Overall Information of Sword Construction

By Handmadesword.com PR Dept.
www.handmadesword.com

Handmadesword.com, the wholesale Japanese sword House All rights reserved

Sword making , historically, has been the work of specialized smiths

or metalworkers called blade smiths or sword smiths. Modern armorers
and sword smiths still ply their trade although to a more limited
clientele. Their products are oriented toward collectors, those who
pursue various traditional martial arts, redactors, and as props for
film and theatre. Some modern amateur smiths also make swords and
smaller blades for the technical challenge they present.

Sword fabrication breaks down into roughly three processes: forming,

heat treating and finishing. Depending on many factors such as base
materials, location and era these processes might merge, overlap or be
dispensed with entirely.

Forming

Swords can be shaped by a variety of metalworking techniques. In some

times and places one technique has been used exclusively, in others
combinations have been applied. The primary techniques are forging and
stock removal.

Stock removal shapes the sword from prepared stock that is larger in
all dimensions than the finished sword by filing, grinding and
cutting. While the technique has been available for centuries it was
not widely used for making swords until the 19th or 20th century as it
is wasteful of the raw material. Where iron and steel are plentiful
this method is frequently used as it requires less skill and time. In
places and times where iron and steel have been rare and valuable,
stock removal has not been used except as part of the finishing
process.

Forging uses heat to bring the material to a malleable state. The

material is then hammered to shape, typically using hammer and anvil
together with specialized set and fuller tools depending on the
particular technique.

There are a variety of forging techniques for sword making and many
variations upon those. The techniques employed in different places and
times tend to affect the style of the resulting blades. Much of the
development and selection of techniques has been driven by the type
and availability of raw materials.

Broadly speaking, if metal supply is limited blades have tended to be

smaller. Similarly when the supply of steel has been limited,
techniques for building up the basic billet from which a sword would
be forged by welding together iron and steel or different types and
grades of steel were developed.

In most techniques the basic materials, generally iron and/or steel,

are shaped into a bar or billet first. At this stage if several metals
are to be used they will be combined by welding to form the billet. In
some techniques, notably the traditional folded steel blades of Japan,
the billet might be drawn, folded and welded back on itself creating
layers of steel of different types. In others longer bars or rods of
steel and iron might be welded together, edge to edge, to create the
basic billet placing the softer iron inside with the steel at the core
and edges.

Once the billet is created it is drawn out farther, generally tapering

to the edge(s) and point. The technique of fullering might be used to
create a ridge or ridges down the length of the blade. Whether single
or multiple, the ridge's primary purpose is to give the blade greater
structural strength relative to its mass.

The final step of forming, and one that affects both the finishing and
the heat treatment is 'normalizing'. The blade would be carefully and
evenly heated and then cooled slowly. The point of normalizing is to
remove the stresses which may have built up within the body of the
blade while it was being forged. During the forging process the blade
might be heated and cooled differentially creating stress, some parts
might be hammered more than others, some areas hammered enough to
"work harden". If these stresses are left in the blade they could
affect the finishing and when it came time to heat treat the blade,
the hardening and tempering might not be as even. Potentially enough
stress could be added that the blade would be weak in spots, weak
enough that it could fail under enough strain.

Heat Treating

Heat treating, encompasses several processes including annealing,

normalizing, hardening and tempering. Often the process is called
"tempering" but actually that process refers to just one of the
several processes.

The purpose of heat treating plain-carbon steel is to change the

mechanical properties of steel, usually ductility, hardness, yield
strength, and impact resistance. As with most strengthening techniques
for steel, the modulus of elasticity is never affected. Steel has a
higher solid solubility for carbon in the austenite phase, therefore
all heat treatments, except spheroidizing and process annealing, start
by heating to an austenitic phase. The rate at which the steel is
cooled through the eutectoid reaction affects the rate at which carbon
diffuses out of austenite. Generally speaking, cooling quickly will
give a finer pearlite (until the martensite critical temperature is
reached) and cooling slowly will give a coarser pearlite. Cooling
hypoeutectoid (less than 0.8 wt% C) steel results in a pearlitic
structure with α-ferrite at the grain boundaries. If it is
hypereutectoid (more than 0.8 wt% C) steel then the structure is full
pearlite with small grains of cementite scattered throughout. The
relative amounts of constituents are found using the lever rule.
Following are several kinds of annealing associated with heat
treatment:

Full annealing : Plain-carbon steel is heated to approximately

40 °C above Ac3 or Ac1 for 1 hour; this assures all the ferrite
transforms into austenite (although cementite still might exist if
the carbon content is greater than the eutectoid). The steel must
then be cooled slowly, in the realm of 38 °C (100 °F) per hour.
Usually it is just furnace cooled, where the furnace is turned off
with the steel still inside. This results in a coarse pearlitic
°structure, which means the "bands" of pearlite are thick. Fully
annealed steel is soft and ductile, with no internal stresses,
which is often necessary for cost-effective forming. Only
spheroidized steel is softer and more ductile.
 Process annealing : A process used to relieve stress in a cold-
worked plain-carbon steel with less than 0.3 wt% C. The steel is
usually heated up to 550–650 °C for 1 hour, but sometimes
temperatures as high as 700 °C.

Isothermal Annealing :It is a process in which hypo eutectoid

steel is heated above the upper critical temperature and this
temperature is maintained for a period of time and then the
temperature is brought down below lower critical temperature and is
again maintained. Then finally it is cooled at room temperature. This
method helps in eliminating any temperature gradient.

