Possibly this is old hat to many readers here, but I just saw Nova on TV
(online at http://video.pbs.org/video/1150578495/)about how samurai swords are made. Very cool. Stuff about the amounts of carbon mixed in with the iron when forging the steel, how steel with different amounts of carbon is layered in the blade to combine hardness and toughness...

I've heard that the opposite layering is used in a power hacksaw blade, where the tougher steel is the outside layer and the harder one is the inside. I guess it's less important to hold a fine edge than to be flexible in that use.

Love the Polish proverb

Hope: It's definitely worth watching multiple times. It was wonderful that they got Gassan for this. Maybe people will understand now why a Gassan blade would cost so much, even a training level one.

Kathryn

Yes, I plan to watch it again -- the amount of care and work that goes into those swords is amazing!! I always like to see the details of how people make things...

Very cool. One reason why samurai swords are made this way is to make sure that there are no air pockets that can make it brittle.

To samurais, there swords are the most sacred and prized possessions because they believe that their souls inhabit these swords.

To me, anything that is made or used with care, love, precision and attention carries a bit of your soul... swords may be one of the most amazing examples of this.

I watched it for the first time after placing my iaito order with a forger in Japan. It made it mean all the more when my training blade arrived three months later.