword was not the main combat weapon amongst the nobility. Crushing and spiked weapons became the norm for armored opponents. War hammers and axes are more effective because the can pierce or severely dent plate armor.
And again in Italy, where combats of honor were far more prevalent than in the rest of Europe,the sword was adapted to plate armor, the long flexible rapier was developed. It's flexible blade could find its way onto the joints of a full plate suit. This blade form reached its pinnacle with what we know now as the foil.
In Japan a katana is not just a katana, the have been many different blade lengths and patterns over history.
In the early feudal period, when the samurai where mainly cavalry soldiers they carries a long (up to 4 ' long) sword to be able to strike a foot soldier with. A shorter sword was carried for ground combat.
In the warring period (12th-16th centuries) the samurai became a foot soldier, and the blades were adapted to that type of armored combat. The blades were shorter with a clam shell cross section, to protect the edge from chopping while cleaving through armor. But this pattern was ineffective against the mongols and thier boiled ox leather armor. The new cross section was a short bevel "V" that was honed to a razors edge, that could cut cleanly through leather armor. This cross section lasted up to the shogun period. After the installation of the takagowa shogunate, armored combat became a thing of the past and the blade cross section changed to a long bevel V that was ideally suited to cutting through unarmored flesh and bone. It was these blade patterns that made the almost mythical cutting tests of cutting cleanly through a human from clavicle down diagonally through the rib cage and spine to cit the body in half.
The scene in the movie"Last Samurai", where tom cruise is attacked in tokoyo is based on a real event.
The real samurai was in tokoyo for official business and had to surrender his swords upon entering the city.
He was loaned a sword ny his host to carry, this sword was several hundred years old and had seen combat with several generations of the hosts ancestors.
When the samurai was am ambushed by the assailants he killed 4 of them on the spot and the 5 pth was mortally wounded. Since the assailants were commoners they were using inferior"modern" swords their blades were no match for historic blade and at least two were cut clean in two

A real traditional Japanese blade is more than just folded steel.
I have forgotten my Japanese terms, but there is the core, it is made with low carbon iron that is folded. With each folding the hot billet is brushed with a straw brush, this removes forge scale and adds carbon and makes the iron into steel.
The edge is a piece of white cast iron that is folded a few times but not brushed it is then welded to the core. It is then shaped and and ground before hardening.
A mixture of clay and ground up horse hooves among other secret ingredients that varied from smith to smith, was applied to the blade and the scraped from the edge. Each smith or school had individual patterns they used for the "hamon".
When the sword was slowly heated to the critical point the carbon from the clay formed a hard case on the back of the sword. The clay also kept the back from reaching critical temp and it remained soft after qwenching. Whereas the exposed white cast iron edge fully heated to critical temp and reached the max hardness attainable for steels of 63-65 Rockwell .
Unlike all other blade making traditions there was no tempering process to soften the blade .
I saw some thing on the history channel , I think, where they interviewed some so called swordswith, and he was an IDIOT. He applied the clay to the edge and claimed that the curve of the sword was a result of the hardening process. What a fool.
The japanes were making steels that were not matched by the western world until the 1920's.

Originally posted by BadNinja68

Dull swords are as useful as a club.
a light, sharpened machette might get stuck, but a 2 foot 3lb razor with a 1/4 inch spine will cut a man cleanly in half when weilded by someone with skill

That doesn't account for a person wearing plate armor. Western swords (hand and a half) typically have a blunt edge because enemy combatants wore some form of armor, lords wore chainmail, over leather, underneath plate mail. Razor sharp swords lose their edge in a single strike against hard metal.