Normalizing : Plain-carbon steel is heated to approximately 55 °C

above Ac3 or Acm for 1 hour; this assures the steel completely
transforms to austenite. The steel is then air cooled, which is a
cooling rate of approximately 38 °C (100 °F) per minute. This
results in a fine pearlitic structure, and a more uniform structure.
Normalized steel has a higher strength than annealed steel; it has a
relatively high strength and ductility.

During fabrication the metal might be softened to relieve stresses

built up from forging and differential heating, and to make the metal
easier to file, engrave or polish.

As one of the last processes in fabrication the blade would be

hardened and if the sword was made of steel in whole or part it would
then be tempered making the blade less brittle and springier. The
heating of the metal forces the usually crystalline lattice of
molecules to become more fluid, and the quenching then forces them
back into a crystalline configuration. Because of this rapid cooling,
the reformed crystals tend to be smaller, inhibiting the movement of
the molecules in relation to each other, thus greatly increasing the
hardness and brittleness of the metal.

Hardening the metal lets the metal hold shape better and therefore
hold an edge longer but hardness is at the cost of brittleness. Given
the intended use of a sword the blade must be strong as well, so the
hardness is eased or tempered in the case of steel blades to give the
blade strength and flexibility as well.

Hardening and tempering of any blade, knife or sword, is

challenging. With swords, due to their length, the challenge is
greater as in a typical quenching it is possible to bend or warp the
blade if it is not introduced to the quenching smoothly and evenly.
Given the greater length of a sword over a knife there are more
opportunities for errors, flaws and mistakes to accumulate. Further
there is a great deal of art and craft in arriving at a balance of
hardness and strength and creating blades which consistently deliver
both.

Swords could also be differentially hardened so that some parts, like

the cutting edge, are harder than the body.

Sharpening is the process of creating or refining a sharp edge of

appropriate shape on sword designed for cutting. Sharpening is done by
grinding away material on the blade with an abrasive substance harder
than the material of the blade, followed by processes to polish the
sharp surface to increase smoothness and to correct small mechanical
deformations without regrinding.

Sharpening the blade can be expressed as the creation of two

intersecting planes which produce an edge that is sharp enough to cut
through the target material. For example, the blade of a steel sword
is ground to a bevel so that the two sides of the blade meet. This
edge is then refined by honing until the blade is capable of cutting.
The extent to which this honing takes place depends upon the intended
use of the tool or implement. Ultimately, the more closely matched the
angles of the adjoining faces are, the sharper the finished edge will
be. Sharpening straight edges (knives, chisels, etc.) by hand can be
divided into phases. First the edge is sharpened with an abrasive
sharpening stone, or a succession of increasingly fine stones, which
shape the blade by removing material; the finer the abrasive the finer
the finish. Then the edge may be honed or stropped by polishing the
edge with a fine abrasive such as rouge or tripoli on a piece of stout
leather. Sharpening is often best done by a specialist rather than the
user of the tool.

Finishing

When the rough blade is completed, the swordsmith turns the blade over
to a polisher called a togishi, whose job it is to refine the shape of
a blade and improve its aesthetic value. The entire process takes
considerable time, in some cases easily up to several weeks.

Finishing a sword encompasses bringing the blade to final shape and

polish; decorating the sword; and crafting and assembling the hilt,
guard and sheath.
The polishing process almost always takes longer than even crafting,
and a good polish can greatly improve the beauty of a blade, while a
bad one can make the best of blades look like guntō. More importantly,
inexperienced polishers can permanently ruin a blade by badly
disrupting its geometry or wearing down too much steel, both of which
effectively destroy the sword's monetary, historic, artistic, and
functional value.

Polishing is a crucial step in preparing a blade for analysis, since

it brings out and enhances all external details as mentioned earlier.
This is important because details such as the shape, geometry,
particular proportions, appearance of the hamon and grain pattern and
so on, are distinctive enough that they can be used to accurately
determine the heritage and origin of a blade. As such, they can be
considered a more trustworthy signature of a smith than the actual
signature itself.

A good polishing reveals what speed the edge was cooled at, from what
temperature, and what the carbon content of the steel is. The
swordsmith would be most concerned with the state of the blade itself
and possibly decorating the blade and preparing the guards and pommel
if any. Other artisans would likely be involved in the work of
fashioning the hilt, sheath and other furniture; and in any fine
decoration.

Hilts vary in their exact nature depending on the era, but generally
consist of the same general idea, with the variation being in the
components used and in the wrapping style. The obvious part of the
hilt consists of a metal or wooden grip called a tsuka, which can also
be used to refer to the entire hilt. The hand guard, or tsuba, on
Japanese swords (except for certain twentieth century sabers which
emulate Western navies') is small and round, made of metal, and often
very ornate.

There is a pommel at the base known as a kashira, and there is often a

decoration under the braided wrappings called a menuki. A bamboo peg
called a mekugi is slipped through the tsuka and through the tang of
the blade, using the hole called a mekugiana drilled in it. This
anchors the blade securely into the hilt. To anchor the blade securely
into the sheath it will soon have, the blade acquires a collar, or
habaki, which extends an inch or so past the hand guard and keeps the
blade from rattling.
The sheaths themselves are not an easy task. There are two types of
sheaths, both of which require exacting work to create. One is the
shirasaya, which is generally made of wood and considered the
"resting" sheath, used as a storage sheath. The other sheath is the
more decorative or battle-worthy sheath which is usually called either
a jindachi-zukuri, if suspended from the obi (belt) by straps (tachi-
style), or a buke-zukuri sheath if thrust through the obi (katana-
style).