Kitae
KITAE
Blade Construction in Japanese Swords
To see the blade construction of a Japanese sword is not always easy. One way to understand the terminology is to look at cross sections of the blades. The drawings below assume perfect construction and this is never true. The layers can migrate into each other and show through when polished many times. An example would be Hizen Blades that are a two piece construction. When the layers are not perfectly even the thickness from the skin into the inner layer can be different on both sides. In general the higher quality swords have a more complicated construction.
Maru-gitae
The whole blade is made of a single type of steel.
Kobuse-gitae
Edge steel (white) is wrapped around a softer core steel (gray).
Makuri-gitae
Edge steel (white) is welded to core steel (gray) then the combination is folded.
Honsanmai-gitae
Edge steel and core steel are combined (middle image) and sandwiched between two plates of side steel (light gray).
Shihozume-gitae
Like Honsanmai, but an additional piece of steel is added at the back.
