Katana

Joachim Meyer's fechtbuch[2] - and disparities in weight have been greatly exaggerated; both longswords and katanas typically weighed between 1.0 and 1.5 kilograms (2-3 pounds). These will consist of between 6 and 12 workstations, each with their own oven, sink and kitchen utensils. Styles that relied on a single longsword for both offense and defense were well known - see e.g. In Schools where Home Economics (HE) or Food technology (previously known as Domestic science) is taught, there will be a series of kitchens with multiple equipment (similar in some respects to laboratories) solely for the purpose of teaching. At the same time, many European sword types from the very beginning of the history of the sword, through the medieval period and the renaissance to the 20th century were designed for the same combat modes as Japanese ones, fighting against lightly-armored or unarmored infantry. Military camps and similar temporary settlements of nomads may have dedicated kitchen tents. Attempting to establish the superiority of the one weapon over the other is ultimately meaningless without first defining the circumstances in which they are to be compared. Outdoor areas in which food is prepared are generally not considered to be kitchens, although an outdoor area set up for regular food preparation, for instance when camping, might be called an "outdoor kitchen".

In this light, the different characteristics of certain European swords are due less to the limitations of their makers than to the requirements of their use. The astronauts' food is generally completely prepared, dehydrated, and sealed in plastic pouches, and the kitchen is reduced to a rehydration and heating module. Katana are capable of damaging armor to a degree and even today Shinkendo masters perform the ancient helmet cutting ceremony. aboard a Space Shuttle (where it is also called the "galley") or the International Space Station. The katana's sharpness makes it an excellent cutting weapon. An extreme form of the kitchen occurs in space, e.g. Some European swords were also designed for different modes of combat. On passenger airplanes, the kitchen is reduced to a mere pantry, the only function reminiscent of a kitchen is the heating of in-flight meals (where they haven't been "optimized" away altogether) delivered by a catering company.

Where Europeans had the choice between expensive good swords and cheap bad swords, Japanese had the choice between expensive swords, somewhat less expensive swords, or none at all. On yachts, galleys are often cramped, with one or two gas burners fuelled by a gas bottle, but kitchens on cruise ships or large warships are comparable in every respect with restaurants or canteen kitchens. However, the greater availability of iron made it practical to produce cheap, low-quality weapons in large quantities. Galleys are kitchens aboard ships (although the term galley is also often used to refer to a railroad dining car's kitchen). Europe also had superlative swordsmiths; Toledo steel swords from Spain are one example of legendary quality swords from outside Japan. Especially in the early history of the railway this required flawless organization of processes; in modern times, the microwave oven and prepared meals have made this task a lot easier. Because Japan was an iron-poor society, making a sword was an inherently expensive undertaking; the supply of swords was limited, and so it was in the smiths' interest to make the most of the materials they could afford. The kitchens in railway dining cars present special challenges: space is constrained, and nevertheless the personnel must be able to serve a great number of meals quickly.

However, these claims are largely based on misunderstandings about the manufacture and role of European swords, and comparing the schools on their worst examples instead of their best. There is a trend for restaurants to only "finish" delivered convenience food or even just re-heat completely prepared meals, maybe at the utmost grilling a hamburger or a steak. This belief is frequently bolstered by roleplaying games that assign superior statistics to katanas, and also by many movies. The fast food and convenience food trends have also changed the way restaurant kitchens operate. It is a commonly-encountered article of faith that katanas are intrinsically superior to European swords. (As of 2004, steamers—not to be confused with a pressure cooker—are beginning to find their way into domestic households, sometimes as a combined appliance of oven and steamer.). In Robert Jordan's fantasy series, The Wheel of Time, the lead character, Rand al'Thor, weilds a sword called "Callandor" which fits the description of a katana, albeit a magical one. Some special appliances are typical for professional kitchens, such as large installed deep fryers, steamers, or a Bain Marie.

Leonardo of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is also referred to as the Master of the Twin Katanas, though his swords are straight-edged and not true katana. Professional kitchens are often equipped with gas stoves, as these allow cooks to regulate the heat quicker and more finely than electrical stoves. The lightsaber is an example of such a weapon. Today's western restaurant kitchens typically have tiled walls and floors and use stainless steel for other surfaces (workbench, but also door and drawer fronts) because these materials are durable and easy to clean. In some cases, writers make a new weapon based on ideas from katana, as a signature weapon of heroes and villains. For instance, Benjamin Thompson's "energy saving stove", an early 19th century fully-closed iron stove using one fire to heat several pots, was designed for large kitchens; another thirty years passed before they were adapted for domestic use. In many works, especially when magical or supernatural powers are significant story elements, katana are more than a match for any other weapons. Canteen kitchens (and castle kitchens) were often the places where new technology was used first.

With this law in mind, katana are sometimes used for comic relief in anime and manga set in the present, although this is sometimes replaced by the use of a bokken having surprisingly comparable capabilities. They are inspected periodically by public-health officials, and forced to close if they don't meet hygienic requirements mandated by law. For instance, some stories state that carrying weapons has been permitted due to a serious increase in crimes or an invasion of monsters from other dimensions. Restaurant and canteen kitchens found in hotels, hospitals, army barracks and similar establishments are generally (in developed countries) subject to public health laws. Carrying a non-sealed katana is illegal in present-day Japan, but in fiction this law is often ignored or circumvented to allow characters to carry katana as a matter of artistic licence. Kitchens with enough space to eat in are sometimes called "eat-in kitchens". It is the prime weapon of choice for Japanese heroes in historical fiction set before the Meiji period. Such areas are called "breakfast areas", "breakfast nooks" or "breakfast bars" if the space is integrated into a kitchen counter.

Three well-known appearances in Western culture are the Bride's signature weapon in Kill Bill (which was strongly influenced by Japanese samurai movies) and the katana used by the main character Connor MacLeod in The Highlander and the 1975 Tom Laughlin action/cult Western film Master Gunfighter. Modern kitchens often have enough informal space to allow for people to eat in it without having to use the formal dining room. It is frequently used not only in Japanese settings, but also in other settings, often by non-Japanese creators; this popularity can be attributed partly to its status as an easily recognisable icon of Japan and partly to its high reputation as a formidable weapon in skilled hands. This observation led to a few common kitchen forms, commonly characterized by the arrangement of the kitchen cabinets and sink, stove, and refrigerator:. The katana appears in various works of fiction, including film, anime, manga, other forms of literature, and computer games. A natural arrangement is a triangle, with the refrigerator, the sink, and the stove at a vertex each. The technique of folding steel came from China, and contact with the mainland would affect how the katana evolved through the centuries. It was there that the notion of the "kitchen work triangle" was formalized: the three main functions in a kitchen are storage, preparation, and cooking (which Catherine Beecher had already recognized), and the places for these functions should be arranged in the kitchen in such a way that work at one place does not interfere with work at another place, the distance between these places is not unnecessarily large, and no obstacles are in the way.

