Danocon

Well, you guys have done a great job of building my library of Tosho and Ko-Tosho Tsuba. Thanks-keep 'em coming. One question-particularly for Kunitaro-san. Is the great patina solely a function of age or was it a particular patinization method and maybe the quality of the iron of the time period?

Very nicely Done Mark. Not only the craftsmanship but the beautiful design and integration of the shelving.

I suppose that would make sense. Just in my short time of collecting the magnetite is markedly different than the hematite from the same mine which is different from the hematite in East Texas which is different from the hematite 20 miles down the road. By long trial and error I am sure they figured out what any given type looked like or even felt like.

Ha! I misspelled Oroshigane in my original post. For some reason I always think it should be Orishigane. Interesting about the different TiO2 content in different collection methods.As I understand it the "Akoma Satetsu" was/is used for the Zuku-Oshi method which uses a tall furnace. And "Masa Satetsu" is used in the kera-oshi method which uses the low furnace or tatara. No idea how they could tell the difference in the two iron sands. Here is a link from Pierre Nadaeu about the Zuku-oshi method. I believe the furnace used is called a Hodo? The result is the very high carbon pig iron that has to be further processed to get usable steel. The Kera-Oshi method eliminates this secondary processing for a part of the kera at least. Tamahagane is a fraction of the kera with pig iron and low carbon iron making up the rest.

Kunitaro-san, I have just been reading about the Kanna-Nagashi. Apparently it was also the cause of one of the first environmental fights. As I understand it the iron sand dug from the mountain is only about 2-3% iron. Huge amount of dirt and sand had to be dug and washed out to get the 97% or so iron sand needed to feed the furnaces. The excess was washed down into the river and caused all kinds of problems for farmers. You are correct about still discovering the secret of ancient iron. TiO2 is usually considered a contaminant but small quantities in the Tatara process it seems it can force the iron to take up more carbon. My sources are limited since I cannot read the multitude of papers published on the tatara process. There are a multitude of people around the world smelting iron. But by far they are are trying to recreate medieval European practices and producing sponge iron. The Kera-oshi, Zuku-oshi and now this new one from you Kuzu-oshi are very different processes with very different end results. So much to know :D .

Thanks for all your replies. Ruben, Yes the Orishogane does need to be forged thinner. Plus I need a better set up for breaking the pieces. I was just excited to actually do SOMETHING towards making a sword. Seems like I have been getting ready forever Paul, PM sent-thank you. I think Paul and Kunitaro-san are on the right track. The material, I suspect, has a huge influence on the result. On one hand we really don't know a lot about the smelting practices in the 13th century. On the other hand the reduction of ore to iron or steel is a pretty straight forward process. The devil, as always, is in the details. There are a boatload of variables that affect the finished product. Raw material, type and quality of charcoal used, time, temperature, clay for walls and on and on. Was it a direct steel reduction or was pig iron (cast iron) produced then further processed into steel similar to the modern Bessemer process. Many people are saying that the tatara method of producing a kera with pockets of tamahagane is a relatively modern process. That the Zuku method of creating pig iron first is a more likely scenario for earlier times. I don't know but I intend to try and find out with the resources available to me. I have found an isolated pocket of very high grade magnetite in Texas. I have dug several tons of what I hope is suitable clay from my own property. Availability and quality of charcoal is always the choke point in the process. I have a fairly stable process to produce high quality charcoal as well a reliable (and cheap :D ) supply of the wood to make it. I will be testing with a small Kodai furnace. In the last paragraph is an enormous amount of variables. Then, as Kunitaro-san detailed, there is the actual processing of the material into a finished blade. AND THEN- assuming all the right stuff is in the blade there is the task of polishing it to the point that it can be seen. Difficult?-yes. But then it would not be be fun if it wasn't :lol:

I have been searching through forum for info on Nashiji-hada. Found a lot of nice examples. But I am really looking for the how of it. I understand it is a denser form of Komokume-but what does the mean? Just more folds? Anybody have anything that can point me in the direction how it is produced? I find it quite captivating. For anybody that is interested here is the current state of the Kagi-ba I am building. Everything is working. The 2 hp Chinese motor on the powerhammer however did commit suicide last weekend . New 5hp Baldor waiting in the wings Here is video of forging and breaking up some orishigane made from 1800's wrought iron nails. Not wanting to start a discussion on making swords this is not the place. But feel it is relevant in the study of Nihonto. Orishigane is very common with contemporary smiths at least. Very few of them if any rely solely on Tamahagane.

