[mariusgmioc]

Hello Cathey,

The fact that a blade has a sharp edge is by no means a sign it is of good quality or that it has practical use. You can give a very sharp edge even to a piece of plastic (think of disposable cutlery). Aluminum foil is very sharp, yet you cannot use it for cutting anything.

One of the defining parameters of the quality of a blade is its edge retention, namely how well it keeps its edge during use.

For a blade to have good edge retention it is very important to have an optimized mix between hardness and toughness. Hardness and toughness are inversely dependent. As hardness goes up, toughness goes down. If hardness is too high, the edge is prone to chipping. If toughness is too high the edge is prone to bending.

Hardness is generally achieved through heat treatment as raw blade steels tend to be rather soft (but tough).

The carved blades generally are not heat treated as any hardening treatment would make them extremely difficult to carve. Also hardening heat treatment cannot be applied after the carving of the blade because the carvings will cause unequal distribution of tension within the blade and will make it prone to bending or breaking.

"Previously I had always dismissed these items as temple swords, it hadn’t occurred to me that they were actually hunting weapons."
Do you have any proof that this kind of blades were used as "temple swords?"
Do you have any proof that this kind of blades "were actually hunting weapons?"
As I said earlier, the fact that the blade is sharp doesn't mean too much in this case.