now i babble about the two things martin does that annoy me most

[paranoid_monkey]

ok now that i've praised him, i must point out two things martin does that drive me up the frickin' wall. but before i start, i must note - though i've read a lot about heraldry, i am not remotely a medievalist and at least two of you are, so please correct me if i say something totally off

Comments

Re: Folding Steel

[pineal_servo]

Well, I really have no idea if the metal would be usable as a sword after performing thousands of folds, but perhaps that's not what he meant. Because each fold doubles the number of layers in the metal, a few executions of the folding maneuver will give you thousands of layers, which one might refer to as folds. 10 folds, which I understand was within the range that Japanese swordmakers used, would give you over a thousand layers. One more fold would be two thousand layers, etc. Taking the base-2 log of the number of layers would give you the number of fold maneuvers you'd have to execute to reach that number of layers/folds. Or, maybe he was just exaggerating and figured if a little folding was good, more must be better!

In any case, while the folding did provide some important properties to the edge steel, it probably wasn't the most significant detail that provided the strength and sharpness of Japanese swords. That award probably goes to their technique for creating the two different (high-carbon and low-carbon) alloys and combining them together to get a sword with the best properties of both. Otherwise you'd be stuck with a sharp sword that shatters when it hits something or a nigh-indestructable blade that won't cut anything.

BTW, the episode featured a modern Japanese woman who was learning Japanese swordfighting technique from her father. Towards the end, one of them shot an arrow at the other and it was sliced it two with the sword. Very cool! There was also the old Japanese dude who practiced the traditional art of swordmaking, and that just looked like WAY more trouble than it's worth. :)