# Communities > Modern-era Swords and Collecting Community > Modern Production Katanas >  L6 steel just a gimmick?

## N. Handley

My interest in JSA and buying swords is a recent.
I am yet to buy a swords over $500 and wont be for the foreseeable future.

Am I being ignorant in saying that a there is little special about the high end production swords made of L6 steel?
Am I correct thinking that mono tempered steel is equally capable in terms of durability?
Am I correct in thinking that is just a gimmick and in reality not worth the £/$/€?

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## Timo Qvintus

All steels are equally bad for using as a sword if you don't heat treat them properly. Howard Clark has mastered HT of L6-steel, and the swords have well deserved the reputation they have. As for others using L6.. well, that's case-by-case. My point being that selection of steel by itself doesn't make swords good or bad.

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## A. Olivier

> All steels are equally bad for using as a sword if you don't heat treat them properly.  ..................................................  ..................................... My point being that selection of steel by itself doesn't make swords good or bad.


Correct and proper heat treatment is probably the most important aspect of blademaking. Even if you use the "best" steel (for the intended purpose) you still run the risk of creating a really bad blade simply by messing up with the incorrect ht procedure. IMHO L6 should make a rather decent sword blade if treated correctly. I have never made a sword from L6 but I have made a few knives. 

On the other hand steels such as 1095 or other high carbon steels and stainless such as 440C and ATS 34 are not suitable for long blades simply because it's too brittle. Stainless steels for use in swordblades are of course a rather controversial subject.

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## KristianFranzKonrad

> Am I being ignorant in saying that a there is little special about the high end production swords made of L6 steel?
> Am I correct thinking that mono tempered steel is equally capable in terms of durability?
> Am I correct in thinking that is just a gimmick and in reality not worth the £/$/?


L6 is all hype, and total crap.

I bent one the other day... and it sprang right back and slapped me in the face!

Don't bother wasting your money.

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## N. Handley

> steels such as 1095 or other high carbon steels... are not suitable for long blades simply because it's too brittle.


Why do 'they' use 1095 steel then?

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## X.K. Chen

> Why do 'they' use 1095 steel then?


Hmm...I would think 1095 steel to be too brittle for sword on sword contact.

However, for tameshigiri of soft targets to hard targets (like bamboo), it is more than suitable, because of its inherent hardness, the edge keeps its sharpness so you won't need to sharpen the blade as often.

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## J MacDonald

> Hmm...I would think 1095 steel to be too brittle for sword on sword contact.


There's only one way to find out  :Cool:

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## X.K. Chen

> There's only one way to find out


XP I wouldn't want to put myself in danger of receiving a bad injury should the blade snap. Tameshigiri is as far as I'll go. Hahaha...

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## Jeffrey Ching

It is not about the type of steel. That is why they laminate blades.
Soft 1050 can become incredibly hard and 1095 can become really soft when quenched in a certain way.

Only important thing you need with blade on blade contact is good 'Ashi'. The 'legs' of the hamon make sure only small parts are chipped of when a hard surface is hit.  Your blade will be still usable and less chance of a big piece of your blade flying off.

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## X.K. Chen

> It is not about the type of steel. That is why they laminate blades.
> Soft 1050 can become incredibly hard and 1095 can become really soft when quenched in a certain way.
> 
> Only important thing you need with blade on blade contact is good 'Ashi'. The 'legs' of the hamon make sure only small parts are chipped of when a hard surface is hit.  Your blade will be still usable and less chance of a big piece of your blade flying off.


I understand where you're coming from with regards to lamination and heat treatment. 

However, my point is...given say, blades made in the same fashion but varying only in carbon content, I would think that a 1095 steel has a higher chance of snapping. 