A common misconception is that Katanas magically sprung into existence in Japan, utterly isolated from the mainland. In the U.S., the "Small Homes Council", since 1993 the "Building Research Council", of the School of Architecture of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was founded in 1944 with the goal to improve the state of the art in home building, originally with an emphasis on standardization for cost reduction. Along with the Jewel and the Mirror, it was one of the three godly treasures of Japan. Nevertheless, kitchen design was mostly ad-hoc following the whims of the architect. Kusanagi (probably a tsurugi, a type of bronze Age sword which precedes the katana by centuries) is the most famous legendary sword in Japanese mythology, involved in several folk stories. While this "work kitchen" and variants derived from it were a great success for tenement buildings, home owners had different demands and didn't want to be constrained by a 6.4 m² kitchen. A popular legend tells of what happens when two swords made by Muramasa and Masamune were held in a stream carrying fallen leaves: while those leaves touching the Muramasa blade were cut in two, those coming towards the Masamune suddenly changed course and went around the blade without touching it. A social housing project in Frankfurt (the Römerstadt of architect Ernst May) realized in 1927/28 was the breakthrough for her Frankfurt kitchen, which embodied this new notion of efficiency in the kitchen.

Those made by Muramasa had a reputation for violence and bloodshed, while those made by Masamune were considered weapons of peace. Her ideas were taken up in the 1920s by architects in Germany and Austria, most notably Bruno Taut, Erna Meyer, and Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky. Some swords were reputed to reflect their creators' personalities. Christine Frederick published from 1913 a series of articles on "New Household Management" in which she analyzed the kitchen following Taylorist priciples, presented detailed time-motion studies, and derived a kitchen design from them. Furthermore, while heating and folding serves to even out the distribution of carbon throughout the blade, a small amount of carbon is also 'burnt out' of the steel in this process; repeated folding will eventually remove most of the carbon, turning the material into softer iron and reducing its ability to hold a sharp edge. Beecher even separated the functions of preparing food and cooking it altogether by moving the stove into a compartment adjacent to the kitchen. With each fold made by the maker, every internal layer is also folded, and so the total number of layers in a sword blade is doubled at each fold; since the thickness of a katana blade is less than 2³⁰ iron atoms, going beyond 20 folds no longer adds meaningfully to the number of layers in the blade. The design included regular shelves on the walls, ample work space, and dedicated storage areas for various food items.

While blades folded hundreds, thousands, or even millions of times are encountered in fiction, there is no record of real blades being folded more than around 20 times. Beecher's "model kitchen" propagated for the first time a systematic design based on early ergonomics. Many myths surround Japanese swords, the most frequent being that the blades are folded an immense number of times, gaining magical properties in the meantime. The first ideas to optimize the work in the kitchen go back to Catherine Beecher's A Treatise on Domestic Economy (1843, revised and republished together with her sister Harriet Beecher Stowe as The American Woman's Home in 1869). However, during the Edo period Samurai went about unarmored and armed with daisho, in which case it would be the first weapon to be used. Domestic kitchen design per se is a relatively recent discipline. The sword was mostly considered as the weapon of last resort on the battlefield though, being used only after the bow, or spear was no longer feasible. For others, who followed the "cooking as a social act" trend, the open kitchen had the advantage that they could be with their guests while cooking, and for the "creative cooks" it might even become a stage for their cooking performance.

As armor and enemies changed over time, the shapes of blades changed from heavier profiles to lighter profiles, with different intentions for use in fighting. Whereas in the 1950s most cooking started out with raw ingredients and a meal had to be prepared for real, the advent of frozen meals and pre-prepared convenience food changed the cooking habits of many people, who consequently used the kitchen less and less. This is a katana with a shortened length and handle, intended for one-handed fighting only. Another reason for the trend back to open kitchens (and a foundation of the "kitchen object" philosophy) is changes in how food is prepared. At the same time, footmen may accompany a horseman and be armed with shorter katate-uchi at their side. However, like their precursor, Colani's "kitchen satellite", such futuristic designs are exceptions. In certain eras, the sword becomes longer and is intended for use from horseback. Some architects have capitalized on this "object" aspect of the kitchen by designing freestanding "kitchen objects".

Considering the broader case of Japanese swords, rather than the specific case of the shinto katana, technique varies over time depending on the style of fighting prevalent in military operations of the time. The enhanced status of cooking also made the kitchen a prestige object for showing off one's wealth or cooking professionalism. Testing of swords, called tameshigiri, was practiced on a variety of materials (including people) to test the sword's sharpness and also practice cutting technique. Besides, many families also appreciated the trend towards open kitchens, as it made it easier for the parents to supervise the kids while cooking. However, it is often used single-handed as well. The re-integration of the kitchen and the living area went hand in hand with a change in the perception of cooking: increasingly, cooking was seen as a creative and sometimes social act instead of work, especially in upper social classes. The hilt of the katana is held two-handed with a small gap between the hands, generally as large as the grip permits, allowing for more leverage to be applied when cutting and more maneuverability when parrying another weapon. The extractor hood made it possible to build open kitchens in apartments, too, where both high ceilings and skylights were not possible.

The katana is primarily a cutting weapon, rather than a stabbing one. Both had open kitchens, with high ceilings (up to the roof) and were aired by skylights. Other types of mounting include the kyu-gunto, shin-gunto, and kai-gunto types for the twentieth-century military, but these swords were generally mass-produced and highly inferior, and few true Japanese swords are mounted in these styles. Examples are Frank Lloyd Wright's House Willey (1934) and House Jacobs (1936). The other sheath is the more decorative or battle-worthy sheath which is usually called either a jindachi-zukuri or a buke-zukuri, depending on whether it was supposed to be suspended from the obi(belt) by straps when the sword is mounted in Tachi-Koshirae or thrust through the obi if mounted as katana-koshirae, respectively. Before that, only a few earlier experiments, typically in newly built upper middle class family homes, had open kitchens. One is the shira-saya, which is generally made of wood and considered the 'resting' sheath, used as a storage sheath. Starting in the 1980s, the perfection of the extractor hood allowed an open kitchen again, integrated more or less with the living room without causing the whole apartment or house to smell.

There are two types of sheaths, both of which require the same exacting work. The kitchen was reduced to the max and the "work kitchen" paradigm taken to its extremes: in East Germany for instance, the standard tenement block of the model "P2" had tiny 4 m² kitchens in the inside of the building (no windows), connected to the dining and living room of the 55 m² apartment and separated from the latter by a pass-through or a window. The sheaths themselves are not an easy task. Also, housing had to be built at low costs and quickly, which led directly to the standardized apartment block using prefabricated slabs. To anchor the blade securely into the sheath it will soon have, the blade acquires a collar, or habaki, which extends an inch or so past the cross guard and keeps the blade from rattling. In the former Eastern bloc countries, the official doctrine viewed cooking as a mere necessity, and women should work "for the society" in factories, not at home. This anchors the blade securely into the hilt. Such extravaganzas remained outside the norm, though.

A bamboo peg called a mekugi is slipped through the tsuka and through the tang of the blade, using the hole called a mekugiana drilled in it. General technocentric enthusiasm even led some designers to take the "work kitchen" approach even further, culminating in futuristic designs like Luigi Colani's "kitchen satellite" (1969, commissioned by the German high-end kitchen manufacturer Poggenpohl for an exhibit), in which the room was reduced to a ball with a chair in the middle and all appliances at arm's length, an optimal arrangement maybe for "applying heat to food", but not necessarily for actual cooking. There is a pommel at the base known as a kashira, and there is often a decoration under the criss-crossed wrappings called a menuki. There, the kitchens usually were somewhat larger, suitable for everyday use as a dining room, but otherwise the ongoing technicalization was the same, and the use of unit furniture became a standard also in this market sector. (see related article on Koshirae). Parallel to this development in tenement buildings went the evolution of the kitchen in homeowner's houses. The cross guard, or tsuba, on Japanese swords (except for certain twentieth century sabers which emulate Western navies') is small and round, made of metal, and often very ornate. Following the end of World War II, massive demand in Europe for low-price, high-tech consumer goods led to Western European kitchens being designed to accommodate new appliances such as refrigerators and electric/gas cookers.

