Japanese Swords: Can Tradition Outperform Modern Tech?

There is plenty of lore surrounding traditional Japanese Swords, but do the master makers’ time-tested methods equal modern steel advancements?

Editor’s note: Long-time BLADE® subscriber and knife collector Rick Royster wrote us, wondering how the swords of the ancient Japanese samurai warriors would compare to today’s modern swords. Did all the steps the ancient Asian swordsmiths used really make a difference? “Employing special quenchants, some clay, some of this and that—is it science or mystical?” Rick asked. While we couldn’t test an ancient sword vs. one of today’s, we did go to the sources themselves for answers—some of today’s top swordsmiths.

The traditional Japanese sword blade is revered for its performance, perhaps even more than its beauty and ties to an uber-rich heritage in the world of cutlery. Combined, these elements make the classic Japanese sword something unforgettable, a work of art and poetry in motion—yet capable of delivering the decisive blow in combat.

Modern custom sword blades may not possess the allure of the centuries. They may not have a hamon—though many do—or the other attributes that make their vintage counterparts so revered. Nonetheless, they can claim respect and admiration when it comes to strength. If the comparison of relative strength is relevant and worthwhile, which is stronger—the ancient Japanese or the modern custom sword blade?

BLADE Magazine Cutlery Hall-of-Fame® member/ABS master smith Steve Schwarzer answers the question this way: “Modern steels are highly superior in almost every way except for visual structure. Traditional Japanese bladesmiths were all about taking inferior material, which was the best stuff on the planet at the time, and making it better. Modern steel is superior because it is a lot cleaner with alloys for specific jobs. Setting the structure up is what today’s American Bladesmith Society is all about: making steel better. It’s hard to compare the two, but modern steels are superior in edge holding and sharpness. Modern steel won’t bend like the old stuff because it is not designed to bend.

“Once you get the aesthetics out, the fancy hamons and stuff like that, ancient bladesmiths had a way to control the process in the old days from one portion of the blade to another. If you take a Japanese blade and quench and polish it, you have a big spring supporting the cutting edge, and that is why it would excel in battle.”

ABS master smith Zack Jonas sees the purpose as the primary differentiator in either case.

“The strength of the traditional Japanese sword would have been measured in its ability to withstand the test of battle without breaking,” he began. “By this measure, they were marvels of engineering. Today’s technology is capable of producing swords with performance characteristics that vastly exceed the finest traditional blades. We have steel mills producing bespoke blade alloys from ultra-precise ratios of refined base elements.

“We have modern heat-treating methods capable of holding plus-or-minus a fraction of a degree indefinitely within a perfectly controlled atmosphere. We have modern quenching oils and molten salt pots and ovens for tempering, and we have analytical tools that allow us to refine how we approach our materials. Traditional swords were purpose-built for war, and they lived up to those demands for a thousand years and more. But modern science gives us greater capabilities on a purely quantitative level.”

Schwarzer agrees that modern steel is produced in quantity, while the traditional Japanese sword blade was produced singularly.

“It truly takes a master to get the most out of any steel,” he remarked, “but modern steels are more forgiving because they are designed around production, not one-offs.”

Traditional Sword Construction

Dave Goldberg has made traditional Japanese swords since the 1990s and learned from masters in their construction, as well as in the forging of damascus. He sees the functionality of the traditional Japanese blade and says, “The edge of the sword blade is about 60-70 on the Rockwell scale and you want that to be about one-third of the blade area. The middle is somewhat hard, and the back is not hard but flexible.”

According to Jonas, the hardening process was essential during ancient times. The warrior absolutely depended on it. Traditional swordsmithing techniques have been refined over the course of centuries through the familiar process of trial and error.

“Since ‘error’ would have been a matter of life and death,” Zack observed, “we can say with a degree of confidence that traditional methods worked extremely well. For example, it was essential to employ differential hardening—which traditional smiths did by applying an insulative clay to the spine—because given the properties of the steel they were working with, a fully hardened blade would have created a number of problems both for the smith and for the warrior. It can be tricky to retrospectively disentangle the mystical from the scientific. Mystical practices that offered no benefit would have been winnowed out in favor of those that did, and those that did offer benefit can be scientifically explained today.”

