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this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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It was only folded so many times because the ore on Honshu is pretty low grade and had to have the carbon worked out of it more than European steel.
Wait, you mean it's not because it gives me the ability to part steel plate in a single slash?
You only get that when you fold it 69 times.
Nice
Nice
Wow you must be a novice if you still need to slash. A true bushido master can cut steel without unsheathing the blade.
Only if you don't look at it afterwards
As I understand it, it wasn't to work the carbon out of it, but instead to simply evenly spread the impurities throughout the whole sword, so there weren't any specific points of weakness
Obligatory "It wasn't folded 1000 times, it was folded 11 times giving it more than a thousand folds." Fun fact, the older traditional Japanese forges were basically assembled from mud found right there on the rivers where they found their low grade iron, and this process was kept alive by spiritualism and tradition conservatives, so it's honestly a miracle they assembled anything long and sharp at all. Most of the iron in Japan is considered low grade Pyrite at only 46% iron, while other places in the world had access to Magnetite with up to 72% iron before any refining.
Traditional tomahogonany is still made in small quantities in mud furnaces.