Help, I got in an argument on the internet!

[AWdeV]

Help! I'm an idiot and got in an argument with an idiot! We were discussing a fictional material to be made into swords and he claims the material is particularily suited for katanas and I think he is wrong but I'm not sure and I really don't know how to explain! Please Taleworlds, give me metallo-technological mumbo-jumbo so I know what I am saying!

Spoiler: post that started it. Not the person I was discussing with

It would cut pretty good, yes, but ultimately when you're cutting things it's about spreading your target.  Thick armor works well because a sword would have to first slice through the thickness, then it would need to actually force apart the armor to attain any more depth.  You're basically using your sword as a wood splitting wedge or the Jaws of Life.  Adamantine would have a lot of sharpness, but wouldn't quite have the energy to spread armor apart.  If you core it with something heavy and give it an adamantine edge, then you impart a lot more force and you're much more likely to achieve deep penetration.

Of course this mainly applies to swinging weapons.  Thrusting spears would manage you work fairly well, as you can put the whole weight of your body behind your thrust - and preferably use the enemy's momentum as well - to get in the kenetic energy and spread a small section, then it's a uniform diameter shaft that doesn't need to push apart any more armor.

Of course all of this applies to flesh and bone as well, just that these are easier to spread.  Same ideas still apply.

Spoiler: the post I started disagreeing with

Sounds like adamantine would make an excellent katana, or wakizashi.  Unlike western swords and knives, these two are thin, fragile, and not meant for "cleaving". They work based on the pressure exerted against the blade, and the energy with which it is drawn across the target surface. Basically, they work like a very fine, very very sharp sawblade.

An impossibly light, rigid, hard, and sharp material like adamantine would let you slice somebody literally in half anime style with a katana, because you could literally make it paper thin, and still exert your full swing strength\speed with it without worrying about it folding over, whipping around, wobbling, and all the other things that plague a sword.

A rotating serrated disc trap made of the stuff would be unbelievable.

Spoiler: my post. The "single molecule" bit at the end refers to the actual topic of that thread, Obsidian

Basically they work like a sword. You, simply put, clobber people with it. Or you skewer them with it. You do not saw them with it. You need teeth for proper sawing.

And I don't think that, even with adamantine, you could cut people in twain. It's amusing, yeah, but not very viable. There's more to it than just the sharpness/wobbliness of the blade. Maybe you could cut someone in half if you held them taut on something like a vertical torture rack.

Also, having a "razor" edge on a sword is a waste and useless.

Alsoalso I doubt it is possible to have anything "a" molecule thick. But then I'm not a scientastic person. How thick is a molecule?

Spoiler: their rebuttal

A katana is a sawing weapon, Really.  It has microscopic serrations. Unlike a claymore, longsword, etc, a katana is "Drawn" over the object to be sliced, much like a good kitchen knife. (Western swords "Cleave", like a meat cleaver.) Katana are not used to strike one another in the fashion that a western fencing sword is. Katana have 2 distinct types of metal used in construction, and the cutting edge is VERY VERY FRAGILE. (A curse from feudal japan is "May your sword shatter and break") Katana have only 1 cutting edge. The other is blunt, and made of mild, low carbon steel.  When using the katana to deflect a blow, this blunt side is offered to the incoming blade, in the attempt to shatter the enemy blade.  This 2 metal composition is what causes the sword's unique bowed shape. (The two metals have different modulus of elasticity, and different rates of thermal contraction.)

Due to the fragility of high carbon steels, a katana needs to be "Folded" and "Laminated".  Basically, this means that part of the structural integrity of the blade is maintaned by the softer, mild steel in the back part of the blade, because it is folded in with the high carbon, fragile steel in layers. The mild steel bulks up the blade, but makes it so that it wont shatter if it strikes poorly, and gives it a little flexibility it otherwise wouldn't have.

Imaginary Adamantine does not suffer a high fragility, like high carbon steel. As such, it wouldnt need lamination, could be made absurdly thin, and could be used absurdly fast. It would be like giving "Super paper cuts" rather than "Chopping".

Basically, a super paper-thin nano-serrated razorblade that never goes dull, and is 5ft long. Due to not needing to be laminated, and not needing a deflecting edge because the cutting edge cant shatter, it would\could be a 2-edged straight sword. (Though curved would permit easier use.)

WHATTOSAY. WHATTODOOO.

 

[Night Ninja]

RAEGpost incoming, stay tuned.

Sounds like adamantine would make an excellent katana, or wakizashi.  Unlike western swords and knives, these two are thin, fragile, and not meant for "cleaving".

**** off. Slicing (which is what this chuckle**** is describing) is a technique used by damn near every edged weapon system, it isn't unique. Neither is it meant as a primary method of attack against a competent opponent. If you're sending the business end of your weapon flying at your opponent at speed, you might as well use that ****ing energy to cut at or thrust at the other bastard in the first place.

And ****, there's different kinds of katana, just as there's different kinds of swords and knives. A blade optimized for light cutting in competition will cut very well with perfect form against light targets, but you whack a kabuto with it and it's history. A more substantial war sword won't cut light targets very well (in fact, it tends to act as a baseball bat), but you can actually hit people with it without worrying about it collapsing on you.

They work based on the pressure exerted against the blade, and the energy with which it is drawn across the target surface.

Every ****ing sword does this. Every ****ing sword cut involves a cleaving motion and a drawing motion. Katana are not special. Dumbass weeaboo.

Basically, they work like a very fine, very very sharp sawblade.

Well, ****, if you want to go into microscopic detail, that's how EVERY ****ING CUTTING IMPLEMENT WORKS WHEN YOU DRAW IT OVER A CUTTING MEDIUM. Argh.

An impossibly light, rigid, hard, and sharp material like adamantine would let you slice somebody literally in half anime style with a katana, because you could literally make it paper thin, and still exert your full swing strength\speed with it without worrying about it folding over, whipping around, wobbling, and all the other things that plague a sword.

Well ****, if you have hydraulic pistons for arms, that could work. Otherwise, **** off.

That's the same principle that cutting blades designed specifically for competition are built for. You could go through one roll of tatami with shocking ease, but good luck trying to cut through a person's torso without exposing yourself horrendously because you're essentially hitting someone with something that has the mass of a steel ruler. To impart sufficient power to such a cut to go through anything substantial, you'd require one heck of a windup, and that's time that the other ****er can use to just stab you in the face with his plain ol' vanilla steel sword. Cutting swords were never made to be tremendously light for a reason.

Swords were made that way for a reason, and some ****wit weeaboo who's skimmed metallurgy 101 isn't going to improve on it.

A rotating serrated disc trap made of the stuff would be unbelievable.

It would. I'd be rich. I'd plant a nice big log on a cart and repeatedly run it across the trap. Those blades are going to get stuck sometime. Free phlebotinum for me.

A katana is a sawing weapon, Really.  It has microscopic serrations.

*facepalm*

EVERY ****ING BLADE HAS MICROSCOPIC SERRATIONS

AND NO, THEY ARE NOT A POINT OF PRIDE, VISIBLE SERRATIONS ARE THE MARK OF A **** HONING JOB

AND ****, FIND ME ONE DUMBASS WHO'LL LET HIS OPPONENT SAW HIM IN HALF WITHOUT STABBING HIM IN HIS ****ING BALLS

Unlike a claymore, longsword, etc, a katana is "Drawn" over the object to be sliced, much like a good kitchen knife. (Western swords "Cleave", like a meat cleaver.) Katana are not used to strike one another in the fashion that a western fencing sword is.

What I said above. Jumpin' jeesus on a jellyfish...

Katana have 2 distinct types of metal used in construction, and the cutting edge is VERY VERY FRAGILE. (A curse from feudal japan is "May your sword shatter and break") Katana have only 1 cutting edge. The other is blunt, and made of mild, low carbon steel.  When using the katana to deflect a blow, this blunt side is offered to the incoming blade, in the attempt to shatter the enemy blade.  This 2 metal composition is what causes the sword's unique bowed shape. (The two metals have different modulus of elasticity, and different rates of thermal contraction.)

Due to the fragility of high carbon steels, a katana needs to be "Folded" and "Laminated".  Basically, this means that part of the structural integrity of the blade is maintaned by the softer, mild steel in the back part of the blade, because it is folded in with the high carbon, fragile steel in layers. The mild steel bulks up the blade, but makes it so that it wont shatter if it strikes poorly, and gives it a little flexibility it otherwise wouldn't have.