The obvious part of the hilt consists of a metal or wooden grip called a tsuka, which can also be used to refer to the entire hilt. A trend began in the 1940s in the United States to equip the kitchen with electrified small and large kitchen appliances such as blenders, toasters, and later also microwave ovens. Hilts vary in their exact nature depending on the era, but generally consist of the same general idea, with the variation being in the components used and in the wrapping style. Soon the concept was amended by the use of smooth synthetic door and drawer fronts, first in white, recalling a sense of cleanliness and alluding to sterile lab or hospital settings, but soon after in lively, friendly colors, too. From here, the blade is passed on to a hilt-maker. The concept was refined in the "Swedish kitchen" using unit furniture with wooden fronts for the kitchen cabinets. This is because it displays either nioi, which is a mix of extremely fine martensite with troostite (another type of tempered steel), or the more crystalline and obvious nie, which contains a lot of less fine martensite. Not much later, the refrigerator was added as a standard item.

A good polishing reveals what speed the edge was cooled at, from what temperature, and what the carbon content of the steel is. The equipment used remained a standard for years to come: hot and cold water on tap and a kitchen sink and an electrical or gas stove and oven. Hamon vary from straight to wavy to shaped like crabs or zigzags, and in their wandering they reveal important facts about the blade itself. The idea of standardized dimensions and layout developed for the Frankfurt kitchen took hold. The hamon, which is determined primarily by how the clay is applied, is often used as a kind of signature of the smith, above and beyond his own signature, and each tradition of swordsmiths often has a particular style of hamon it prefers over all others. Practical reasons also played a role in this development: just as in the bourgeois homes of the past, one reason for separating the kitchen was to keep the steam and smells of cooking out of the living room. Each blade is distinct in its hamon and the grain (hada) of its steel. The kitchen once more was seen as a work place that needed to be separated from the living areas.

One of the ways which blades can be judged is by what this polishing reveals: the crystal-like qualities of the blade become quite visible, and the hamon (incorrectly known in English as the temper line, where the sharp edge fades into the normal steel of the blade) shows the unique nature of the sword. Too small to live or dine in, it was soon criticized as "exiling the women in the kitchen", but the post-World War II conservatism coupled with economic reasons prevailed. More importantly, an unschooled polish can permanently ruin the blade geometry or wear the steel down to its core steel, both of which effectively destroy the sword's monetary, historic, artistic, and functional value. But the Frankfurt kitchen embodied a standard for the rest of the 20th century in rental apartments: the "work kitchen". It almost always takes longer than actually crafting the blade does, and a good polishing makes a blade look better, while a bad polishing makes the best of blades look like gunto. The initial reception was heavily critical: people were not accustomed to the changed processes also designed by Schütte-Lihotzky; it was so small that only one person could work in it; some storage spaces intended for raw loose food ingredients such as flour were reachable by children. Early polishers used three types of stone, whereas a modern polisher generally uses seven. It was built in some 10,000 apartments in a social housing project of architect Ernst May in Frankfurt.

This takes hours for every inch of blade, and is painstaking work with different kinds of very fine stone. The design, created by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, was the result of detailed time-motion studies and heavily influenced by the railway dining car kitchens of the period. When the rough blade was completed, the swordsmith would turn the blade over to a polisher called a togishi, whose job it was to polish the steel of the blade to a glittering shine and sharpen the edge for battle. It was built for two purposes: to optimize kitchen work to reduce cooking time (so that women would have more time for the factory) and to lower the cost of building decently-equipped kitchens. Contrary to popular belief, these grooves have nothing to do with improving the flow of enemy blood. Developed in 1926, this kitchen measured 1.9m by 3.4m (approximately 6'2" by 11'2"), with a standard layout. Grooves come in wide (bo-hi), twin narrow (futasuji-hi), twin wide and narrow (bo-hi ni tsure-hi), short (koshi-hi), twin short (gomabushi), twin long with joined tips (shobu-hi), twin long with irregular breaks (kuichigai-hi), and halberd-style (naginata-hi). Social housing projects led to the next milestone: the "Frankfurt kitchen".

Some are more practical, grooves for lightening and extra flex (as well as an intimidating sound, called tachikaze, when swung with force). Working class women frequently worked in factories to ensure the family's survival, as the men's wages often did not suffice. Some other marks on the blade are aesthetic: signatures and dedications written in kanji and engravings depicting gods, dragons, or other 'acceptable' beings, called horimono. These ideas also spilled over into domestic kitchen architecture due to a growing trend that called for a professionalization of household work, started in the mid-19th century by Catharine Beecher and amplified by Christine Frederick's publications in the 1910s. It is this pressure fit for the most part that holds the tsuka in place during the strike, while the mekugi pin serves as a secondary method and a safety. Taylorism was born, and time-motion studies were used to optimize processes. While ornamental, these file marks also serve the purpose of providing an uneven surface which bites well into the 'tsuka', or the hilt which fits over it and is made from wood. In industry, it was the phase of rationalisation, where work processes were attempted to be streamlined.

This is called sensuki. The trend to increasing gasification and electrification continued at the turn of the 20th century. Lastly, if the blade is very old, it may have been shaved instead of filed. Gas and water pipes were first installed in the big cities; small villages were connected only much later. A grid of marks, from raking the file diagonally both ways across the tang, is called higaki, whereas specialized 'full dress' file marks are called kesho-yasuri. In rural areas, the older technology using coal or wood stoves or even brick-and-mortar open fireplaces remained common throughout. A number of different types of file markings are used, including horizontal, slanted, and checked, known as ichi-monji, kosuji-chigai, suji-chigai, o-suji-chigai, katte-agari, shinogi-kiri-suji-chigai, taka-no-ha, and gyaku-taka-no-ha. Where workers' apartments were equipped with a gas stove, gas distribution would go through a coin meter.

The purpose is to show how well the blade steel ages. Gas was more expensive than coal, though, and thus the new technology first was installed in the wealthier homes. The tang is never supposed to be cleaned: doing this can cut the value of the sword in half or more. Gas pipes were laid only in the late 19th century, and gas stoves started to replace the older coal-fired stoves. These are cut into the tang, or the hilt-section of the blade, where they will be covered by a hilt later. Besides a cupboard to store the kitchenware, there were a table and chairs, where the family would dine, and sometimes—if space allowed—even a fauteuil or a couch. One of the most important markings on the sword is performed here: the file markings. Because of this, these middle-class kitchens often were more homely than those of the upper class, where the kitchen was a work-only room occupied only by the servants.

Once the blade is cool, and the mud is scraped off, the blade has designs and grooves cut into it. The study or living room was saved for special occasions such as an occasional dinner invitation. Almost all blades are decorated, although not all blades are decorated on the visible part of the blade. Living in smaller apartments, the kitchen was the main room—here, the family lived. Also, The swordsmith signature (mei) is placed on the nagako. The middle class tried to imitate the luxurious dining styles of the upper class as best as it could. To remove the Tsuka you must remove the mekugi. A large table served as a workbench; there were at least as many chairs as there were servants, for the table in the kitchen also doubled as the eating place for the servants.