Years ago, Goldberg traveled to Japan to study traditional sword blades under the legendary Yoshindo Yoshihara, whose family has practiced the art for no fewer than 10 generations.

“He taught me a lot of things about sword making,” Dave remembered, “and in his smithy, he had on the wall behind where he forges a Japanese shrine with lightning bolts hanging and incense burners, and there was a little teapot in the smithy, too. He said it was just decoration, but with the Japanese guys even if you are friends, there are still secrets. So, I put paper lightning bolts in my shop too—to protect my spirit and so the blades will come out well and get through the quench.”

Bound up in tradition, the mysticism makes the Japanese way an art form that can never be completely separated from its origins. Even in a straight-up test of strength, whether one steel prevailed over the other, there would be no loser. Each would continue to hold its relative place in time and space and fact and imagination.

“In absolute quantitative terms, traditional materials mostly do not offer performance advantages over their modern counterparts,” Jonas said, echoing Schwarzer’s observation. “For example, modern steels can get harder, tougher and sharper than traditional Japanese tamagahane steel, but it is still important to remember that tamagahane was strong enough for a thousand years of battles. Likewise, performance isn’t everything. One of the signature features of tamahagane is its appearance. It has aesthetic characteristics that modern steels lack entirely.”

Japanese Sword Features

Among the most noteworthy features found in traditional Japanese sword blades is the hamon, which Zack describes as the literal demarcation point between the hardened edge of the blade and its softer spine. The hamon, he says, is a visible representation of the technique that must be used due to the material constraints and demands of tamahagane steel.

It is visible due to light diffusing off the mixture of hard and non-hardened crystalline structures, where the hardened edge transitions to the softer spine. He adds that over time, the production of the hamon stretched beyond the practical necessities of the steel and into the realm of aesthetics. Whether the shape of the hamon has any bearing on the blade’s performance is an open question.

“Any steel hardened and tempered to its best molecular composition is good steel,” Goldberg commented. “Modern 80CrV2 steel is harder than any Japanese steel. Japanese steel can take it in battle, and from sword to sword, it can be amazingly hard. It becomes its own shield when the warrior holds it above his head and can then come around and cut the other guy. Japanese steel is really hard, but modern technology is something else. I have never seen anything harder than the CrV stuff. Everything is purpose-driven.”

Other attributes of the traditional Japanese sword, including the handle ornaments known as menuki, may contribute to performance as well. While some observers may see menuki as a sort of grip enhancement in functioning as a palm swell, allowing the user to index the sword better, others stress that they are primarily evidence of the maker’s desire to express his or her own identity and creativity. Menuki quite possibly can function on both levels.

Japanese Sword Folklore

Through the centuries, there have been claims that Japanese steel can perform certain tasks that modern sword steel cannot. Jonas says that many such contentions are simply folklore or myth and have been easily debunked.

“One popular example is the cutting of the tatami mat,” he related. “These straw mats, soaked in water and then rolled tightly together, are said to be a good analogue for testing cuts against a human target. It has been said that only the katana can do this well, but these days, videos can be found online showing a skilled swordsman cutting through a tatami with a blunted medieval-style longsword.

“The Japanese sword has been mythologized along with the warriors who made it famous. The samurai were incredible fighters who earned their reputation for fierce courage through feats in battle and cultural refinement. Their signature sword is a highly developed object with exceptional performance abilities, but traditional examples will not outperform their modern counterparts.”

Old & New Symbiosis

In the final analysis, the old and new steels co-exist, achieving a symbiosis, a sort of mutual respect. As Zack so aptly pointed out, the context of their comparison weighs in on the discourse.

“It is important to consider how this matter is discussed,” he noted. “Most of these topics bear on the question of superiority—what makes this sword better than that sword or vice versa—and while it is possible to give some answers in the absolute sense, there is a risk that these answers ignore important contextual factors.

“The traditional Japanese sword was designed for a particular form of combat and was designed with the constraints of the tools and materials available at the time,” he concluded. “Modern smiths have access to modern materials and technology, but in many or even most cases, modern swords are not made with careful consideration for the practicalities of combat. Modern smiths are unlikely to even be familiar with how a sword would need to behave in a fight.”

Times change, materials change, techniques and methods change. But through the ages, traditional icons endure, while new and emerging genres come to life and begin to build legacies of their own.

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