How Japanese Masters Turn Sand Into Swords

this is a video about how Japanese swords are made swords that are strong enough and sharp enough to slice a bullet in half the access we got for this video is incredible we were able to film everything from Gathering the iron sand to smelting the iron forging the sword to sharpening and polishing it they even let us use it that is so cool the method of making the swords has remained virtually unchanged for hundreds of years with everything done by hand they are still considered to be among the best in the world the Japanese made a weapon that was the absolute Pinnacle for their style of warfare and the materials they had at hand these swords are held in such high regard that one from the 16th century has been appraised at $105 million making it the most expensive of sword ever built in the shiman province of Japan there is a smelter that is lit for only one night each year where steel is made in the same way it was 1300 years ago it's known as the tatara method and only steel made in this way ends up in the very best Japanese swords and we were invited to come film it just after 9:00 a.m. the ceremonial prayers are said and the fire is lit by a Shinto priest everyone that will be working the smelter will be here for at least the next 24 hours that includes veritasium producer Peter I'm committed we're going to do this it's going to be fun sword making in Japan goes back about 3,000 years but in those days swords were made out of bronze we're not sure how people first learned to smelt metal but it was likely related to Pottery in that you were using these Rocky ores to make glazes and such for pottery under very controlled atmospheres and then find maybe The Potters found metallic beads in the bottom of the furnaces that they were firing it this possibly gave them the idea bronze was discovered before Steel because it's an alloy of copper and usually tin both Metals with low enough melting points that they can be smelted in regular Pottery kils the problem with bronze is that although it can be sharpened it's too soft to hold an edge for long so Japanese sword makers shifted to Steel 12200 ...