What is “Tamahagane”? –The very important steel of Samurai sword.

Today, many kinds of steel are used as knives but the king of steel is traditionally “Tamahagane” in Japan. Although Samurai swords are made of Tamahagane in recent days, the steel is very rare.

Tamahagane is made from iron sand by a traditional furnace called “Tatara”.

The knives made of Tamahagane are the sharpest all over the world. The steel is among the finest material. It is the driving force behind the fame and legend of Japanese knives.

However, hardening of the steel is very difficult. It needs strict temperature control.
If a blacksmith misses the proper temperature by 2-3 degrees, the knife becomes a failure. Sometimes more than half of the knives become failures.
So, the steel which is involved such as chrome and tungsten have been developed after ages. They are easy to use to control the temperature.

Japanese blacksmiths who have been trained well by Tamahagane have won worldwide fame.

I will explain more about steel in the next article.

(Written by Iida Tool )

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