Thus restricting the blade from slipping out. The kitchen floors were tiled; kitchenware was neatly stored in cupboards to protect them from dust and steam. It is used to anchor the blade using a mekugi, a small bamboo pin that is inserted into another cavity in the Tsuka and through the mekugi-ana. For the servants the kitchen continued to serve also as a sleeping room; they slept either on the floor, or later in narrow spaces above a lowered ceiling, for the new stoves with their smoke outlet no longer required a high ceiling in the kitchen. A hole is drilled into the tang (nagako), called a mekugi-ana. The kitchen became a much cleaner space with the advent of "cooking machines", closed stoves made of iron plates and fired by wood and increasingly charcoal or coal, and that had flue pipes connected to the chimney. Kissaki are have a curved profile, and smooth three-dimensional curvature across their surface towards the edge - though they are bounded by a straight line called the yokote and have crisp definition at all their edges. In some houses, water pumps were installed, and some even had kitchen sinks and drains (but no water on tap yet, except for some feudal kitchens in castles).

Such western knife blades feature a straight, linearly-sloped point whose sole advantage is being easy to grind and which only bears a superficial similarity to traditional Japanese kissaki. The kitchen, located in the basement or the ground floor, continued to be operated by servants. It is important to point out that the kissaki (point) is not a "chisel-like" point, nor is the Western knife interpretation of a "tanto point" at all correct or Japanese. In contrast, there were no dramatic changes for the upper classes. In addition, whether the front edge of the tip is more curved (fukura-tsuku) or (relatively) straight (fukura-kareru) is also important. Pots and kitchenware typically were stored on open shelves, and parts of the room could be separated from the rest using simple curtains. The sword also has an exact tip shape, which is considered an extremely important characteristic: the tip can be long (ô-kissaki), medium (chû-kissaki), short (ko-kissaki), or even hooked backwards (ikuri-ô-kissaki). Brick-and-mortar stoves fired with coal remained the norm until well into the second half of the century.

The shinogi can be placed near the back of the blade for a longer, sharper, more fragile tip or a more moderate shinogi near the center of the blade. Water pipes were laid only towards the end of the 19th century, and then often only with one tap per building or per story. A flat or narrowing shinogi is called 'shinogi-hikushi', whereas a 'fat' blade is called a 'shinogi-takushi'. Water had to be fetched from wells and heated on the stove. However, swords could narrow down to the shinogi, then narrow further to the blade, or even expand outward towards the shinogi then shrink to the blade (producing a trapezoidal shape). The kitchen in such an apartment was often used as a living and sleeping room, and even as a bathroom. In the earlier picture, the examples were flat to the shinogi, then tapering to the blade. Sometimes, they shared apartments with "night sleepers", unmarried men that paid for a bed at night.

The most prominent is the middle ridge, or 'shinogi'. Whole families lived in small one or two-room apartments in tenement buildings up to six stories high, badly aired and with insufficient lighting. Each blade has a unique profile, depending on the smith, the construction method, and a bit of luck. The new factory working class in the cities was housed under generally poor conditions. To make han-sanmai-awase-gitae or shiho-zume-gitae, pieces of hard steel are then added to the outside of the blade in a similar fashion. Industrialization also caused social changes. By the end of the process, the two pieces of steel are fused together, but retain their differences in hardness. The first electrical stove had been presented in 1893 at the Chicago world fair, but it wasn't until the 1930s that the technology was stable enough and began to take off.

When both sections have been folded adequately, they are bent into a 'U' shape and the softer piece is inserted into the harder piece, at which point they are hammered out into a long blade shape. But like the gas stove, the electrical stove had a slow start. The 'makuri-gitae' is made using two steels, one folded more times than the other, or of a lesser carbon content. At the turn of the 20th century, electricity had been mastered well enough to become a commercially viable alternative to gas and slowly started replacing the latter. The last generally accepted model, the 'shiho-zume-gitae', is quite rare, but added a rear support. Gas pipes were laid; gas was used first for lighting purposes, but once the network had grown sufficiently, it became available also for heating and cooking on gas stoves. The vast majority of 'good' katana and wakazashi are of 'wariba-gitae' type, but the more complex models allow for parrying without fear of damaging the side of the blade. Out of sheer necessity, cities began planning and building water distribution pipes into homes, and built canalisations to deal with the waste water.

Examples are shown below:. The urbanization in the second half of the 19th century induced other significant changes that ultimately would also change the kitchen. Eventually the Japanese began to experiment with using different types of steel in different parts of the sword. patent on a gas stove was granted in 1825, it wasn't until the late 19th century that using gas for lighting and cooking became commonplace in urban areas. When the application is finished, the sword is quenched and hardens correctly. Although the first gas street lamps were installed in Paris, London, and Berlin at the beginning of the 1820s and the first U.S. A thicker layer of mud on the rest of the blade causes slower cooling, and softer steel, giving the blade the flex it needs (this makes the rear and inside of the sword into pearlite). These stoves were still fired with wood or coal.

A thin layer on the edge of the sword ensures quick cooling, but not so fast as to crack the sword steel (this makes the actual edge of the sword extremely hard martensite). in 1834 and became a commercial success with some 90,000 units sold over the next 30 years. To control the cooling, the sword is heated and painted with layers of sticky clay. The "Oberlin stove" was a refinement of the technique that resulted in a size reduction; it was patented in the U.S. Slower, from a lower temperature, and it becomes pearlite, which has significantly more flex but doesn’t hold an edge. However, his stove was designed for large kitchens; it was too big for domestic use. If steel cools quickly, from a hot temperature, it becomes martensite, which is very hard but brittle. This stove was much more energy efficient than earlier stoves; it used one fire to heat several pots, which were hung into holes on top of the stove and were thus heated from all sides instead of just from the bottom.

Steel’s exact flex and strength vary dramatically with heat variation, and depending on how hot it gets and how fast it cools, the steel has vastly different properties. Benjamin Thompson in England designed his "Rumford stove" around 1800. When finished, the steel is not quenched or tempered in the conventional European fashion. Early models included the Franklin stove around 1740, which was a furnace stove intended for heating, not for cooking. This means that the rear of the sword can be used to reinforce the edge, and the Japanese took full advantage of this fact. Iron stoves, which enclosed the fire completely and were more efficient, appeared. One of the core philosophies of the Japanese sword is that it has a single edge. Technological advances during industrialization brought major changes to the kitchen.

Bizen tradition, which specialized in mokume, and some schools of Yamato tradition were also considered strong warrior's weapons. Completely separated "summer kitchens" also developed on larger farms further north to avoid that the main house was heated by the preparation of the meals for the harvest workers or tasks like canning. The blades that were considered the most robust, reliable, and of highest quality were those made in the Mino tradition, esepically those of Magoroku Kanemoto. In addition, the area's warm climate made operating a kitchen quite unpleasant, especially in the summer. The difference between the three normal grain types (masame-, itame-, and mokume-hada) is one of cutting a tree perpendicular to its direction of growth (mokume) at an angle (itame) or along the grain (masame), the angle causing the "stretched" pattern. In southern estates, the kitchen was often relegated to an outhouse, separated from the mansion, for much of the same reasons as in the feudal kitchen in medieval Europe: the kitchen was operated by slaves, and their working place had to be separated from the living area of the masters by the social standards of the time. Straight grains were called 'masame-hada', wood-like grain "itame," wood-burl grain "mokume," and concentric wavy grain (an uncommon feature seen almost esclusively in the Gassan school) 'ayasugi-hada'. The development in the southern states was quite different, but then, so were the climate and sociological conditions.