Quote below taken from : http://kenjutsu-ryu.livejournal.com/29096.html

Obata Kaiso:

"I acted as sword tester for the late swordsmith Yasuhiro Kobayashi (who died in 1987). Back then he had a sword shop called Kanuchi near Sen-gakuji Temple in Tokyo. His forge was in Nirazaki in Yamanashi prefecture, near the ruins of Shimpu Castle of Katsuyori Takeda, son of Shingen Takeda. I used to test his swords on the trees in the woods behind the forge and on pieces of firewood stacked in the garden.
I used to ask Yasuhiro about the carbon content and various other aspects of his swords constitution. I later related that information to Paul Champagne. I also gave him a set of whetstones and told him what I knew about sword balance from my experience. He took detailed measurements of my swords length, width, curvature, and layering and returned to New York. A while later he showed up in Los Angeles with four swords that he had made. Three of them had a carbon content similar to what I had told him. The fourth had a high carbon content of 0.9. I proceeded to test them on ax helves, thick-stemmed bamboo, wooden 2-by-2s and 2-by-4s, and so on. After we had finished, Paul said that hed heard that swords with high carbon content would be likely to break, so we decided to do an experiment. We placed a steel helmet worn by Guy Power, a student of mine who is a captain in the army, on the end of a post and struck at it five times. It was very hard, of course, and the blade wouldnt cut into it. All I could manage was a dent about two centimeters deep and fifteen centimeters long. On the sixth strike, however, the sword broke right in the middle and went sailing into the air, spinning around and making a sound as it went, and stuck itself in the roof of my house. Paul was rather surprised, of course, and I think he must also have realized what I meant when I had told him how dangerous a broken sword can be."

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## Andrew W. Priestley

> I understand where you're coming from with regards to lamination and heat treatment. 
> 
> However, my point is...given say, blades made in the same fashion but varying only in carbon content, I would think that a 1095 steel has a higher chance of snapping. 
> 
> Quote below taken from : http://kenjutsu-ryu.livejournal.com/29096.html
> 
> Obata Kaiso:
> 
> "I acted as sword tester for the late swordsmith Yasuhiro Kobayashi (who died in 1987). Back then he had a sword shop called Kanuchi near Sen-gakuji Temple in Tokyo. His forge was in Nirazaki in Yamanashi prefecture, near the ruins of Shimpu Castle of Katsuyori Takeda, son of Shingen Takeda. I used to test his swords on the trees in the woods behind the forge and on pieces of firewood stacked in the garden.
> I used to ask Yasuhiro about the carbon content and various other aspects of his swords constitution. I later related that information to Paul Champagne. I also gave him a set of whetstones and told him what I knew about sword balance from my experience. He took detailed measurements of my swords length, width, curvature, and layering and returned to New York. A while later he showed up in Los Angeles with four swords that he had made. Three of them had a carbon content similar to what I had told him. The fourth had a high carbon content of 0.9. I proceeded to test them on ax helves, thick-stemmed bamboo, wooden 2-by-2s and 2-by-4s, and so on. After we had finished, Paul said that hed heard that swords with high carbon content would be likely to break, so we decided to do an experiment. We placed a steel helmet worn by Guy Power, a student of mine who is a captain in the army, on the end of a post and struck at it five times. It was very hard, of course, and the blade wouldnt cut into it. All I could manage was a dent about two centimeters deep and fifteen centimeters long. On the sixth strike, however, the sword broke right in the middle and went sailing into the air, spinning around and making a sound as it went, and stuck itself in the roof of my house. Paul was rather surprised, of course, and I think he must also have realized what I meant when I had told him how dangerous a broken sword can be."


1095 is used in some production swords, but usually as a component in a pattern welded tri-steel blend.  So the layers of 1095 are thin and interspersed with layers of lower carbon material.  Also, the 1095 is not 1095 anymore after it has gone through multiple forge folding heats and forging heats. It is losing carbon steadily in those processes. The more it is worked, the less carbon ends up int he final product. 

Quenching is only the middle stage of heat-treat (if the blade is normalized first).  After quenching a blade is normally tempered to stress relieve it and to draw back the hardness a bit.  This releives some of the brittleness as well. If you don't temper the blade it will be more prone to cracks and chipping. 

Lamination (kobuse or hon san mai construction) also changes things quite a bit.  You can jacket a blade with high carbon steel and laminate it around essentially low carbon, mild steel an d the interaction of the two in use changes how the jacket steel reacts to the impacts of use. 

Impact:  Swords aren't designed to slam into unmoving hardened objects like helmets set on posts.  Helmet contact on a human head has some built in shock absorption capability as the person will be moving, and every joint in that person's body will take up some shock, protecting the blade.   Also, swords aren't designed to cut armor, they are designed to cut around the armor.  To pierce the flesh behind knees, under arms, beneath the rims of helmets and under neck and face protections, beneath armored skirts, etc. This is as true in Japan as it was in Europe.  The sword was not intended or used as a primary battlefield weapon against armored opponents. It was a sidearm to be used when spears and halberds were broken or lost. 

