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i see these ads for katanas that say hand forged and folded katanas is that the real deal cause i want one?
hand forged is generally how swords SHOULD be made. there is however a clear cut difference between hand forged and hand folded.
the "folding" process is to remove the impurities from the steel, japan had to fold its steel so many times because they had inferior steel quality to begin with and it took more to remove them. the quality of the smith greatly affected this process.
today, with trading bieng more universal and machine rolled steel as an option to remove impurities in steel to a far more effective level than human elbow grease, you actually can have a better overall measure of steel today than back then. thats of course IF someone puts the time into it. at best a human smith can hand fold steel (with tools not his hands) to the level of a good machine, but it may or may not be as consistant.
hand forged however IMO is pretty irreplaceable, as that is where a level of judgement comes in to play. judgement and design. once you get into "machine" work, since we haven't invented humanoid robots to replace smiths yet, the only other option would be case hardened type of swords where the metal is essentially put into a "mold" and thats how the form is made, not by actually forging and quenching properly, just assembly line crap.
for the whole ball of wax to be hand made, you are looking at a much higher cost, you can get a "real" katana that functions as a real sword and is essentially a real sword created with modern technology and human smith know how for cheaper than an all "traditionally" made sword. people looking for the traditioally made sword are essentially paying more for the priveledge of saying it was traditionally made- that doesn't necessarily make it better, it might be, it might not. better to just look for a reputable swordsmith selling swords in your price range. I would suggest you shoot for the $1000 ish range too as anything much less will carry more risk. (slightly more or less give or take $100 or $200 is a safe bet) if you dont' know what you are looking for it is better to slightly overpay than to risk wasting the entire amount on a piece of crap.
helpfull links and interesting reading for you:
steels used in japanese swords:
http://swordforum.com/sfu/japanese/modern-steels.html
heat treatment:
http://swordforum.com/sfu/primer/heattreatment.html
sword misconceptions:
http://swordforum.com/sfu/primer/thebest.html
famous movie swords:
http://swordforum.com/sfu/primer/movieswords.html
everyone's favorite video of what happens when you use a wallhanger (stainless steel).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s0dRcdyizU
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