This is similar to a conversation I had with a monkey at the zoo. I told him about Aristolte, Socrates and Einstien. His response was to throw poop at me. The steels used for Nihonto are simple steels. Mostly iron and carbon. This makes them shallow hardening steels that need water as a quench medium. It is this shallow hardening characteristic that makes a hamon possible. Add in the non-homogenous nature of the material with uneven distribution of carbon and we get all the cool activity we so like. There are some things open to discussion and conjecture and some things that are fact. 1. The habuchi and nioi-guchi are not the same thing. The nioi-guchi is a transition line with varying degrees of martensite. 2. The yakiba is through hardening on the edge portion of the blade. It cannot be polished off. This may be the most ridiculous part of this conversation. 3. Heat (and to a lesser extent-time) influences particle size. Too much heat can indeed grow the grain of the steel which is then “frozen” in the phase change during the quench. The distribution of carbon and how the grains are clustered dictates whether these larger grains form martensite (nie) or not. The more refined or smaller grains would form nioi. Pre heat treat conditioning in the way of normalizing can have a large impact on grain size as well. LOTS O’ FACTORS are at play here. Being able to control them to any extent is the “art of the smith”. But the idea that a well-made hamon can be polished off is just pure poop. Sorry Jacques. Chris' great graphs show this very clearly.

Really!!!! Shows you what I know about kanji. Pardon the newbie questions but I find this blade very interesting. Both for the beauty of what it is and whatever has been done to it to pass it off as something else. So only the area of the signature on the nakago has been hammer peened. The signature that is there now had to have been done after it was hammered. Tell me why this would not immediately set off all kinds of red flags

Cool! Something about this blade felt new. So at the risk of negating my lucky guess I have some questions/comments. The hamachi is well defined. Is that usual on a blade supposedly this old? There are two Mekugi-ana which would suggest it had been shortened. Why put two Mekugi-ana that close together? If shortened is it possible that the hammered area is what is left of the original signature. Then the cutting test was put over it to further camouflage it. And finally-Am I missing something or is it signed on the wrong side for a tachi?

I am going to jump in here with the caveat that it is more for my education than anything else and you guys can tell me why I am way off base. My first impression is that it is a recently made blade. The hada, from what I can see is very tight. The steel has a "new" look to it and the shape is very strong. The only reason I can think of with my limited knowledge to hammer the end of the nakago is to cover something up. Whatever it is- I like this blade.

Christian I assume you are talking about Grey. If so I heartily concur. I bought my first Japanese language sword books from him last month. One on Sa Yukihide and another on Nagasone Kotesu. He was great to work with. Sent the books while the "Check was in the mail" . What do I have? An entire treasure trove of information. As a maker who has chosen to emulate these two great smiths probably a lifetime's worth of study in these two books alone. Last month couldn't read a lick of kanji. Can now read Nagasa, Sori, Motohaba, Sakihaba, Nakago length, kissaki length. Shaku, sun, bu, rin and know their related lengths. Who knows what I will be able to read next year. Not to curb your enthusiasm Brian but spend some money on books dude-$1300 would have set you up big time.

Not knowing any better I will just ask. I can understand tapering from thick in the center to thin at the edge. Is there a purpose or maybe stylistic reason for tapering the opposite way? (Thick rim-thin center). BTW- I so like these tosho and katchushi style tsuba-keep 'em coming.

Hi David, Yes the final texture would need to be done with a hand hammer. The power hammer is for processing raw steel to a workable condition. I know how the piercing or open work is done I just have never done it As Pete suggested I have asked the question on Ford's Iron Brush forum as well. Some members there have have given me some good sources of information. I have been a member there for a while but your post led me to ask the question here. Like all good patina recipes this ones main ingredients are time and effort. Thank you for the information and I look forward to reading your article.