Generally, swords were created with the grain of the blade (called 'hada') running down the blade like the grain on a plank of wood. Later, the kitchen did become a separate room, but remained within the building. Thus, the best results were usually obtained at 8-10 folds. The early settlers in the north often had no separate kitchen; a fireplace in a corner of the cabin served as the kitchen space. Even before this point, more layers does not equal a better sword; though folding does burn off impurities and homogenize the blade, a very even and clean composition is obtained early in the process, and control of carbon content has a much greater effect on the blade's functionality. In the Colonial American kitchen, the same distinction as for the medieval European kitchen is visible. Beyond this number, the molecular structure of the blade is such that further folding would most likely serve no further purpose. The smoke then rose more or less freely, warming the upstairs rooms and protecting the woodwork from vermin.

It should be noted that a blade folded 12 times will have more than 4,000 'layers' underneath the initial blade to begin with, and that 20 folds would produce a blade with over a million layers. These houses often had no chimney, but only a smoke hood above the fireplace, made of wood and covered with clay, and used to smoke meat. The number of folds varied from sword to sword, but those with more than about a dozen folds are uncommon, and authentic swords with more than two dozen folds are completely unknown. In a few European farmhouses, the smoke kitchen was in regular use until the middle of the 20th century. Contrary to popular belief, continued folding will not create a "super-strong" blade; once impurities are burnt off and the carbon content homogenized, further folding offers little benefit and will gradually burn out the carbon, leading eventually to a softer steel less able to hold an edge. The medieval smoke kitchen remained common, especially in rural farmhouses and generally in poorer homes, until much later. This did several things:. Poorer homes often did not have a separate kitchen yet; they kept the one-room arrangement where all activities took place, or at the most had the kitchen in the entrance hall.

Steel was repeatedly 'folded', bent over itself and hammered flat. In the upper classes, cooking and the kitchen were the domain of the servants, and the kitchen was set apart from the living rooms, sometimes even far from the dining room. The most famous part of the manufacturing process was the folding of the steel. Freed from smoke and dirt, the living room thus began to serve as an area for social functions and increasingly became a showcase for the owner's wealth and was sometimes prestigiously furnished. Often, there were sheath, hilt, and tsuba (handguard) specialists as well. The living room was now heated by tiled stoves, operated from the kitchen, which offered the huge advantage of not filling the room with smoke. There was a smith to forge the rough shape, often a second smith (apprentice) to fold the metal, a specialist polisher, and even a specialist for the edge itself. Beginning in the late middle ages, kitchens in Europe lost their home-heating function even more and were increasingly moved from the living area into a separate room.

As with many complex endeavors, rather than a single craftsman, several artists were involved. Using open fire for cooking (and heating) was risky; fires devastating whole cities occurred frequently.
The forging of a Japanese blade typically took hours or days, and was considered a sacred art. This kind of system was widely used in wealthier homes. The high percentage of carbon gave the blade strength while the silicon increased the flexibility of the blade as well as its ability to withstand stress. Leonardo da Vinci invented an automated system for a rotating spit for spit-roasting: a propeller in the chimney made the spit turn all by itself. One more modern formula (from World War II):. The temperature was controlled by hanging the pot higher or lower over the fire, or placing it on a trivet or directly on the hot ashes.

The total composition varied from smith to smith and lode to lode of ore. Pots made of iron, bronze, or copper started to replace the pottery used earlier. Traditional Japanese steel is popularly considered to be one of the best for creating swords, but the true reasons for this are artistic and not functional - contemporary western steels were and most modern steels are actually superior in strength and purity. The fire was lit on top of the construction; a vault underneath served to store wood. Manufacturing processes are described in greater detail in following subsections. With the advent of the chimney, the hearth moved from the center of the room to one wall, and the first brick-and-mortar hearths were built. Most of the "type 98 katana's" from World War II do not exist today, as well as the older versions. In Japanese homes, the kitchen started to become a separate room within the main building at that time.

Modern katana and wakizashi are only made by the few licenced practitioners that still practice making these crafted weapons today. In castles and monasteries, the living and working areas were separated; the kitchen was moved to a separate building, and thus couldn't serve anymore to heat the living rooms. Japanese swords are fairly uncommon today, but not so rare that genuine antiques cannot be acquired - from reliable sources at significant expense, of course. In wealthy homes, the ground floor was often used as a stable while the kitchen was located on the floor above, like the bedroom and the hall. "True" daisho, containing a pair of blades that were made as a pair, mounted as a pair, and owned/worn as a pair, are therefore uncommon and considered highly valuable - especially if they still retain their original mountings (as opposed to later mountings, even if the later mounts are made as a pair). In European medieval cities around the 10th to 12th centuries, the kitchen still used an open fire hearth in the middle of the room. Even when a daisho contained a pair of blades by the same smith, they were not always forged as a pair or mounted as one. European medieval kitchens were dark, smokey, and sooty places, whence their name "smoke kitchen".

If a samurai was able to afford a daisho, it was often composed of whichever two swords could be conveniently acquired, sometimes by different smiths and in different styles. The kitchen remained largely unaffected by architectural advances throughout the middle ages; open fire remained the only method of heating food. On a related note, the daisho (pair of swords) was not always forged together. A kamado was used to cook the staple food, for instance rice, while irori served both to cook side dishes and as a heat source. Wakizashi were also not simply a 'scaled down' katana, they were often forged in hira-zukuri or other such forms, which were very rare on katana. A kind of open fire pit fired with charcoal, called irori, remained in use as the secondary stove in most homes until the Edo period (17th to 19th century). They were often forged with different profiles, different blade thicknesses, and varying amounts of niku. Like in Europe, the wealthier homes had a separate building which served for cooking.

While some people believe that katana and wakizashi were constructed alike, this was not always the case. This type of stove remained in use for centuries to come, with only minor modifications. This process also makes the edge of the blade contract less than the back when cooling down, something that aids the smith in establishing the curvature of the blade. These stoves, called kamado, were typically made of clay and mortar; they were fired with wood or charcoal through a hole in the front and had a hole in the top, into which a pot could be hanged by its rim. This produces a blade with a hard edge and soft back, allowing it to be resilient and yet retain a good cutting edge. The earliest findings are from the Kofun period (3rd to 6th century). The back of the sword is coated with clay, insulating it and so causing it to cool slower than the edge when the blade is quenched. The first known stoves in Japan date from about the same time.

The distinctive curvature of the katana is partly due to a process of differential quenching. In the larger homesteads of European nobles, the kitchen was sometimes in a separate sunken floor building to keep the main building, which served social and official purposes, free from smoke. In order to counter this, and to homogenize the carbon content of the blades (giving some blades characteristic folding patterns), the folding was developed (for comparison see pattern welding), and found to be quite effective, though labour intensive. A similar design can be found in the Iroquois longhouses of North America. This practice became popular from use of highly impure metals, stemming from the low temperature yielded in the smelting at that time and place. Besides cooking, the fire also served as a source of heat and light to the single-room building. Japanese swords and other edged weapons are manufactured by the Chinese method of repeatedly heating, folding and hammering the metal. In place of a chimney, these early buildings had a hole in the roof through which some of the smoke could escape.