L6 steel, in itself, is a good tool steel. What makes it exceptional in Howard Clark's swords, is the heat treat.  He still treats the yakiba to hard martensite structure, but instead of the soft pearlite structure created in the unhardened back and core of the blade, he manages to freeze it in the bainite crystal state, which is harder than pearlite and tougher than martensite.  It won't take a set easily, but provides enough shock absorption for the edge to reduce cracking and breakage.  The trick is that locking in that bainite structure takes some tricky work. The Bainite part of L6/Bainite blades is far more important than the L6 bit.   BTW, Hanwei has a new steel/heat treat combination that the folks over at Bugei claims is at least as good and probably superior to the L6 Bainite combo.

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## X.K. Chen

> 1095 is used in some production swords, but usually as a component in a pattern welded tri-steel blend.  So the layers of 1095 are thin and interspersed with layers of lower carbon material.  Also, the 1095 is not 1095 anymore after it has gone through multiple forge folding heats and forging heats. It is losing carbon steadily in those processes. The more it is worked, the less carbon ends up int he final product. 
> 
> Quenching is only the middle stage of heat-treat (if the blade is normalized first).  After quenching a blade is normally tempered to stress relieve it and to draw back the hardness a bit.  This releives some of the brittleness as well. If you don't temper the blade it will be more prone to cracks and chipping. 
> 
> Lamination (kobuse or hon san mai construction) also changes things quite a bit.  You can jacket a blade with high carbon steel and laminate it around essentially low carbon, mild steel an d the interaction of the two in use changes how the jacket steel reacts to the impacts of use. 
> 
> Impact:  Swords aren't designed to slam into unmoving hardened objects like helmets set on posts.  Helmet contact on a human head has some built in shock absorption capability as the person will be moving, and every joint in that person's body will take up some shock, protecting the blade.   Also, swords aren't designed to cut armor, they are designed to cut around the armor.  To pierce the flesh behind knees, under arms, beneath the rims of helmets and under neck and face protections, beneath armored skirts, etc. This is as true in Japan as it was in Europe.  The sword was not intended or used as a primary battlefield weapon against armored opponents. It was a sidearm to be used when spears and halberds were broken or lost. 
> 
> L6 steel, in itself, is a good tool steel. What makes it exceptional in Howard Clark's swords, is the heat treat.  He still treats the yakiba to hard martensite structure, but instead of the soft pearlite structure created in the unhardened back and core of the blade, he manages to freeze it in the bainite crystal state, which is harder than pearlite and tougher than martensite.  It won't take a set easily, but provides enough shock absorption for the edge to reduce cracking and breakage.  The trick is that locking in that bainite structure takes some tricky work. The Bainite part of L6/Bainite blades is far more important than the L6 bit.   BTW, Hanwei has a new steel/heat treat combination that the folks over at Bugei claims is at least as good and probably superior to the L6 Bainite combo.


Thanks for the info Andrew!  :Smilie:  Yea, kinda been covering those steel structures in my materials course at the moment. Hahaha, yea achieving a Bainite back region with a martensite edge sure is tough.

With regards to that new steel of Hanwei's, I have a gut feeling they're adding some 'secret' composition of alloying elements to their steel. *Shrugs* Just a guess!  :Stick Out Tongue:

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## A. Olivier

Thank you Andrew. There's no way I could have explained it in such detail. First of all English is not my mother tongue and secondly I'm looking at it from a knifemaker's perspective and my limited knowledge of steel. You're answer covers what I would have said and a lot more. I joined swordforums to learn about swordmaking and it's definitely paying off.

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## David Ljungström

From what I understand and heard it is not the L6 steel that is special, it is the heat treatment that Howard Clark utilize that make his sword so durable and the L6 is just a means to an end. If my knowledge is correct then he uses the same method that was rediscovered a while ago on how the arabs made their all so famous "damascus swords that could cut an European one in half without dulling". Same thing here it was not the steel that was special but the heat treatment. 

If my memmory serves me right the arabs would hammer the sword from glowing hot to cold and this way the carbon in the sword to form very strong connections called 'insert name here' that infact are the strongest material on earth(at least at the date I read the article) which makes the sword extreamely strong. 

