by Adrian Ko

"Is my sword real?" That is perhaps the most painful but the most perfect question an aspiring sword-collector can ask. It is usually the realization that the $300 prized possession is nothing more than a decorative piece that momentarily shatters illusions - but begins to build real dreams. If you're not afraid of the truth, I welcome you to the exciting world of collecting real swords!

Many of the swords made in Spain or Taiwan may be exceptionally beautiful, but despite the legendary steel of Toledo and the magnificent history of swordsmiths of yesteryear, the decorative swords made today suffer from many weaknesses that would have actually caused them to fail as true weapons in the hands of trained swordsmen in olden times.

Here are a few deciding factors that make these decorative swords unfit for battle.

Use of Stainless Steel

Today's decorative swords are mostly made from Stainless steel. Despite the marketing sales pitch you often encounter such as "high carbon stainless steel" or "the highest quality stainless steel" or "can cut through tree saplings" or - best yet and my favorite - even "a Samurai would have wanted one", the fact remains that stainless steel - while excellent for knives - is not good for swords.

Stainless steel came about in the middle of this century. It has a large percentage of chromium which acts as a grain refiner and which gives the steel its "stainless" properties. (In actuality, steel can still stain if you leave a kitchen knife in a wet sink for prolonged periods of time. Finger print oils can also stain a sword blade if not wiped off in time.)

The unfortunate thing is that chromium weakens the molecular bonds. Thus, many stainless steel sword blades are made thicker to compensate for stainless steel's brittleness. Such blades are also heat treated to lower degrees of hardness, such as 46-48 points on the Rockwell "C" scale.

Thicker generally means heavier. Correct weight and balance of swords is discussed further below.

Poor Hilt Construction

The hilt is a product of the grip, its accompanying furnishing, and the tang, which is physically part of the blade that extends into the sword.

On many decorative swords where the aim is to provide the customer with an exceptionally beautiful sword at low cost, quality must be carved somewhere to reduce price and increase affordability. There are generally three kinds of hilts in the decorative sword market.

The first is plastic or rubber. These are generally limited to Japanese style swords where plastic or rubber may be used to mimic the ray skin beneath the wrap of a Japanese-style handle. Another is a variety of imitation ivory plastics in "Highlander" style dragon-headed swords. On rare occasion, a hardwood may be used, wrapped with leather, but this is the exception. And lastly, a metal hilt with a metal wire wrap may be found. These hilts are generally hollow!

Each of these swords vary in quality of construction. There are many reports on plastic handled Japanese sword breaking. The reasons vary.

Art Gladius' dragon head sword features a mere 3.5" tang. This tang is extremely thick and stubby, but unfortunately creates a tremendous stress point in an already structurally weak plastic. The result in my experience was immediate breakage just performing a cutting motion! Many attempts with super glue simply did not repair the damage to usable tolerances. Investing in such swords can result in breakage with may further result in injury or dismemberment.

Another example is the famous "Highlander" style swords, ranging from the $80 Taiwanese fakes to the originals made by Marto of Spain (featured right). The famous Marto "Sword of the Dragon" is the most coveted sword among informed Highlander fans, being the very sword wielded by Duncan MacLeod on Highlander: The Series. The tang is a healthy 7-inch long tang with a thin "rat-tail" with a threaded end. This end is attached at the end of the handle by means of a hexagonal nut. Some owners of this product have reported a rattling within their sword. It is possible that either the hexagonal nut region may be damaged, or that the rat-tail had broken off under stress. This results in the Sword of the Dragon's blade no longer being secure within the handle.

Improper Weight and Balance

Decorative swords are generally made purely for looks and not for battle. As mentioned before, the steel metallurgy is unsuited for battle (too brittle and tempered to be too soft) and the hilt construction is such that the sword is not shock tolerant.

An important thing to note is that decorative swords are not weighted and balanced properly. Again, stainless steel blades are often made thicker due to their inherent weaknesses in compensation for possible use by their owners.

Traditionally, larger European style blades typically were forged with a distal taper. This means that the blade's thickness reduces along its length. This not only results in a lighter sword blade, but a better balanced one. The better the balance, the easier it is to maneuver the sword.

Decorative sword blades are usually ground from stainless steel bars. In the case of, say, a knightly sword, all that is required is to grind off the four corners to create a cross-sectional diamond shape. In the case of Japanese swords, merely taking one half of the bar and grinding it down to a cross sectional "V" shape is generally all that is done. In some cases, a further bevel of 2-3 mm. is created for a cutting edge.

I am often told by enthusiasts that swords were meant to be that heavy. That truly depends on the sword. Japanese swords ideally had a balance of three to six inches fore of the guard (with four or five inches being preferred), but that was because the Japanese sword was optimized for cutting - not chopping nor thrusting as some believe. The knightly sword of the 13th-14th centuries had different uses and were balanced accordingly. Some period scimiatars were designed to be tip-heavy for better slashing use from horseback.

Weight should never be the deciding factor of the validity of a decorative sword as a real sword. Someone once claimed that a real sword should weigh at least 8-10 lbs. I could take a 2.5 lb. Japanese sword which would be more maneuverable and lighter in comparison. Assuming that swordsmanship skills were approximately equal, I could perhaps injure my opponent with a few slashes before he had time to raise his 10 lb. blade to crush me - at which point, I would have the time to avoid his blow and counter-attack him.

Aluminum Scabbards

The use of aluminum in Japanese-style scabbards is invariably the cheapest way to go. While this doesn't affect the sword itself, it undoubtedly affects the price.

Aluminum is very soft and can easily dent. The paint on aluminum scabbards is often pray to chipping or scratching. That is not to say that traditional Japanese lacquered scabbards were not prone to damage, but how many times have real Japanese swords gotten stuck or caught within their scabbards, hindered by the material of the scabbard inner wall?

Marto and Martespa's Japanese-style swords generally come with aluminum scabbards. One katana that Art Gladius made was an exception where the scabbard interior was lined with wood. And, I suspect, the exterior was wooden as well.

Lack of Proper Heat Treating

Lack of proper heat treating can result in an inferior sword despite the use of "superior" steel. The decorative sword industry can be convuted with all kinds of sales pitch from "live steel", "high carbon steel", "high carbon stainless steel" to "living steel", etc.

In short, steel is steel. There are different metallurgies of steel that may give you an advantage in certain cases. However, insufficient heat treating can be your worse nightmare!

Heat treating is the process of heating the blade to a particular temperature and quenching the blade, whereby you achieve the desired balance between hardness and toughness. Hardness is measured by the Rockwell "C" scale, where hardness would be on the higher points of the scale, and toughness (or softness) is slightly lower.

Hardness has to do with the ability to cut or pierce material, edge-holding capabilities, etc. Toughness has to do with shock absorption and impact tolerance. Somewhere in between, flexibility may be important, depending on the sword type (flexibility was an important quality in traditional European swords, while Japanese swords were ideally not able to be bent.)

In general, stainless steel swords are made from stainless steel stock bars where the steel is of consistent factory-milled quality. In the cases where truck springs are used, the lack of proper heat treating can result in the formation of microcrystaline factures in the steel because the "memory" of the steel's previous shape was not sufficiently undone!

Steel that is made too hard can be too brittle and thus break (especially the edge). Steel that is too soft can too easily be bent or cut into (especially in the case of some cheap swords from Pakistan).

Repairability

The ability to service and repair a real sword was crucial. If taken care of, a sword could service a swordsman for a lifetime. Traditional Japanese sword blades, for example, could be removed from their hilts via ejection of one or more wooden pins that secured the blade's tang into the handle.

Such removal facilitated cleaning, perhaps tightening or rewrapping of the silk wrap, and blade cleaning/polishing with traditional polishing stones.

As antique swords became subject to environmental factors such as humidity, older sword handles might eventually suffer cracking and thus require replacement.

Decorative swords generally cannot be repaired. Japanese style handles are cast in plastic, and even with the strongest glue, the weak plastic is subject to further breakage.

Conclusion

The average newcomer into the world sword-collecting will very likely start with a stainless steel decorative sword. But the average newcomer will also very likely expect a performance of the sword based on what he/she has seen on TV or the movies. To make things worse, replica sword businesses can often be found promoting information that is inaccurate or even deceitful.

Being informed is one of the most important aspects of your journey into sword-collecting. The greatest reason is safety - always remember that safety comes first.

These decorative swords were not made to the same combatworthy specifications as the swords of history were. Use of decorative swords as real swords can be extremely dangerous. Not only should one look at the quality of the blade but the quality of construction of the entire sword. And though many would disagree with this, the number of owners of decorative swords who have found their sword handles breaking after a few light swings not only show that quality is inconsistent but that breakages are sometimes unpredictable - even with the best decorative sword manufacturers.

The result can be injury, dismemberment or even permanent bodily harm to yourself or your loved ones. The worse case scenario is a blade flying out of control from a broken handle.

Always safety first. Therefore there is also a great responsibility to sword-collecting. With that responsibility comes need for education. Our ignorance or refusal to learn is our only enemy in this unregulated industry.

Finally, decorative swords are fun, the stuff of fantasy and dreams. So long as they are respected in terms of what they both capable and incapable of, they can be enjoyed and proudly displayed over the fireplace. For some, they serve as a stepping stone towards learning more about real swords. To date, I've had the privilege of having personally handled several hundred authentic Japanese swords. These swords are magnificent. It is an awesome experience to hold a sword forged several centuries in the past - blades that have served their owners from generation to generation. It is a truly awesome experience; I am now living out my dreams.

And perhaps you will become the next student of historical and real swords.

His first sword was a 440 Stainless Steel black katana. Upon learning the difference between decorative and real swords, Adrian began studying swords which lead him to a Japanese Sword Forging class through the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. Today, he is still learning - fully inspired - and still having fun.

BACK

[TOP]  [Back -1]  [About SFMO]  [Feedback to Editor]  [Discussion Forum]