Damascus katanas

by Jake
(Missouri)

QUESTION: So I'm looking at buying a katana, and ive seen a lot of places on the net advertising Demascus katanas... are these any good? and also they have different amounts of layers and things like that. can you tell me what all this means and if these swords are worth buying?

ANSWER:Hi Jake,

The cheap ones are ok for display. But essentially, the process of folding a Katana was done to remove impurities in the steel - a mute point with the quality of modern steel.

Secondly, on the less expensive ones - the process may actually cause more flaws in the way the folds anneal (or more correctly, do NOT anneal properly). So for an affordable functional sword - avoid the Damascus blades - monosteel is the way to go.

Hope this helps.

- Paul