I've also read that this state in the steel has been made of 5196(think I got this one wrong, but steel most ne production european swords are made of) steel by another smith.

Here my memmory get's really vauge so this have to be taken by a pinch of salt. 

But if I remember correctly, in an article when making this "kind of stel" they heated the steel to very high temperatures making it liquid almost then proceeded with some techinque and in the end they had gotten an extreamely strong steel.

Well that was that.

Ask for a source or quote and I will hurt you.

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## J MacDonald

> Ask for a source or quote and I will hurt you.


Haha! Can I use that?

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## David Ljungström

> Haha! Can I use that?


Haha, well why not. I just don't like it when people just ask "source?", it's kinda annoying.

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## Thomas Powers

David are you referring to Wootz?  If so it's not made that way.

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## David W Price

> "damascus swords that could cut an European one in half without dulling"


Must be the same stuff that the WWII Gunto are made of. You know....the ones that you can use to cut the barrel of a .50 cal machine gun  :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic):  .

Dave P

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## Keith Larman

These kinds of threads remind me of something I overheard one late night. A local burger joint used to have one evening a month where people would drive up their modified cars. So old cars, new ones, heavily rebuilt, etc. I came by to pick up some dinner after a seminar I was at and as I was walking out I saw two teenagers looking at the tires on this one rather plain, stock Honda Civic. They were so impressed that these were the newest, seriously most expensive, super-duper high performance tires on the market. On a stock, entry level Civic. 

One kid says to the other "This car kicks butt!!! After all, look at those tires!". 

A sword is vastly more than the steel used. 

If I were to go out and try to forge a blade out of L6 the results would be total garbage. Because I don't know what I'm doing. A reasonably competent smith *could* forge out a decent shaped blade in L6 but if they mung up the heat treat it is still garbage. And a poorly shaped blade with great heat treat is still a poorly shaped blade. 

I can't speak for areas outside of Japanese swords (my area) but there is a *lot* of subtle detail in what makes a sword really perform. Heat treatment and steel choice is but one of many things that make a good sword. 

Or we could just focus on the expensive tires and ignore that they're on a Yugo...

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## Keith Larman

Since someone e-mailed me a little annoyed... Let me clarify...

I'm not saying people here are doing what I described. What I meant is that "overfocusing" (is that a word?) on any single aspect of a complex thing is a mistake. But it is also one way makers can hype their wares if the public becomes fixated on some one thing. 

Howard Clark starting doing his L6 blades with his special heat treatment after having made literally hundreds of swords. He worked for years selling blades on his own but also selling swords through Bugei Trading. Howard worked directly with the guys doing the mounting and polishing of his swords and actively asked for feedback (which we gave). As a result the "bigger picture" of the quality of his work simply kept getting better and better. Once he introduced his L6 pieces he was already making some really nice performance swords. They were not intended to mimic a Japanese sword in terms of overall aesthetics. They were about Howard making the best blade he could given how he wanted to work and what he wanted to work with. 

His L6 swords found their way into a number of highly ranked traditionally trained swordsmen in the US. And as students saw their sensei using his swords and heard their sensei's opinions of those swords compared to others they had used it was only natural that they became quite popular. 

The bottom line is that L6 became popular in Howard Clark's work not just because of the steel and the heat treatment. It was everything coming together with everything else. Performance, handling, balance, feel, aesthetics, etc. 

Or... not just the tires on a car. The whole banana is what matters.

So when other makers run to L6, well, that's fine. If they're doing good work they can make a good blade. But it still doesn't change the reality that a good sword is vastly more than the sum of its parts. And the steel/heat treatment choice is but one part of many. Critical - yes. The only factor? Absolutely not.

Some vendors felt they *had* to offer L6 blades because so many out there wanted them. I'm sure there are smiths who were annoyed as hell getting requests for L6. Which is silly -- people should go to a smith for the work they do with the materials they choose to use. But if customers ask, well, we all have to pay our bills. Be it a mass producer or a lowly craftsman. 

Hope that clarifies...

