SAS

Sounds strange, but there have been times while I am working on swords that feels like the sword is being guided by another set of hands.....

And a small amount of oil once the red rust is gone.....time to oil that nakago

A very nice sword in good polish, I like it!

Shinobi ana were also done on some Koto swords.

Ray, your mailbox is not taking msg.

The processes of sharpening and polishing swords are essentially the same, and it was done whenever necessary. I have read some anecdotes about samurai plunging their swords into sand before battle to round the edge to make it less susceptible to breakage when striking armor, whereas a sharper edge would be better against fabric and flesh during more normal times. As noted previously, the IJA had a manual dealing with edge treatments, along with a maintenance kit, in WW2.

^^ really

In the interest of preservation, a polisher should be consulted on the signed sword to deal with the extensive corrosion....the photos make it look like a bunch of incrusted cement!

Absolute hardness is not the only thing to consider; usage is very important as well....a kitchen knife can be harder, as it is used in a different manner than a sword, which is swung vigorously at a target, and could shatter if too hard and not resilient enough.

Nice!

I just went back to the monkey's video; he answered my negative comment by telling me that the owner asked him to post the images....I answered "Bullsh%t, you are shameless" but I doubt he will let that go through his comment screening. What an a#$hole. EDIT: I went to see, and indeed my comment posted! Haha!

Wow, that blew up fast, it was $2600 or so an hour before it ended. Congrats Fred.

I was at Bob Benson's house some years ago when he showed me a Japanese plate armor that had a depression in it from a musket ball....pretty cool, and i will bet the dude was happy he had it. Plate armor seems to have become more popular with the introduction of firearms to Japan.

I beleive they were looking for durability and impact resistance while still maintaining a sharp cutting edge; by having multiple layers of differing carbon content and hardness, they could try to achieve a higher survival rate of the sword in battle. They were using an approach based on practical results without understanding the metallugical science behind the phenomena.

Good catch Lev!

There are lots of ways to skin the cat, and also sword blades Your diagram is certainly one way, but there are many others. San mai or honsanmai can be done in multiple arrangements, and yes, swords are done that way. if you Mark are referring to one specific way in which a knife is made that has high carbon steel in the center of a billet, with iron completely surrounding it, your point would be valid as you stated above, but i do not know what the point of such construction would be, as it is the high carbon steel that when heated above critical and quenched that creates a hard cutting edge that maintains an edge. Whew, that was a long sentence.

My answer i think was suficiently clear, but perhaps you need to study a bit more and learn how swords are and were made, and then ask....all swords were and are made with steel of varying carbon contents and will harden to greater or lesser degree. My issue was the misinformation in your comment which i quoted. As a smith I am pretty well informed on the properties of steel and smithing.

There are a lot of unsupported or overly broad statements here....many nihonto are forged using san mai kitae, and they certainly do have a hamon, produced using differential quenching. Obviously the higher carbon layer is exposed to form the cutting edge, not hidden under a layer of unhardenable iron. Same can be said for many knives.

Seems a good plan, if a bit challenging....good luck!

Shocking news indeed; the nihonto and martial arts community will feel his loss greatly.

Yes, assuming that the mei is shoshin (genuine). It was frequently the practice to inscribe swords with a big name for presentation purposes, so a study of the signature would be helpful to determine if it is representative of the actual smith's work.

The tsuba (guard) is not supposed to be shiny; someone aggressively cleaned it (not good). The sword is older; it has been shortened, and the signature retained by a process called orikaishimei; this was done on certain older swords.

Depends on what you consider sharp, what you are cutting, and for how long.

Spam musubi

The early Shinto Masters agreed!