Blades Coupons

A blade is the flat part of a tool or weapon that normally has a cutting edge and/or pointed end typically made of a metal, most recently, steel intentionally used to cut, stab, slice, throw, thrust, or strike an animate or inainimate object.

Material for weapon blades has to be carefully selected to achieve a balance between hardness and toughness and their ratio to each is dependent upon the intended use of a blade. In antiquity, the main metal used was copper, then of iron. Perhaps the most well known is pattern welding, a technique used for katanas (samurai swords) and damascus steel blades. This was a very labor-intensive technique - and thus such swords were very expensive.