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## michael wilson

I really missed your food analogies and metaphors while I was on hiatus for a while , but hey  - tires and bananas got the point home just as well as the burger analogy always did,  :Big Grin: 



L6 had what Tinker refers to as the 'buzz' a couple of years back amongst the online sword community - kinda like tamahagane has at the moment  , although I have not seen many reviews of Hanwei praying mantis' or paper crane swords on the usual forums  - maybe the price tags have got people looking more towards custom pieces.

I know a paper crane over here in the UK would be getting on for $2.5k USD  - that would get you a nice starter nihonto or theres always a very good bargain to be had these days right here on the classifieds.

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## Keith Larman

Yeah, I've never quite gotten the appeal of a blade made of tamahagane if the smith doing the work wasn't able to take advantage of the fact that it is tamahagane. They're not getting modern high performance out of the stuff and the ones I've seen from various sources have little of the aesthetics of well done tamahagane nihonto. So I've never quite understood the appeal of a tamahagane blade made by a factory. Same is true for me with the L6 and factory work. 

I'd rather get a blade made by a smith or company that had developed a methodology to get the most out of whatever it is that they're using. Let them do their best with what they want to work with. So I'm a lot more comfortable with Paul Chen and his people coming up with something on their own rather than solely trying to appeal to what customers request. To me that's the right idea.

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## Chris Wolf

> Yeah, I've never quite gotten the appeal of a blade made of tamahagane if the smith doing the work wasn't able to take advantage of the fact that it is tamahagane. They're not getting modern high performance out of the stuff and the ones I've seen from various sources have little of the aesthetics of well done tamahagane nihonto. So I've never quite understood the appeal of a tamahagane blade made by a factory. Same is true for me with the L6 and factory work. 
> 
> I'd rather get a blade made by a smith or company that had developed a methodology to get the most out of whatever it is that they're using. Let them do their best with what they want to work with. So I'm a lot more comfortable with Paul Chen and his people coming up with something on their own rather than solely trying to appeal to what customers request. To me that's the right idea.


Boy Keith thats so true Its more about the process then the steel, I got caught up in all the hype about L6  & Tamahagane being the ultimate steels practicaly indistructable also. Not long ago I was begging a local smith I know here in Ontario to make me a L6 katana for my tameshigiri practice, I know he didnt want to disappoint me and for awhile he didnt know quite what to say but he never works with L6 so I left his place that day feeling almost dissapointed until a good friend of mine told me to just go with the steel hes most comfortable using I wouldnt be dissapointed, And boy was that true best sword Ive ever owned.

Its not about the steel but the TLC that goes into it

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## Andrew W. Priestley

I am certainly guilty of over-focussing frm time to time.  It's actually pretty hard to address all the things that need addressing when talking about what makes a quality sword.  Actually you hit the nail on the head. It's not what that makes a qualty sword, it's who.

Conventional wisdom says that stainless steels make crappy swords.  But a few, or fewer, smiths have specialized in stainless steels and made excellent swords from it, because they know the material well and are able to get the best out of it.  Likewise a tamahagane sword made by a master smith who knows the strengths and weaknesses of the material can make excellent, high performanc swords out of it.  whereas I could take the abslute best tamahagane available, already frege folded properlyto homogenize the carbon cntent, etc, and what I would produce wouldn't be worth the slag cast off during forging.

Its nothe tools or materals that make the sword, it's the craftsmen.

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## Chris Maguda

I love enlightenment.

This is what I had to get over to make a true decision on where to spend my money on a nice blade.  All the hype usually isn't worth it's weight.  I tend to follow advice from people who know what they're talking about, namely a good number of people on these forums.   :Wink:

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## Gyan G.

Awesome thread guys, very informative and enlightning. I have figured out from reading various things like this conversation, that it's not just the steel, but the whole of the parts. The craftsmen, from making the steel, forging the blade, and even polishing it out to a fine, even finish and edge. And that's just talking about the bare blade, not even getting into combining all the various tsuka compentents, koshira, nagago length etc to achieve a nice balance overall. 

I didn't know the little history behind Clarke's crafting and experience, working with you guys. Sounds like he really did the right things to perfect his craft.

