Yes there are swords which can cut a silk scarf under the weight of it falling onto the blade.

The type of steel is called Damascus steel. The technique is a more refined technique than Wootz steel and recently was replicated by doing chemical analysis on an original Damascus sword (There are few private collectors globally which still possess an original Damascus sword).

You can read more about the steel here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel

Direct Quote...

quote:

A team of researchers based at the Technical University of Dresden that uses x-rays and electron microscopy to examine Damascus steel discovered the presence of cementite nanowires[4] and carbon nanotubes.[5] Peter Paufler, a member of the Dresden team, says that these nanostructures give Damascus steel its distinctive properties[6] and are a result of the forging process.

I find it humorous how much some people in this thread think they know about the subject. It's also interesting that we have only been able to produce a blade this sharp by examining the technology the Persians used (Iranian's) in the 17th century.

quote:

Originally posted by Catalystnz:
Yes there are swords which can cut a silk scarf under the weight of it falling onto the blade.

The type of steel is called Damascus steel. The technique is a more refined technique than Wootz steel and recently was replicated by doing chemical analysis on an original Damascus sword (There are few private collectors globally which still possess an original Damascus sword).

You can read more about the steel here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel

Direct Quote...

quote:

A team of researchers based at the Technical University of Dresden that uses x-rays and electron microscopy to examine Damascus steel discovered the presence of cementite nanowires[4] and carbon nanotubes.[5] Peter Paufler, a member of the Dresden team, says that these nanostructures give Damascus steel its distinctive properties[6] and are a result of the forging process.

I find it humorous how much some people in this thread think they know about the subject. It's also interesting that we have only been able to produce a blade this sharp by examining the technology the Persians used (Iranian's) in the 17th century.

NO!

quote:

A team of researchers based at the Technical University of Dresden that uses x-rays and electron microscopy to examine Damascus steel discovered the presence of cementite nanowires[4] and carbon nanotubes.[5] Peter Paufler, a member of the Dresden team, says that these nanostructures give Damascus steel its distinctive properties[6] and are a result of the forging process.

Taken from #6 in above post:

"Skeptical Smiths

The techniques for making the steel were lost around A.D. 1700. But many researchers are studying how to recreate the blades—even though metallurgical experts warn that the blades, though exceptional for their time, are far outperformed by modern steels.

While some scientists have claimed success, others dispute that the reproductions are truly the same as the originals.

And many experts doubt that the new findings will clear things up.

John Verhoeven, a metallurgist at Iowa State University at Ames who has worked on reproducing the Damascus sword-making techniques, is skeptical that Paufler and his colleagues have cracked the secret of Damascus blades.

"I don't think that [the nanowires] are anything unusual," Verhoeven said. "I think those structures would be found in normal steels."

From reading through the notes, I see where it is a LEGEND that a silk scarf dropped on a damascus sword will be cut in half by it's own weight.

Catalystnz,

Can you give a link to where this is proven as FACT?

Because, in this quote:

quote:

Yes there are swords which can cut a silk scarf under the weight of it falling onto the blade.

You say it is a FACT...

No, as it has often been discussed on these boards, a sword can not cut a scarf from the weight of the silk its self. no razor will do that and its a misconception that you would want a sword to be that sharp in the first place. a fighting weapon should be knife sharp, not razor sharp.

And the fanboi who wrote/edited the Wiki article is a little off in his believing of myths.

Hard steels are brittle. Even with a keener edge, an ultra-hard steel alloy will *not* slice through a softer steel blade; it will itself break, regardless of what magical microscopic structure you give it. It's not "apocryphal", it's just outright wrong.

There's a reason construction only uses 60,000 or 70,000 psi steel and not 400,000 psi steel (not that the tensile strength specifically determines the brittleness, but they are related).

Speaking of razor blades, I'm curious to know how sharp of an edge you can make with a piece of single-crystal metal.

I don't know about an edge, but using electro-chemical etching, you can put a point on a single crystal tungsten wire that is 3 atoms wide:

http://www.physics.mcgill.ca/~peter/theses/lucier.pdf

Page 11 is the abstract where the 3 atom tip is mentioned.

IIRC, a diamond knife edge is about 30 atoms wide.

I can see that the general consensus is that the myth is busted.
But I am wondering.. How did they do it in the movie. They must be some special effect guys in the movie "The bodygard" who figured out something to make it look right.
Any thoughts?
Can't remember exactly how the scene is put together. Maybe the cloth was streched out if that would help.

You know, the origin of this myth is from the movie "The Bodyguard" If someone got direct tabs from one of the makers of the movie how they created that scene, the mythbusters could take that idea, and change it into a theory. Now is it possible to drop a piece of silk over a samuri and then it just rips in half, I don't think so. But perhaps under different circumstances, a different cloth and\or a different kind of pressure, perhaps. I don't think it could be confirmed, but perhaps plausible under different circumstances.