Originally posted by The Coffee God
Actually in John Yumoto's book "The Samurai Sword, a Handbook" he mentions that the way a katana is forged, by the time it has been folded 10 times, it exceeds 300,000 layers. He gives a very specific number in the 300,000 range, but I don't have the book any more so I'm just paraphrasing at the moment.
1 fold 2
2 folds 4
3 folds 8
4 folds 16
5 folds 32
6 folds 64
7 folds 128
8 folds 256
9 folds 512
10 folds 1,024
11 folds 2,048
12 folds 4,096
13 folds 8,192
14 folds 16,384
15 folds 32,768
16 folds 65,536
17 folds 131,072
18 folds 262,144
19 folds 524,288
20 folds 1,048,576
21 folds 2,097,152
22 folds 4,194,304
Yours in Budo,
---Brian---