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## N. Handley

> Obata Kaiso:
> 
> "I acted as sword tester for the late swordsmith Yasuhiro Kobayashi (who died in 1987). Back then he had a sword shop called Kanuchi near Sen-gakuji Temple in Tokyo. His forge was in Nirazaki in Yamanashi prefecture, near the ruins of Shimpu Castle of Katsuyori Takeda, son of Shingen Takeda. I used to test his swords on the trees in the woods behind the forge and on pieces of firewood stacked in the garden.
> I used to ask Yasuhiro about the carbon content and various other aspects of his swords’ constitution. I later related that information to Paul Champagne. I also gave him a set of whetstones and told him what I knew about sword balance from my experience. He took detailed measurements of my sword’s length, width, curvature, and layering and returned to New York. A while later he showed up in Los Angeles with four swords that he had made. Three of them had a carbon content similar to what I had told him. The fourth had a high carbon content of 0.9. I proceeded to test them on ax helves, thick-stemmed bamboo, wooden 2-by-2s and 2-by-4s, and so on. After we had finished, Paul said that he’d heard that *swords with high carbon content would be likely to break, so we decided to do an experiment. We placed a steel helmet worn by Guy Power, a student of mine who is a captain in the army, on the end of a post and struck at it five times. It was very hard, of course, and the blade wouldn’t cut into it. All I could manage was a dent about two centimeters deep and fifteen centimeters long. On the sixth strike, however, the sword broke right in the middle* and went sailing into the air, spinning around and making a sound as it went, and stuck itself in the roof of my house. Paul was rather surprised, of course, and I think he must also have realized what I meant when I had told him how dangerous a broken sword can be."


So it was used to strike a steel helmet six times, and then it broke.
1095 sounds durable enought to me, can imagine me cutting many helmets.

It is reassuring to know that 1095 steel is capable of making a two centimetre cut into a steel, providing correct treatment of the steel.

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## Jeff Young

> My interest in JSA and buying swords is a recent.
> I am yet to buy a swords over $500 and wont be for the foreseeable future.


Most aren't worth it if you do




> Am I being ignorant in saying that a there is little special about the high end production swords made of L6 steel?
> Am I correct thinking that mono tempered steel is equally capable in terms of durability?
> Am I correct in thinking that is just a gimmick and in reality not worth the


For most cutting, yes...

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## Jonathan Frances

> Most aren't worth it if you do.


I'm sorry, what?  Simply getting a decent koshirae and basic fittings can get you into that range to start.

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## Gary S

> I'm sorry, what?  Simply getting a decent koshirae and basic fittings can get you into that range to start.


Absolutely...Not only that but your chance of getting "proper heat treatment" rises considerably the more you spend. If you're going with differential tempering, then the chance of a dud blade in the lower price ranges are even higher.

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## Clay S.

Poster from a few years back here. Not to be contrary but didn't Rob Criswell used to use stainless steel for some of his "tactical" katana style swords? It's been awhile, that might just be a figment of my imagination but I could swear I'd read something about it years ago.

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## Glen C.

Criswell used (is he still at it?) A2, as did Bob Engnath at times. Not exactly a high chromium steel. Bob did use 440c for some of his blades as have a number over the years including Barry Dawson. The latter is more known for longer lengths done in 440c. Jerry Hossom has used ATS-34 and CPM3V for longer lengths. 

I don't have the Dawson story handy at the moment but sure enough of his blades to startle his patrons. Even Dawson (and his daughter Lynn) has moved on steel wise. 440c use to be the number one premium custom steel use back in the 1970s and the myths regarding all stainless steel will last indefinitely. It has surely gotten enough press on any of the blade forums, sword or otherwise. Let's see where I have the quoted story handy.



By no means take my words as gospel without doing some legwork on your own but here were my thoughts some time ago.




> Thanks for taking some time Caleb. Regardless of the original poster's question, it is still wrong to make blanket statements about steel. I'm including a revision of another of my posts here for those not wanting to spend the time reading elsewhere.
> 
> I am taking to offering this as a standard response.The intent is not to offend anyone and provide a couple of examples. There are more out there.
> 
> Stainless Steel is a misnomer anyway and leads to a lot of confusion. There are a lot of variables. Many sword folk associate the term with decorative swords that may, or may not, be rather dangerous to use in any terms of functionality, 
> 
> Believe me, there are just as many dangerous knives that suffer a lot of the same characteristics. Some steels are more stainless than others, some are better suited to good cutlery, some have been successfully used in fully functional swords.
> 
> The United Cutlery slab handled 420J2 stainless katana is an example of a low end servicable sword. Other swords made of 420J2 are far from functional. It's not the steel, so much, but the processing and heat treatment. 
> ...