David, I have sent my membership fee to JSSUS I think the plate is doable. 1) I would like to think I have the forging skills. 2) I have a source for pine and a way to turn it into charcoal 3)I have made orishigane from 200 year old nails in my forge. 4)I have several sources for iron ore here in Texas. 5)The plan for a small kodai tatara is drawn up and is scheduled for this fall/winter. 6)My power hammer is nearing completion All this is geared toward blades of course but I see no reason not to include tosho style tsuba as well. Actually, the piercing is something I have never done. I need to do some more research but my guess is the tsuba material comes from the lower carbon part of a tamahagane run. With this type of tsuba I would assume it is all about the material, texture and patina

David I have been thinking about joining JSSUS and your post decided me. I am very interested in this type of tsuba and in fact can see myself making this style. Any directions you can point me to for more information would be appreciated. Thank you.

Ken, Being crumbly while forging is fairly consistent with hard materials. In this case it is junk in the iron that prevents the iron from sticking to itself. It takes a very high heat and careful hammering to liquify the junk and drive it out of the iron. It is the same, though to a lesser extent, with tamahagane. All the folding and welding is simply a method to purify and refine the material-like kneading bread dough. The beautiful patterns are a side benefit. All the junk is also the reason it is so hard to cut. I am interested as well as to how the meteoric iron will affect the appearance of the blade. Pretty cool deal.

Here is a discussion of meteorite that may shed some light on the difficulties of using it for blades. http://forums.dfoggknives.com/index.php?showtopic=22540&hl=meteorite&st=0 This post form Dan Fronefield http://meteorforge.net/ was quite informative. Well, I guess I can probably add something to this subject since I specialize in using meteorite in my knives (all kinds: iron, stone, stoney iron, Mars, Lunar, etc) You'll only be forging iron meteorite and as noted the forgability varies between different falls and within a single fall. At this time, Campo is the cheapest most plentiful iron meteorite avaiable. The widmanstatten pattern is fairly large and not really suitable as knife furniture (too coarse a pattern). Any iron meteorite can be forged ... with care. Most are crumbly at first. Forge at welding heat with lots of flux. I frequently will just take a meteorite section and run weld beads all around it, just to get it to hold together for the first heat. Tap, tap, tap ... don't hammer until it get consolidated. Don't forge cold or cool, stay at a welding heat as you forge and fold until it starts to feel and sound like a solid piece of steel. There are silicates and graphite nodules and other crap in meteorites, which will all eventually come out with the flux/forging. I usually lose about 1/4 of the original weight when done. From there on, treat it like a no-carbon, high-nickel steel. Remember that iron meteorites are about as hard as an old coat hanger and will not hold an edge. There are lots of ways to get around that, all methods I've used. I'll frequently make a damascus twist of meteorite layered with HC steel. In high layer counts, you end up with micro-serations as the softer meteorite wears. Or, take the same twists and laminate on either side of a HC steel core (san-mai) so that no meteorite is on the edge. Or, the meteorite can be melted and alloyed appropriately with carbon to make a meteoritic base HC steel. And so on ... The iron meteorite will be a bright line in damascus due to the high nickel content. Most speculation on the Tutankhamen's iron dagger is that it was forged from meteorite. Because of the low/no carbon, it is not a "hard" blade. Should you have any specific questions, let me know.

HeHe! Sure, but it it is not really very high tech. Just time consuming. First I manipulated the file to make it bigger. Went to Fedex Office and printed it out until the the actual dimensions matched the stated dimensions. The I took some 1/8" grid graph paper as a reference and punched holes top and bottom. (Please note the plywood under the pattern to protect my wife's table :D ) I drew lines and set a hard reference at the top. Luckily the image set had close a up of the Kissaki that I used. I then took a set of calipers and carefully measured from the top reference and recorded where the various features of the blade crossed my reference lines. Even with all the care i took this is what I got. Pretty ugly. So I blew up the photo of the kissaki, cut it out and literally taped it to my screen :lol: And started adjusting points .001"-.005" at a time. When I finished with the profile I carefully cut away the mune and then the shinogi to fill in the details. In the end of all this I got very very close but the final judge was my eye trying to match what I saw. It was easy to make small errors when cutting out the pattern.It was surprising how moving a point as little as .001" changed the profile. Here is the result. Is it an absolute perfect match. Nope but very close and good enough for me to study and try and replicate. I am not out to make copies of great swords but copying is the best way to establish a baseline of skills and understanding.

