Sage

Hi Jean, Thanks for the invitation! I've just begun to do a bit of forging and I'm sure it would be a pleasure to learn more skills from you. However the kinko side of things keeps me busy enough Given your experience and resources I stand by my original suggestion. Take some blanks with a nakago ana and forge them out. Push the metal around in different ways. Then you'll have answered your own question

:D I surmise from Ford's latest post that he's not eager to jump in here :lol: so I'll contribute a little more. As it happens I was not there to see him forge out the plate but the majority of the work done on this tsuba occurred during the three weeks I spent in his studio this fall. Jean, apparently you do occasionally see this style of sekigane in early guards. Ford has postulated that it may have developed to contend with the very issue he faced in reworking the earlier guard. No offense guys, and with all good will, are you actually challenging this explanation? That's what it sounds like. If you've rejected the description of how it was done I don't blame Ford for not rushing to give you further elaboration on the process when you're apparently dismissive of what's been shared so far. If you find your conjecture compelling why not try the process yourselves? Whether you end up with a larger or smaller nakago ana you'll have a much better understanding of the process than by hearing Ford's explanation.

Adam, Ford started with an older unfinished tsuba and forged it out to be larger/thinner. In the process the original nakago ana stretched out too. That's why the copper surrounds the ana. This tsuba is really stunning in-hand, by the way. Ford has done a beautiful job of coaxing out the character of the metal.

Thank you Thierry, it's a beautiful collection

Hi Harry, I can't speak to whether this was not intended to be mounted, but the carving on the seppa dai isn't enough to draw that conclusion in this case. The design isn't proud of the surface and therefor wouldn't interfere with mounting. It's not unheard of for tsuba intended to be functional to have part of their design obscured when mounted.

Having to click the second magnifying glass threw me off until I read George's explanation, but I'm getting hi-res pics on my MacBook. Large but a bit soft...

I'm guessing the lute represents Benzaiten, so Daikokuten is MIA...

The chisel grooves you referred to are the means by which the gold is fixed on the plate. The soft gold, in wire or cut sheet form, is carefully worked into the toothed surface of the harder base metal. The process is referred to as nunome zogan. This isn't a well executed example but it does serve to illustrate the process to a degree.

If you view them directly on the Boston MFA site you can zoom in and see much more detail: http://www.mfa.org/search/collections?keyword=tsuba

Thanks for the clarification on dote-mimi. I had been confused by some of the definitions floating around.

Any chance the rim is an iron fukurin? The seam there looks very similiar to the one discussed here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4704

Hi Brian, The sekigane are of a piece with the rest of the tsuba. David's description at the beginning of the thread was: "This tsuba has what appears to be soft metal pillows in the ryo hitsu-ana that are faux: they are finely carved into the iron."

Hi David, Even as a cast it makes sense to me that there would be some anomalous marks on the tsuba. After all, they needed to do some clean up work on it with files, add the punch marks around the nakago ana and cut and file the kozuka histu-ana (which as Brian says was done badly). Given that they would be trying to conceal the cast nature they would hardly take pains to avoid some mild wear and tear on the surface during these processes. Some of the marks may even have been left intentionally. So as far as discerning if this is a cast of the one in the Ito book these marks are non-issues. I agree with Brian's analysis - the number of details that do match up exactly is pretty telling. Sage

Would you mind taking a photo that illustrates this? The waxes we use in our shop can distort if not treated carefully and I wonder if that's a factor in what you describe? This may not be relevant at all but I could speak to it with more confidence if I could see what you mean. Sage MacGillivray

I'm surrounded by hundreds of molds in my workplace. The scalpel cuts are frequently curved and quick consultation with our mold-maker confirmed that if the mold were misaligned during the wax injection a negative space could very well be introduced into the wax casting. Sage MacGillivray