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katanas are a great blade history to build to metal i have a nice musha katana but it seems that its hard to maintain , thoughts? -40%

Not really a fan for actual use, meself. For wall hangers, they look nice, though once you have fifty of them they seem to blend together into wallpaper, but again, that's just me.

Katanas are great for traditional Japanese warfare or going up against lightly armored opponents. Outside of that, I'd pick something else. Katanas aren't a bad sword, but they are very highly specialized.

I personally prefer the Ulfberht. Though I cannot deny the effort that went into making these blades.

I've been missing my katana lately... ninja

It's not too hard actually. Just getting the iron sand is very labor intensive. Since iron sand deposits are quite rare, the best way is with a magnet. Take apart a subwoofer and steal the big magnet out of it and drag it in playground sand, beach sand, or any loose soil. You will need a 5 gallon bucket worth of the stuff to make a bloom big enough to be usable.

I have a couple threads I posted in the "crafts" section of the artists forums that you might find fun. I'll link them below.

Forged Tanto
Oroshigane blooms

Oroshigane is a smith-made alloy. Most of the bloom will be too low of carbon. Oroshigane is a way to add more carbon, or remove excess carbon. You can just throw scrap steel in like I did and make the melt go from 8 hours to 1 hour for a chunk of high carbon steel.