Thanks Adam. The katana is the one I have been working on. The wakazashi is very nice. Looks like a keeper (for patterns) to me.

Hmmm! I see your point. The first one is rather unremarkable. The second is more interesting but BIG. Would this be considered an O-tanto or is that just a made up term that has no real meaning? Thanks Chris

Hello, As Ya'll may recall I have been building a traditional Kagi-ba. It has been a long time in the making. I got hung up for quite some time making proper charcoal. I am building a hybrid Japanese spring power hammer at the moment. In the vast array of schools and smiths I am making a detailed study of the shapes of blades by Sa Yukihide. Mainly because I like them and I feel it is important to focus on and get the feel of a particular style. In my younger, more naive days I just made blades that resembled Japanese blades. I have found a decent selection of images for his Katanas. Enough so that I have been able to get a sense of his style. I have found only a couple of wakazashi that where quite striking and no tanto. Can anyone point me in a direction where I could find images of his tantos and more wakazashi? I have been able to digitize quite accurately one of his Katana and made a preliminary study in a CAD program just to try and understand what he did and maybe a little of how he did it. The smoothness and subtleties of the various arcs he used, particularly in the kissaki, just by eye alone is quite remarkable. I realize the polishers were a factor as well. For example, from the yokote for about 3/4 of the way towards the tip is one arc. A virtually perfect arc. Pick any three points of the many I made to create an arc and that arc goes through every other point with no deviation. The rest of the way is another tighter arc- again perfect. Here is a magnified image of the Kissaki. I looked a long time for a maker's work that speaks to me. I found one that shouts to me from across time. Thanks for your help. Dan

Nice discussion guys-taught me a lot just following it. So, we (meaning you) ascertained that this sword was not what the papers claimed. Did we come to a conclusion on what it actually is?

As Chris said-It boils down it how much force one man can produce using one hand and a hammer. It is possible to forge weld a small tanto size billet and draw it out alone but just barely. The are some smiths that boast of using an 8lb hammer and moving big pieces of steel. Okay, but why subject your joints and tendons to such punishment?Moving up to larger tanto and above you really need some kind of help. Even after the billet is welded a power hammer or sakite are necessary to draw the blade into the sunobe or sword preform. Once this is done the smith forms the bevels and the final shape alone. Up to this point he has acted as the conductor of a grand symphony saving himself for his virtuoso solo performance.

I am going to have to wade in on this one. 1) I would not, nor would any other smith reforge the blade (hammer) to simply re-temper. The process of re-tempering (actually re-hardening) is to heat the blade to critical temperature and let is cool slowly to allow the carbon to diffuse out and return the edge to austenite from martensite. Then it is re-clayed and Yakire is performed again. Re-hammering would require reshaping which would of course change the shape and remove material. It is lot of work to get the right shape, I for one would not want to do it again and ruin my beautiful shape And even if they did, it would not change the basic grain structure. 2) The grain structure is formed in the foundation forging and subsequent forging into a sunobe (Blade preform) Masame is created by foldng the billet and then turning it on its side so that edges of the layers are visible. Like looking at a ream of paper from the side.. The blade is then forged out. So the edges of the layers form the sides of the blade. Itame is formed after folding by using the face of the billet (the writing side of the ream of paper) as the sides of the blade. See http://meiboku.info/guide/form/hada/index.htm for pictures. Masame is more prone to delamination because the weld joints are thin. Whatever the thickness of the blade is at any given cross section. Plus, forging on the edge stresses the welds by about a factor of 10 as opposed to forging on the face. The opportunity to break welds is huge. A well done masame with a no flaws is a grand feat of forging.