Japanese Swordmaking

The history of Japanese swordmaking

To fully appreciate the beauty of Japanese knives today, a little must be learned of the long history of Japanese blades.

About 800 years ago, there was a time of warring factions that ruled by the edge of the sword. It was highly desirable to have a blade that had great strength and the ability to take a razor's edge. One place in particular stands out as being the centre of the swordmaking universe and that is Seki in Gifu Prefecture, Japan. Seki was a rich source of iron sand (PIC 1) and pine wood, two primary ingredients for swordmaking.

PIC 1       PIC 2



The process of forging a great sword is long and labour intensive. It requires many years of training and only a few have the right to call themselves Master. In brief a great sword starts its life as iron sand that has been melted in a tatara smelter to create tama-hagane (PIC 3). This tama-hagane is flattened out, broken into pieces and reassembled into a single block. (PIC 4)

PIC 3           PIC4

This block is heated and forged repeatedly along with the addition of charcoal (PIC1) to increase the carbon content. (see video)

Japanese Swordmaking from LJ Hudson on Vimeo.

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Then starts the infamous folding process (PIC 5). This process distributes the carbon more evenly, works out impurities and creates the amazing multi layered patterns that Japanese swords are famous for.

PIC 5

Although this is only the beginning of the process, it explains the inspiration of Japanese knives available today with the beautiful Damascus patterns. Today modern manufacturing techniques for commercial kitchen knives have superceded the traditional methods of hammer forging, however much of the knowledge and experience gained from the traditional process of samurai swordmaking has enabled Japan to produce the sharpest knives on the world market.

Buy a piece of history today with a Japanese damascus knife.