217.) These traditions and provinces are as follows:. The "kitchen area" was between the entrance and the fireplace. (Source: The connoisseur's guide to Japanese swords, by Kokan Nagayama, p. Early medieval European longhouses had an open fire under the highest point of the building. Japanese swords can be traced back to one of several provinces, each of which had its own school, traditions and 'trademarks' - e.g., the swords from Mino province were "from the start famous for their sharpness". There were no chimneys. They were most commonly made in the Buke-Zukuri mounting. The fireplace was typically on the floor, placed at a wall--sometimes raised a little bit--such that one had to kneel to cook.

The most common reference to a chisakatana is a shorter katana that does not have a companion blade. In a Roman villa, the kitchen was typically integrated into the main building as a separate room, set apart for practical reasons of smoke and sociological reasons of the kitchen being operated by slaves. Chisa-katana were not common weapons since usually a katana was made for a shorter person or a wakizashi for a larger person. Wealthy Romans had relatively well-equipped kitchens. However, a chisa-katana is longer than the wakizashi, which was between one and two shaku in length. Some had small mobile bronze stoves, on which a fire could be lit for cooking. A katana was longer than two shaku in length (one shaku= about 11.93 inches). In the Roman Empire, common folk in cities often had no kitchen of their own; they did their cooking in large public kitchens.

A chisa-katana is simply a shorter katana. In such houses, there was often a separate small storage room in the back of the kitchen used for storing food and kitchen utensils. For more precise measurement, "sun", "bu", and "rin" (one-tenth, one-hundredth, and one-thousandth of a shaku respectively) may be used. Homes of the wealthy had the kitchen as a separate room, usually next to a bathroom (so that both rooms could be heated by the kitchen fire), both rooms being accessible from the court. Japanese swords are measured in units of shaku (1 shaku = approximately 30.3 centimeters or 11.93 inches; from 1891 the shaku has been defined as exactly 10/33 metres, but older data may vary slightly from this value). In many such homes, a covered but otherwise open patio served as the kitchen. What generally differentiates the different swords is their length. The houses in Ancient Greece were commonly of the atrium-type: the rooms were arranged around a central courtyard.

All Japanese swords are manufactured according to this method and are somewhat similar in appearance. Water on tap only became gradually available during industrialization; before, water had to be collected from the nearest well and heated in the kitchen. [1] However it is likely that most of these katana are sword like objects, as a basic, properly constructed katana is comparative in price to an inexpensive handgun. When technical advances brought new ways to heat food in the 18th and 19th centuries, architects took advantage of newly-gained flexibility to bring fundamental changes to the kitchen. Some katana have been used in modern-day armed robberies. Until the 18th century, open fire was the sole means of heating food, and the architecture of the kitchen reflected this. With the efforts of other like minded individuals, the katana has arisen from its darkest day and many swordsmiths have continued the work begun by Munetsugu, re-discovering the old techniques and making the art swords produced by today's best smiths as good as many of the blades of old. The development of the kitchen has been intricately and intrinsically linked with the development of the cooking range or stove.

Homma went on to be a founding figure of the Nihon Bijitsu Hozon Token Kai, the 'Society for the Preservation of Art Swords', who made it their mission to preserve the old techniques and blades. . A few smiths did continue their trade, and Dr. Sometimes, it is the most comforting room in a house, where family and visitors tend to congregate. Swordsmiths had been increasingly turning to producing civilian goods after the Edo period but this disarmament and subsequent regulations almost put an end to the production of katana. The kitchen may also be the place where the family eats, provided it is large enough. The vast majority of these 1,000,000 or more swords were gunto, but there were still a sizable number of koto, shinto and shin-shinto. If a washing machine is present, washing and drying laundry is also done in the kitchen.

Due to this disarmament, as of 1958 there were more Japanese swords in America than in Japan: American soldiers would return from the Orient with piles of swords, often as many as they could carry. Although the main function of a kitchen is cooking, it can be the center of other activities as well, especially within homes, depending on its size, furnishing, and equipment. Others remained stashed away. Some installations to store food usually also are present, either in the form of an adjacent pantry or more commonly cabinets and a refrigerator. Some were simply stolen. Modern kitchens often also feature a dishwasher. Even so, many katana were sold to American soldiers who had money to spend at a bargain price. A modern kitchen is typically equipped with a stove or microwave oven and has a sink with water on tap for cleaning food and dishwashing.

As a result of this meeting, the general ban was amended so that the weapon grade gunto would be destroyed and swords of artistic merit could be owned and preserved. A kitchen is a room used for food preparation. Homma produced blades from the various periods of Japanese history and General MacArthur was a quick student, being able to identify very quickly what blades held artistic merit and which could be considered purely weapons. Daidokoro - the kitchen in Japan. During their meeting, Dr. Online edition of Nicolas Cahill's Household and City Organization at Olynthus (ISBN 0-300-08495-1), which has some information about the kitchens in ancient Greek times. Homma Junji to General Douglas MacArthur. E.: Encyclopedia of Kitchen History; Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers; (November 2004); ISBN 1-579-58380-6.

This ban would be later overturned through the personal appeal of Dr. Snodgrass, M. Under the United States occupation at the end of World War II all armed forces were disbanded and, except under several permits issued by police and municipal government, production of katana with edges was banned. In English. In 1934 the Japanese government issued a military specification for the shin gunto "new army sword" the first version of which was referred to as a "Type 94 katana", and many machine- and handcrafted swords used in World War II conformed to this and later shin gunto specifications. The introduction is available online. The students of Gassan Sadakatsu went on to be designated Intangible Cultural Assets, or more commonly known as Living National Treasures, as they embodied knowledge that was considered to be fundamentally important to the Japanese identity. A.: The Bathroom, the Kitchen, and the Aesthetics of Waste, Princeton Architectural Press; 1996; ISBN 1-568-98096-5.

These smiths, Gassan Sadakazu and Gassan Sadakatsu were kept busy producing fine works that stand with the best of the older blades for the Emperor and other high ranking officials. and Miller, J. Though this was a dark time for the katana, the craft was kept alive through the efforts of a few individuals, and notably the Gassan line of smiths who were employed as Imperial Artisans. Lupton, E. At the same time, Kendo was incorporated into police training so that police officers would have at least the minimal training necessary to properly use one. Harrison, M.: The Kitchen in History, Osprey; 1972; ISBN 0-850-45068-3; out of print. Katana remained in use in some occupations, police sometimes using katana not only to catch criminals but to defend themselves from criminals who could be armed with katana as well. The text is vailable at Project Gutenberg at [1].

These swords, known as 'gunto', are often very low in quality with many being oil tempered or simply stamped out of steel and given a serial number rather than a chiselled signature. and Beecher Stowe, H.: The American Woman's Home, 1869. In time, the need to arm soldiers with swords was perceived again and over the decades at the beginning of the 20th century swordsmiths again found work. E. Overnight, the market for swords died, and many swordsmiths were left without a trade to pursue, and valuable skills were lost. Beecher, C. Possession itself was not prohibited, so many katana were simply stashed away. In German; out of print.

