The Katana Is What Bad Iron Forced Them to Build

Japan had almost no usable iron ore — only black sand dragged out of its rivers. Everything the world admires about the katana came from working around that shortage: the folding, the curve, the hard edge and soft spine. This is what the folklore leaves out. #samurai #katana #japanesehistory 00:00 Not the finest sword ever forged 00:12 Japan had the worst sword-making iron in the world 00:46 Three days inside a clay furnace 01:48 Folded a thousand times — the arithmetic 02:29 What folding was actually for 03:02 Two contradictory demands, and the clay 03:58 Where the curve really comes from 04:33 The second craftsman: the polisher 05:24 What it does not do 06:25 Tested on bodies 07:10 Almost nobody owned a good one 07:46 The soul of the samurai came later 08:58 A perfect answer to a problem