Board Thread:Off Topic/@comment-27425734-20170826213348/@comment-26397825-20171108023451

This is why modern katana's made with the original folding techniques are terrible.

For those who didn't watch it/don't have time to watch it, a paraphrased version; folding good quality steel decarbonises the blade, making it worse quality as it gets rid of the good parts of the metal. Folding bad quality steel is good, as it gets rid of the impurities in the steel. Modern katanas are made with high quality steel, so they are folded for the aesthetic look but folding makes the sword a bad sword because it removes the carbon from the metal. The original katanas were good...for their time. But they were made with bad steel to begin with, and it took months to remove the impurities and make it a decent sword.