The Haitorei edict in 1876 all but banned carrying swords and guns on streets, making samurai less distinguishable from commoners. (Ed.): Oikos: Von der Feuerstelle zur Mikrowelle, Anabes, Giessen 1992; ISBN 3-870-38669-X. Japan remained in stasis until Matthew Perry's arrival in 1853 and the subsequent Convention of Kanagawa forcibly reintroduced Japan to the outside world; the rapid modernization of the Meiji Restoration soon followed. Andritzky, M. With the discarding of the Shinto style, and the re-introduction of old and rediscovered techniques, the swords of this time were now called 'shinshinto' meaning 'new-new swords.'. Both in German. Munetsugu travelled the land teaching what he knew to all who would listen, and swordsmiths rallied to his cause and ushered in a second renaissance in Japanese sword smithing. Gang" (PDF file, 5 Mb).

Munetsugu published opinions that the arts and techniques of the shinto swords were inferior to the koto blades, and that research should be made by all swordsmiths in the land to rediscover the lost techniques. Two collections of architecture students' works on the kitchen: "Küchen" (PDF file, 3 Mb) and "Küchen, 2. Towards the end of this period, swordmaking had fallen to another low, and due to the efforts of the master swordsmith Munetsugu at the turn of the 19th century, artistic merit once again returned to the craft. In German. By the middle of the eighteenth century, most young Japanese had never seen a gun, let alone actually seen one fired. (Ed.): Die Küche — Zur Geschichte eines architektonischen, sozialen und imaginativen Raums, Verlag Böhlau, Vienna 1999; ISBN 3-205-99076-5. Under the isolationist Tokugawa Shogunate, guns and gunpowder were increasingly restricted and removed from circulation. et al.

It is often considered that the more complex work found on many shinto swords then is a corruption, where form no longer strictly follows function and thereby no longer achieves a pure form of beauty. Miklautz, E. The addition of these engravings known as 'horimono' were originally for religious reasons, and were simple and tasteful. Japanese kitchens. As the Edo period progressed, there came a decline in quality once again, for a variety of reasons, including the evolution of the samurai class into bureaucrats and policemen; other related arts did move forward from time to time, leading to beautiful engravings and decorations for weapons. In a closed room, this doesn't make much sense, but in an open kitchen, it makes the stove accessible from all sides such that two persons can cook together, and allows for contact with guests or the rest of the family, for the cook doesn't face the wall anymore. As the techniques of the ancient smiths had been lost during the previous period of war, these swords were called shinto, literally 'new swords.' This gave the obvious name to the older blades as koto, 'old swords.' The blades that predated the curved blades introduced around 987AD were referred to as 'jokoto' or ancient swords. Here, the stove or both the stove and the sink are placed where an L or U kitchen would have a table, in a freestanding "island", separated from the other cabinets.

In times of peace, swordsmiths had time and the inclination to return to the making of refined and artistic blades, and the beginning of the Momoyama period saw the return of high quality creations. The block kitchen is a more recent development, typically found in open kitchens. Other Japanese scholars had also highlighted that certain Japanese swordsmiths of this period, began to make blades with thicker backs and bigger points, as a counter-response to the Mongol threat. This is a typical work kitchen, too, unless the two other cabinet rows are short enough to place a table at the fourth wall. Kokan Nagayama, in the book "The Connoiseur's Book of Japanese Swords", Kodansha International 1997, states on page 21 that the "Japanese warriors had never before encountered such an enemy (the Mongols), who was protected by leather armor and wielded a very stout sword -- clearly superior to theirs -- in a unique style of fighting." He added that certain Japanese swordsmiths started to adopt thinner and simpler temper lines due to their belief that " blades with wide temper lines reaching near to the ridge line look gorgeous, but tend to break." Unfortunately, Mr Nagayama did not quote the Japanese historical references that he derived his comments on the superiority of the Mongol (ie continental Chinese, Korean and other makes) sword over the Japanese sword. A U-kitchen has cabinets along three walls, typically with the sink at the base of the "U". The famous failed invasion of Japan by the Mongols marked another point of evolution for the Japanese sword. Again, the work triangle is preserved, and there may even be space for an additional table at a third wall, provided it doesn't intersect the triangle.

As time progressed, the craft decayed under the needs listed above, and the introduction of guns, as a decisive force on the battlefield. In the L-kitchen, the cabinets occupy two adjacent walls. The (ultimately failed) rationale behind this was to attempt to soak up the production of Japanese weapons and make it harder for pirates in the area to arm. This is the classical work kitchen. The export of katana reached its height during Muromachi period with the total of at least 200,000 katana being shipped to the Ming dynasty in official trades. The double file kitchen (also known as galley or corridor) has two rows of cabinets at opposite walls, one containing the stove and the sink, the other the refrigerator. Furthermore, the ferocity of the fighting caused the highly artistic techniques of the Kamakura period (known as the Golden Age of Swordmaking) to be abandoned in favor of more utilitarian and disposable weapons. This is not optimal, but often the only solution if space is restricted.

While many good swords were made during this period, the vast need for swords caused smiths to switch to production line methods. A single file kitchen has all of these along one wall; the work triangle degenerates to a line. During the Muromachi period, bloody wars were the norm, but the indolent shogunates also put a high value on art and culture, so the islands did not descend into barbarism. The War of Onin (1467-1477) revolutionized Japanese armour. For five centuries, Japan had its own dark ages, marked by continuous, brutal wars.

By the twelfth century, civil war erupted after a long period of decadence. In the same period, the Kyō-hachiryū (京八流) was created in the Kurama mountain (in Kyoto). From the Kashima shrine's Kashima no Tachi sprang the Kantō-nanaryū (関東七流 - also known as the Kashima-nanaryū 鹿島七流). This is also reflected in the styles of kenjutsu created during this period.

Among other modifications, the katana becomes single-edged, and better suited for slashing. According to legend, the Japanese sword was invented by a smith named 'Amakuni' in AD 700, along with the folded steel process. The Ainu people used Warabite-tou(蕨手刀) Warabite sword and this sword influenced the Katana. In the Heian Period (8th to 11th centuries) we see the development of sword-making, through techniques brought from the Russia and North part of Japan Hokkaido in those days Ainu's territory.

The style, called Kashima no Tachi (鹿島の太刀), was created at the Kashima Shrine (in Ibaraki Prefecture). One of the oldest known forms of kenjutsu dates the Kofun era (3rd and 4th centuries). Early swords were in the style of Chinese swords, straight and single or double-edged. At the same time, the Japanese learned the art of swordmaking from Chinese smiths.

In the 6th century BCE the legendary Emperor Jimmu conquered much of Japan. Swords are critical in most feudal societies, and Japan was no exception. The back end is soft, and so the sword is not brittle but flexible, while the front end is sharp and hard. This gives the sword its cutting edge and the strength.

The front end is made up of almost 3000 layers of metal forged precisely to give shape to blade. The back is thick and front end is razor sharp.
There is also another interesting fact about the Japanese sword. "with swords broken and without an arrow") used as a proverb.

To have fought till nothing but a surrender is possible, is defined as Ken ore, ya mo tsuki, (lit. Drawing the sword was like letting one's soul blaze free and usually meant that the samurai was down to the last straw. However, most samurai did not use their sword as a primary weapon; bow first, a spear next, and only then the sword. The Tachi on the other hand, had a stand, the tsuka was set in a groove at the base and the saya pointed upwards set in a notch at the top with the cutting edge down, again in the manner it was worn.

As for the host, his long-sword was generally stored above the wakizashi on a rack called a katana-kake, curving upwards; in the manner it was worn, with the omote side showing (tsuka or handle ponting left). Positioning his sword for an easy draw implied suspicion or aggression; thus, whether he placed it on his right or left side, and whether the blade was placed curving away or towards him, was an important point of etiquette. For example, a samurai entering someone's house might consider how to place his sheathed sword as he knelt. Elaborate methods for carrying, cleaning, storing, sharpening (or not sharpening), and wielding the sword evolved from era to era.