All cutting edges are fragile in comparison to the rest of the blade. Different koryu have different answers to this problem, some emphasize using the blunt side of the blade, others recognize the mechanical advantage that using the edge offers (structural alignment with forearms) and have a preference for that even if it damages the blade. The bottom line is that there's no single answer, and this ****wit weeaboo needs to shut the **** up and check his sources.

It's the heat treatment that induces the distinctive shape, not the metals. You can forge weld a high carbon edge to a low carbon body and it's not going to ****ing bend by itself. That statement makes about as much sense as Mass Effect 3's ending.

No. Just...no. High carbon steels can be plenty tough in this context. It's all down to the alloy composition and the heat treatment.

Folding is a method of homogenizing the carbon content in the blade. Without modern industrial metallurgical techniques, the quality of steel was largely a crapshoot. A given piece could have massive slag inclusions at one end and be the next best thing to cast iron at the other. Think of the folding process as kneading the dough when you're baking bread, and it's not too far off. We can largely skip this process with modern steel because it's damned near homogeneous. Smiths back in the day would kill to have the steel that we do now.

Composite construction (lamination) is nothing new. The Anglo-Saxons were faffing around with pattern welding quite independently, and by the time Japan caught on Europe had largely discarded it. It owes as much to economics and common sense as it is does to engineering. When getting decent steel is a crap shoot, you're going to want to conserve your high carbon steel for the parts that bloody need it. It doesn't produce a mechanically superior blade, and it's actually a ****ing pain in the ass to heat treat because you're increasing the chances of mechanical failure. Delamination from a failed weld caused by stress from the differential expansion and contraction of the two steel types is a common occurrence.

Imaginary Adamantine does not suffer a high fragility, like high carbon steel. As such, it wouldnt need lamination, could be made absurdly thin, and could be used absurdly fast. It would be like giving "Super paper cuts" rather than "Chopping".

Good ****ing luck killing anyone with your super paper cuts. The only areas that you can attack with a decent chance of stopping the other guy are areas with exposed major blood vessels.

Oh, and since you're going to try to slice the other ****er, your blade will be extended at some point, and he'll completely dominate you in the bind with his far heavier weapon. You can try to cut around, but if he knows what he's doing he'll just shift his weapon to one of the hengen to cover your line of attack and step forward to stab you in the face. Or the other bugger will try to hit you, and his strike will collapse your defense because your bloody sword has the weight of a steel ruler.

If you try hitting someone with it, the damned thing will get embedded in bone because it doesn't have the mass (and you don't have hydraulic piston arms) to power through, and the other ****er will hit you with his vanilla blade and smash your fool head in. Then he'll be up one adamantium trinket after he's done patching himself up.

Basically, a super paper-thin nano-serrated razorblade that never goes dull, and is 5ft long. Due to not needing to be laminated, and not needing a deflecting edge because the cutting edge cant shatter, it would\could be a 2-edged straight sword.

allmywhy.jpg

Also, katana are typically shorter than 5 feet. Just saying.

(Though curved would permit easier use.)

Curved blades don't cut any better than straight blades, they just tend to be more forgiving of mistakes in edge alignment and the like. They also impart a drawing motion to the cut naturally, the user doesn't need to induce it.

Beyond a certain minimum level of tool quality, performance is dependent on the user, not the tool.

 

[Merlkir]

 

And I thought the church of Folding has been dying out. Ah well. Looking forward to it, NN.

 

[Night Ninja]

Rageposted.

****. Link to original thread?

 

[Goker]

Why did I get a boner after reading Night Ninja's post?

 

[AWdeV]

Oh wow, awesome, thanks. Great stuff there.

I'd give you a link but it's on a different forum and I'm afraid you'd tear the poor guy to dainty little ribbons.

I need to go to school now, but would you mind if I were to, err, recycle your post and use it in a way less likely to induce terror in the hapless denizens of that other forum?

Or I could still link it later, if you want.

 

[Suspicous Pilgrim]

Lastly, utilize the weeaboo argument.

 

[Swordmaster]

An argument and an enemy. A win-win situation I guess.

 

[Kormin]

I vote link to the original thread  I wanna see Night Ninja eat the weeaboo alive

 

[Lazyman]

Linky link???

 

[AWdeV]

I give up. Have fun, he can choke on it and so can the guy with his macahuitl.

 

[Lord Burgess1]

bay12 ewwwwwwww.

 

[Merlkir]

These katana fanboys..all the folding and polishing. There's a masturbation metaphore in there somewhere.

 

[AWdeV]

Ah. So, err, it seems to be locked. Probably for the best.

Maybe I shouldn't have even made the thread and just left him be.

 

[Soil]

That entire argument was pretty retarded to start with. Especially because if you have a blade that is only one atom thick (which is impossible anyway) the effects would be more along the lines of radiation and not a weapon like a sword (if you're just accepting the fact they're using some bull**** imaginary material that can hold its shape despite being so ridiculously thin.)

 

[Night Ninja]

Christ on a cucumber, the ignorance on that guy's part was ****ing amazing. How the **** do you even link to an iaido video to 'prove' that katana were reliant on slicing cuts? Jeesus.

 

[Fenix_120]

I might be abit late to help you but for the sake of discussion here's my take on this.

A katana is a sawing weapon, Really. 

No its not, its a cutting weapon.


It has microscopic serrations.

Such serrations would actually create drag which would hinder cutting power

Unlike a claymore, longsword, etc, a katana is "Drawn" over the object to be sliced, much like a good kitchen knife. (Western swords "Cleave", like a meat cleaver.)

First of all he most be speaking about curved vs. straight blades, I will discuss this more later.

Western arming and bastard swords were used to cut, not cleave. The only medieval western sword's used to cleave as opposed to cut were types like the Falchion, Dussack and Cutlass and historic reports and modern tests have shown that such weapons were in fact just as deadly as blades used to cut if not more so.

Katana are not used to strike one another in the fashion that a western fencing sword is.

I'm going to take a guess and say he is speaking about 17th - 19th century fencing blades, if which case my response would have been Rapiers were only used in combat as secondary weapons by soldiers who did not need a better blade, most Musketeers and maybe even a few Pikemen.

If he means parrying then yes they actually were.

Most Cavalry, Pikemen, Targeteers and others who were expected to fight in a melee carried better swords such as the Side-sword(also called Cut & Thrust sword) Back-sword(also called single edged sword), Broad sword(which was a shorter and stouter Back or side sword), Cutlass and Saber.


Katana have 2 distinct types of metal used in construction, and the cutting edge is VERY VERY FRAGILE. (A curse from feudal japan is "May your sword shatter and break") Katana have only 1 cutting edge. The other is blunt, and made of mild, low carbon steel.  When using the katana to deflect a blow, this blunt side is offered to the incoming blade, in the attempt to shatter the enemy blade.  This 2 metal composition is what causes the sword's unique bowed shape. (The two metals have different modulus of elasticity, and different rates of thermal contraction.)

Most blades are made thus regardless of where their were produced or the metal they were made from, the best swords had an iron core and steel edges.

The part of the blade used to parry a blow were the sides not the back, Single edged swords were at a disadvantage to double edged swords in that if your blade were to become dull you would be forced to fight with a dull blade as opposed to a double edged you simply switched edges.



Due to the fragility of high carbon steels, a katana needs to be "Folded" and "Laminated".  Basically, this means that part of the structural integrity of the blade is maintaned by the softer, mild steel in the back part of the blade, because it is folded in with the high carbon, fragile steel in layers. The mild steel bulks up the blade, but makes it so that it wont shatter if it strikes poorly, and gives it a little flexibility it otherwise wouldn't have.

The Celts were folding their blades before Christ.

Katana's historically were actually very fragile when compared to blades used in Europe or the middle east, it was always used as a secondary weapon to the Polearm and Bow(actually quite like the European Rapier)

And high carbon steel is not fragile, Japanese high carbon steel was because their iron ore was fragile due to its poor quality, modern steel making techniques are used to correct this flaw in Modern Japanese steel.


Imaginary Adamantine does not suffer a high fragility, like high carbon steel. As such, it wouldnt need lamination, could be made absurdly thin, and could be used absurdly fast. It would be like giving "Super paper cuts" rather than "Chopping".

This is mostly just for the nerd in me, but the harder a metal is the more fragile it is.

This is why we see blades made from high carbon steel as opposed to tungsten.


Basically, a super paper-thin nano-serrated razorblade that never goes dull, and is 5ft long. Due to not needing to be laminated, and not needing a deflecting edge because the cutting edge cant shatter, it would\could be a 2-edged straight sword. (Though curved would permit easier use.)

Curved blades are not easier to use than straight, they are about the same.

The idea that Curved blades are better for cutting and straight is better for thrusting is not entirely true.

The reason why people think that curved blades are better cutters? because the bottom part of the blade makes contact before the top focusing all the power of the cut onto that one area, if the entire area made contact at the same time this would create "Drag"

The science behind this theory is correct, but what this theory does not take into consideration is that a straight blade is not actually straight as an arrow, "Straight blades" were usually  A: Tapered, which means that the blade will slightly narrow from hilt to tip and B: had conclave edges which means circular as opposed to "Razor straight", which means that the bottom part of the blade makes contact before the top...

It is also interesting to note, that blades that were not tapered and did not have conclave edges made to be used entirely for thrusting such as the Roman Gladius, are still capable of cutting a person's head or arm off.

Curved blades can also be used to thrust to great effect, especially if it has a "Hatchet Tip" type blade.


The Advantage that the Curved blade had over the straight was it was easier to pull out of its sheath, the advantage that the straight had was that it was aligned with your arm and therefore had a better center of balance, but these differences are actually quite slim.

Both types could be single or double edged.

It is interesting to note that it is commonly thought that in the 18th century curved blades replaced straight blades in European armies, this is actually not true, as a matter of fact only light cavalry such as Dragoons or Hussar's used curved blades, Heavy Cavalry who were expected to charge home fought with straight bladed Broad swords.

Infantry fought with both.


Another really interesting fact, After the wars of the "Japanese invasions of Korea" the Chinese copied the Japanese ōdach, one of the first things they did was straighten out(but not totally eliminate) the curve, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changdao





A C

 

[Kissaki]

Two things, one trivial and the other important. The trivial:

The katana is not made from two distinct metals, but two or three different steels. The hardest steel is for the edge, because the harder the steel, the sharper the edge it can hold. Softer steels do not hold an edge as well, but are less brittle. There is also often a soft core of iron, but that's still the same metal. Steel is iron, too.

The important:

How well a blade cuts doesn't depend on sharpness alone. Sharpness helps, of course, but blade geometry is also important. The narrower the angle of the edge, the better the edge is going to dig in. But the narrower the angle, the thinner the blade, and consequently less mass (which means less impact), and also weaker. But that aside: there really is no point to having a sword sharper than we can already make them with steel, because steel swords are already plenty sharp enough to do the job. Are they sharp enough to cleave a man in two from skull to groin? You betcha. Are they going to? Hell, no. This is because the edge is not the only thing which has to pass through the target. All the meat of the sword behind the edge also needs to follow, pushing aside material as it does so. The sword is not going to do your cutting for you, you have to put in some elbow-grease yourself. Technique is very important, and so is strength behind the swing. Just adding sharpness (awkward phrase) isn't going to help once you've already got a blade which is already sharper than it needs to be.

 

[AWdeV]

Thanks for the info guys, very interesting.

Christ on a cucumber, the ignorance on that guy's part was ****ing amazing. How the **** do you even link to an iaido video to 'prove' that katana were reliant on slicing cuts? Jeesus.

Some other guy used a bull**** diagram of a bull**** katana with some bull**** description to prove why a katana cuts better in a different thread but he got corrected by someone else too. It was some daft trapezoid-ish shape with concave sides or something.

 

[Night Ninja]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZtwgvuzUM4

That channel (and any decent knifemaker's channel) will tell you a lot about edge and blade geometry.

Also, I could've sworn I saw something about micro serrations by this guy, but I can't find it right now.

tl;dr summary from memory: coarser grinding surfaces produce the tiny saw teeth that your weeaboo friend was nattering on about, but while it cuts monstrously that kind of edge is unsustainable and will get blunt very quickly after significant use. Finer grinds reduce the size of said teeth, and honing pretty much eliminates it for most practical purposes. This is why you see people take the trouble to use multiple grinding stones and a leather strop (with some kind of honing paste).