So anyway, Criswell = A2 use.

Cheers

Hotspur; _some of Hossom's old espada were really kinda neat looking like a LOTR elven saber look at times_

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## Hrvoje Samija

> ...
> If my memmory serves me right the arabs would hammer the sword from glowing hot to cold and this way the carbon in the sword to form very strong connections called 'insert name here' that infact are the strongest material on earth(at least at the date I read the article) which makes the sword extreamely strong. 
> 
> I've also read that this state in the steel has been made of 5196(think I got this one wrong, but steel most ne production european swords are made of) steel by another smith.
> 
> Here my memmory get's really vauge so this have to be taken by a pinch of salt. 
> 
> But if I remember correctly, in an article when making this "kind of stel" they heated the steel to very high temperatures making it liquid almost then proceeded with some techinque and in the end they had gotten an extreamely strong steel.
> 
> ...







> David are you referring to Wootz?  If so it's not made that way.



Yes, the 'real' damascus, wootz, was not made with high heat, but low heat, since it is said a blade of grass was found inside of one of those swords when it was broken...

New research implies that it was all made possible because of the certain ore with an exact mixture of impurities...

Here's the source in pdf...  :Stick Out Tongue: 

damascus (click)

 :Big Grin:

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## Russ Ellis

> My interest in JSA and buying swords is a recent.
> I am yet to buy a swords over $500 and wont be for the foreseeable future.
> 
> Am I being ignorant in saying that a there is little special about the high end production swords made of L6 steel?
> Am I correct thinking that mono tempered steel is equally capable in terms of durability?
> Am I correct in thinking that is just a gimmick and in reality not worth the £/$/€?


My impression is that L6 when properly heat treated does indeed have some intrinsic properties that make it a tougher sword.  It is also difficult to properly introduce differential hardening in L-6, for some period of time I think Howard Clark was the only person that could do it... or at least the only person that advertised that he coudl do it.  I think I've heard that this is no longer the case.

As with most things, I suspect any special properties of the steel probably aren't by orders of magnitude.

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## Giovanni R.

I think Rick Barrett made a good point on this subject:

*"In general there are a lot of mixed feelings and confusion on what performance is and it varies with everyone. L6 is a tough steel but so is S7, 1086m and W2. Is one better than the other? depends on what you want. An L6 blade may make a great training tool, extremely tough and resilient but I could take a W2 blade and shave slivers of steel off the L6 cutting edge to cutting edge. Why? difference in chemistry, more vanadium and higher abrasion resistence. And again what do you want in a blade. If you clamp the two blades in a vice, the L6 will flex to a far greater degree and return to true than the W2. In terms of actual cutting the blades will feel vastly different, L6 being far "springier" and W2 being quite rigid. However with identical geometry, they will cut identically. One will dull quicker than the other, but one will also take more abuse than the other. You have to pick and choose what you want in a blade. But any good smith can make a blade that will outlive its user."*

The quote above was taken from one of the best and most disappointing threads I have seen here on SFI. The information is invaluable, but the direction of the thread is an example why many important smiths no longer participate here. Here is a link for anyone interested:
http://www.swordforum.com/forums/sho...ving-Tradition

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## Thomas Powers

Does anyone else see the humour in "any good smith can make a blade that will outlive its user."  as it seems for using swords a *bad* smith could quite easily makes a sword that outlives it's owner---or has a nearly simultaneous "failure point".

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## Giovanni R.

> Does anyone else see the humour in "any good smith can make a blade that will outlive its user."  as it seems for using swords a *bad* smith could quite easily makes a sword that outlives it's owner---or has a nearly simultaneous "failure point".


Thats what you took away from the quote.....wow

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## Thomas Powers

No that is not  *all* I took away from the quote; but I did notice the humour.

If you would like you can fly to NM and I will discuss in person what I took from the quote---in person so you will not be able to make blanket assumptions based on little data---wow.

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## Giovanni R.

It is not an assumption if it was in direct response to your lack of detail. I now know you took more from my post, although it's a shame your comment served little in the way of contributing positively to the thread. Good luck with your intergalactic efforts, perhaps you can contribute there in a more helpful way.

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