Much of early Japanese culture revolved around swords. They would be "soulless" in the eyes of a samurai. Ronin, needing money, would sometimes be forced to sell their swords, further adding to their highly dishonorable, sometimes vagabond status in Japanese society. For much of Japan's history, only samurai were even allowed to carry swords, and a peasant carrying a sword was enough reason to kill the peasant and take the sword after a prohibition was issued in early Edo period.

The Japanese pinned an extraordinary amount of value on the sword. Although spears have survived since as far back as the 8th century AD, it was not until the large scale wars of the Onin period towards the end of the fifteenth century that the straight bladed spear, the yari, vied with the sword for the most popular weapon. Although other weapons waxed and waned in popularity throughout history, the sword remained a constant. The sword was considered the soul of the samurai.

. Perhaps one of the more famous types of Japanese fencing was "Nitto Ryu" or the use of both the katana and wakizashi in tandem; a technique most famously used by Miyamoto Musashi, though the extensive popularization of this technique in anime, literature, and pop culture has strongly skewed modern perspective on its importance and prevalence. Old koryu sword schools do still exist (for example, Kashima Shinto-ryu, Kashima Shin-ryu, and Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto-ryu, among others). The art of drawing the katana and attacking one's enemies is iaido (also known as battōjutsu/battodo), and kendo is an art of fencing with a shinai (bamboo sword) protected by helmet and armour.

While the practical arts for using the sword for its original purpose are now somewhat obsolete, kenjutsu and iaijutsu have turned into gendai budo — modern martial arts for a modern time. It is traditionally worn edge up. Though it is intended for and was predominantly used with a two-handed grip, many extant historical Japanese sword arts include at least one or two single-handed techniques. It is primarily used for cutting, although its curvature is generally gentle enough to allow for effective thrusting as well.

Other aspects of the koshirae (mountings), such as the menuki (decorative grip swells), habaki (blade collar and scabbard wedge), fuchi and kashira (handle collar and cap), kozuka (small utility knife handle), kogai (decorative skewer-like implement), saya lacquer, and tsukamaki (professional handle wrap), received similar levels of artistry. (In fact, seppuku was a right reserved for samurai in order to preserve their honor by taking their own life should the need arise.) The scabbard for a katana is referred to as a saya, and the handguard piece, often intricately designed as individual works of art especially in later years of the Edo period, was called the tsuba. The long blade was used for open combat, while the shorter blade was considered a side arm, and also more suited for stabbing, close combat (such as indoors), and seppuku, a form of ritual suicide. The two weapons together were called the daisho, and represented the social power and personal honor of the samurai (buke retainers to the daimyo).

The weapon was typically paired with the wakizashi, a similarly made but shorter sword both worn by the members of the buke (bushi) warrior class, it could also be worn with the tanto, an even smaller similarly shaped blade. It refers to a specific type of curved, single-edged sword traditionally used by the Japanese samurai. While the word has no separate plural form in Japanese, it has been adopted as a loan word by the English language, where it is commonly pluralised as katanas. It is literally translated as 'knife,' and pronounced 'dao').

In Mandarin, it is pronounced dāo (this does not specifically refer to the katana. Katana (pronounced [ka-ta-na]) is the kun'yomi (Japanese reading) of the kanji 刀 ; the on'yomi (Chinese reading) is tō. The katana (刀) is the Japanese backsword or longsword (大刀 daitō) of the type specifically in use after the 1400s (following the use of the tachi), although many Japanese use this word generically as a catch-all word for sword. Ran "Aya" Fujimiya from Weiß Kreuz.

Leonardo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Ulrich Stern. Saigo Takamori. Saito Hajime.

Okita Soji. Sasaki Kojiro. Miyamoto Musashi. Iizasa Ienao.

Tsukahara Bokuden. Ashikaga Yoshiteru. Magoroku Kanemoto. Go Yoshihiro.

Etchu Norishige. Bizen Saburo Kunimune. Yamato Kaneuji. Yosozaemon Sukesada.

Gassan Sadakazu. Nagasone Kotetsu. Inoue Shinkai. Sengo Muramasa.

Soshu Sadamune. Soshu Masamune. Rai Kunimitsu. Rai Kunitoshi.

Munechika. Amakuni. It burned off many impurities, again helping to overcome the Japanese steel's poor quality and purify/strengthen the sword. (Bulat steel layering is an entirely different chemical effect, and does not apply to blades made in the Japanese fashion.).

Layers act as weld points which can only serve to weaken the integrity of the blade. Despite widespread popular belief that the layered structure provides enhanced mechanical properties of the steel, this is completely false. It created layers, by continuously decarburizing the surface and bringing the surface into the blade's interior, which gives the swords their unique and beautiful grain. It homogenized the metal, spreading the elements (such as carbon) evenly throughout - increasing the effective strength by decreasing the number of potential weak points.

It eliminated any bubbles in the metal. Older swords by honored makers would then be reserved for very special gifts, in particular to the Shogun and his family or from the Shogun to show very special merit. As such, the art of 'kantei' (the ability to judge a sword for period, maker, and quality) became important, as this allowed specialists to appraise a blade and so place its value. It became traditional that Daimyo and the Shogun, and the members of their families, would exchange gifts of swords when meeting together or for special occasions such as weddings and births.

It is considered that this angle of the sword was played up by those in power in order to replace land in the role of a gift of great honor. In older days, these gifts would be of land, but at the time of the Shogunate land was a scarce commodity. While there has always been reverence for the sword, the official line of it being the 'soul' comes from a need of the Shogunate to provide high value gifts to retainers and noblemen. The 'soul of the samurai' concept has its roots in the early Tokugawa Shogunate.

However, despite this, the sword was still considered the soul of the samurai, not the spear. Although largely overlooked in Western literature, spears were the first resort of any samurai and most peasants, and the blades on the samurai spears were often of extremely high quality. The two main types are 'naginata', similar to a halberd in use, and a 'yari' which is more traditionally spear like. Most of the various kinds of spears could come with blades made in the same style as the Japanese sword.

There are many varieties of wooden practice blades, including those made out of wood (bokken) and those made out of bamboo (often used for kendo practice, usually referred to as shinai). The signature almost always appears on the side facing away from the body when the blade is worn, so it is possible to discern the smith's intention for the blade in this manner. However, these are still katana if worn in modern 'buke-zukuri' style. Swords designed specifically to be tachi are generally koto rather than shinto, so they are generally better manufactured and more elaborately decorated.

'ōdachi' is also sometimes used as a synonym for katana. Abnormally long blades (longer than 3 shaku or 90cm), usually carried across the back, are called ōdachi or nodachi. If it is suspended by cords from a belt, it is called 'tachi' (average blade length of 75 cm) the tachi is worn cutting edge down. However, the term 'katana' is often misapplied: a sword is only a katana if it is worn blade-up through a belt-sash called an obi (these 'katana' averaged 65 cm in blade length).

This is the category 'katana' fall into. A blade longer than 2 shaku (61 cm) is considered a daito, or long sword. A blade longer than 1 shaku but less than 2 (30–61 cm) is considered a shoto (short sword) and included the wakizashi and kodachi. A blade shorter than 1 shaku (30 cm) is considered a tanto (knife).