Michael,

As Lance has hinted at, it's been my experience that certain types of sword require less stingent form and edge placement when cutting. For example, I've got an Albion Sempach; as a Type XVII, it's probably the least conducive form of military blade to cut with. Recently, I've been trying to cut the card board tubes from carpet rolls, which are not easy targets to cut. This is compounded by the fact that the tubes can easily be tipped or knocked over with the current set up I've got.

For quite some time, I was not able to cut at all with my Sempach. I could put dents into the tubing, and slices from where the sword impacted, but no real hewing damage occurred. By contrast, the lenticular blade of my Knight was much more forgiving. Although I had some difficulties cutting with it at first, I was fairly quickly able to hew quite deeply into the tube. After spending more time with my Sempach, I finally put a deep cut which left my Sempach hanging from the side of the tube when I released my grip. By that point, I was wondering if I even could cut the tube with my Sempach, and it turns out you can, but you need to be pretty much spot-on with edge alignment and delivery. Even now, my successful cuts against these thick carboard tubes have to be at least 2:1 or 3:1 in favour of my Knight.

If you're cutting against a more difficult target, I would highly recommend taking a passing step forward. Also, if you cut from Vom Tach with your sword resting on your shoulder, try raising it above your shoulder and see if that helps at all.

My thought on katana curvature would be the question of how much thre really is in the portion of the blade actually cutting the given medium. Certainly not as much as some horseman's sabres.
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I have though, read one thought that one reason a katana may have some better efficiency is that less force is re-directed to the hilt in a curved blade. Even more so, in the blade pictured above methinks. At the extreme, useful in a passing cut at more than footwork velocity.

I know this started out as longsword and katana but if a katana is a inherently a better cutter, why won't it cut media (not just in my hands) that a similarly weighted and flexible but quite longer XIIIa will, along with a slightly heavier and longer than a katana XVIIIa (Edward III blade Urbino mounts, not as flexible as the XIIIa but more so than a kat)).

I do bow to the katana for some cutting of some media but don't see harmonic deadness, or stiffness to be the real advantages.

Just my take.

GC

I don't really feel that curvature has much to do with the katana's superiority when facing tatami mats.

The first time I cut, I used longswords and a Graham katana. The katana worked a lot better for me. I had no JSA/WMA/anything sword-related background, so it can't be a matter of experience or familiarity. And the katana I used was dead straight.

Come to think of it, it's a decent platform for comparing things without having to factor in curvature. Mike, if you ever get another bundle of jack pieces again, you can see how many you get through using my sword.

EDIT: I had a much longer response, but I've decided to simplify it.

Chad,

I don't know what thread you're talking about, but it's not the same one I'm talking about. I have no recollection of comparing a katana to a Baron (doesn't mean I didn't do it). I was referencing a thread on SFI.

I agree with almost everything you said. I too prefer European swords to Japanese swords, though I love both. Despite that, I have had a lot better results with a good (real) katana than any other sword I have ever cut with against a variety of media (such as the linen jack I recently tested), and I can't ignore reality. That is not to say I have not had excellent results with longswords...it's a matter of degrees, not absolutes.

However, the purpose of this thread is not "knight vs. samurai", I am looking for people's opinions on what kind of sword they have had better luck cutting with, and why. That's all.

One important thing to remember when cutting is to pick up once in awhile and certainly thank the host.

I don't know if Jay ever forgave us.

Michael, it's one of those perpetual type discussions. Many similar at SFI, a few here. I'm thinking I do remember one here a few months ago.

Cheers

GC

Just to clarify, the katana I referenced above (my straight one) doesn't have any of the characteristics of a "competition cutter."

It's very narrow (a little more than an inch wide along the monouchi), not too thin (about 0.25-0.3" thick at the base) and has a substantial amount of convexity along the blade bevel (niku). I was cutting single and half mats the whole time, and the longswords I used were all thinner, and many somewhat wider, than the katana.

I think my velocity was pretty high, and consistent across swords. Mike could tell you more objectively. The longswords all had thinner edges than my kat, which increases in thickness exponentially as you measure from the edge and go towards the spine. The euro swords I used were flat-beveled, with the exception of the Albion Earl, which is hollow-ground.

As I noted, I still felt that the katana was a lot easier to cut well with than the longswords... even the Earl, which is about as rigid. Can anyone hazard a guess as to why that might be the case? Or just explain it outright? I'd love to figure this out...

This might be a little off topic but, in an episode of MythBusters: Grant, Tori and Kerry built a rig that was used to swing the sword in a horizontal motion, to see if a sword could cut through another swords' blade ( I think it was the ninja episode special).

But, I don't know if anyone has seen the rig that I'm talking about from MythBusters. I'd figure it would be a good place to start, to just see how to build a working rig. But, again that's me. :D

I recall one of the Schola St George symposia in San Francisco where some Japanese sword people set up a test cutting rig. Bob Charron did a sottani (rising) cut with the false edge, immediately followed by a mandritta (descending) with the true edge, neatly slicing off two sections of the rolled mat. One of the JSA people was heard to say that you couldn't do that with a katana.

Cheers
Stephen