PBS Show on Katana-Making

"RAM³" wrote in news:Xns99C5AC510DC5Ds31924netscapenet@208.49.80.60:

Durned laptop keyboard!

If you watched it, what were *your* impressions of the show?

I missed the first 15 or 20 minutes, but I enjoyed what I saw. There was one bit where somebody was talking about work-hardening and that that was why the steel had to go back into the fire periodically. He didn't seem to grasp that the steel is worked hot, and goes back in because it's cooled off, not because it's work-hardened.

Beautiful blade.

- ken

I see tons of really bad fact checking in "educational" programming, especially on the history channel.

The message from "Ben (the handyman)" contains these words:

I wasn't too impressed with the local secondary school teacher at open day waving a bit of dry ice about claming it was at about -270°C.

So he reckoned that it was zero Kelvin????

I can see their mistake.

-273 degrees C is zero Kelvin. Ice is zero C.

Such is life some times.

Mixed up a bit!

Mart> The message

(snip)

Well, except as you can see, they said dry ice, which is frozen CO2, which is -79 degrees C.

The message from Chilla contains these words:

I'm not sure he really had a clue what he was on about.

The message from "Martin H. Eastburn" contains these words:

Yes, but /dry/ ice is ~-80°C.

Yes I know of the solid form of the normal CO2 gas. slang term Dry Ice. Because it doesn't drip.

I didn't make a mistake - I said ICE. solid form of water or H2O.

I was debugging the young persons brain fart.

Mart> I can see their mistake.

Most of the replies seem to have gone off topic! I think it was an interesting show demonstrating how the Japanese made iron and steel from ore ("iron sand" in this case). There are some people around here who are making regular, smaller runs, attempting to duplicate the process on a smaller scale, using taconite to replace the iron sand. They tell me that the Japanese are running out of iron sand, so these guys would like to show that the taconite can replace it. I have attended several of these runs and they are getting pretty good yields these days. BTW, "iron sand" is what we get a lot of in the bottom of the pan when we pan for gold. If there's any gold, it will be under the iron sand, which is roughly the next heaviest thing to gold you'll find in the pan (at least that's so where we go). (I think garnet is close). The fact that the interpretor makes a blunder now and then is the fault of the people being interviewed in my mind. They should be having the task of error correction if they want to be accurately represented. We have seen a similar video, maybe with the same master, but using a bigger furnace. A lot of "good stuff" has to be skimmed over because the program would become just to long for a non-technical audience, I presume. If you'll note, the basic "aha" is that these Japanese use a soft core with a hard outer casing. I didn't know this. The Norwiegans and other knifemakers, on the other hand, use a hard core (often O1) with a soft outer casing. If I'd had it MY way, they'd have spent less time out of the "shop". They made no mention of the important role that carbon monoxide plays in the whole reaction and how they control it. Then I'd have learned a lot.

If their discussion of furnace temperatures was accurate, they are going about 200 degrees F higher than the iron makers of many other countries. Was this the way they got high carbon? At about 1100 degrees C, you'd usually see wrought iron (very LOW carbon steel) instead

You have to give these guy a lot of credit for getting iron or steel out of this process with it many variables. That's why they take so long to train masters.

Is that the kind of input you wanted? Pete Stanaitis

--------------- Ken Rose wrote:

You should talk to Pierre in Japan, he's very much interested in this and is apprenticed to a Japanese sword smith.

Contact me off list if you want the details.

Regards Charles

spaco wrote:

What's the dry sand washes look like in Oz? :) Here in AZ most of them are streaked with iron sand some are almost black with it.

But then there are "impurities" that effect the product some good and some bad. I don't have any idea what the content of the local black sand is.

I wonder if the iron sand the Japs are "running out of" isn't just the really "good stuff" with the right impurities?

Cool. :)

I know a guy that panned up some dull, heavy, yellow pebbles and I first thought "uranium!:)" turned out to be a tungsten mineral.

There was an outfit that was panning the washes in the Tortolita mountains for black-sand and using a magnet separtated out the magnetic stuff and threw it away. The guy telling the story couldn't get it out of them what they were after. :/

Got any ideas?

Alvin in AZ

Depends on where you are, I recall the black striations in some of the sand. The popular beaches have the sand that is gold.

The iron in their sand is notoriously pathetic, hence the huge amount of work selecting the "right" pieces to use in manufacture.

The Japanese are huge on tradition, so would not see their black sand as being an inferior product.

When there was a famine in Japan, we sent over boats of rice. The rice was long grain, which was unheard of so it was left to rot and people preferred to starve.

Tradition is a cool thing, but following it to the point of starvation is a little too extreme for me.

Regards Charles

It's my understanding they are "funny" about rice and the need for it to be grown in Japan. Supposedly the same thing would have happened if you'd even sent a Japanese variety.

Alvin in AZ

I watched it and loved it. Even managed to get my wife to watch it, who was equally impressed with it. The show made a great point of showing how a lot of trial and error, ingenuity and a lot of hammering went into making a wonderful weapon and tool, which I think could be said for a lot of blacksmith work around the world.

SF!

If you're in to gold panning, check out the old gold mine maps we have on our site: