Ken-Hawaii

Matus, can you explain to us briefly just WHY these blades appeal to you? Is it just because they're old, or is there some other reason why the Muromachi Period is your initial goal? How many reference books have you purchased so far? Are these Nihonto referenced in them? What do you know about the sword smiths & schools? Have you analyzed the appearance of each blade to see whether they seem to be appropriately identified (Aoi Art, NBTHK, & Honami [especially] have all been known to make an error or two)? Buying a Nihonto without having any real understanding of these factors almost always comes back to haunt you. Why not attend a local meeting of the Japanese Sword Society & ask its members what they think of these blades, Matus? Whether pro or con, I think you'll find there's a lot more depth to their answers that you - with your claimed lack of studying - simply have not considered. And you may also find that buying a blade from a member is the best way to get started. But, as has been pointed out many times in this forum, in the end it's your money....

Thanks for the info, Arvada (please sign your real name per Brian's rules), but this katanadansu is over 125 years old. Its locking mechanism is a 1/4-inch iron plate with a keyhole that looks like that left 2/3 of a "Y." The box looks something like this (http://www.shibuihome.com/product1645.html), although the key is different (you can zoom into the top image). So it's very low-tech, rather than high, & none of the local locksmiths have ever worked on anything similar. The drawer is open, BTW, but I want to be able to secure it.

No sign of yasurime, either.

That's a wonderful idea, Dan! There are many of us who have given some thought to forging our own blades, but I know of only two others who have done so (& one of them is out of business). Please show us some of what you have already forged.

Some good advice here, Milica. There is much more to swinging a sword than is obvious, & you definitely need a sensei to guide you. And that sensei is almost surely not going to allow you to use a shinken (live blade) until you have quite a bit of experience with a non-sharpenable iaito. Welcome to the forum.

Thomas, I've been collecting Nihonto for quite a few years & am VP of our local Japanese Sword Society, but have never seen a leather-wrapped tsuka, other than modern - any idea why that may be? I can certainly understand why leather would be preferable in humid Japan, but just haven't run into any. I'm not going to take the chance of ruining the tsukamaki on any of my Nihonto, so unless a non-destructive test comes to light, I guess we'll just have to guess. Do you have any references on silk usage pre- & post-1600?

This identification process has given us a few good laughs, Keith. My engineer wife took a few hours to find her old sewing kit - which tells you how many items she's darned - & pulled out two spools of black silk thread & another two of cotton. Then we got out a good magnifying glass...& neither of us could tell which thread was which. One of the silk threads was virtually identical in sheen to one of the cotton threads, but none of them had any characteristic that allowed us to look & say, "Oh, yeah, that's silk for sure." The diameters were slightly different, but that doesn't help a whole lot when you want to ID the ito in an Edo-era Nihonto.... I'm really a bit amazed that this process is so dang difficult! And I'm now wondering if the extra $200 we were planning to spend for silk ito for each of our two new iaito is a reasonable expense. :? Our old blades were custom-made for us in Tokyo, as I mentioned, & interestingly were paid for by our son's mother-in-law. She & our son's wife are part of the vast Yoshida clan, & evidently the entire clan was so excited to finally have two iaidoka again that they quietly pre-paid for our iaito & had them built to our heights & reaches, all unbeknownst to us, of course. I guess that's one main reason why we know so little about the construction details. But other than those hundreds of tiny mune pits, Linda's & my blades have certainly withstood our first learning MJER, & then actively training & practicing for lo these many years. Our tsukamaki looks, if not new, then certainly in the prime of its usefulness, with no looseness, precise diamonds, & tight menuki. The samegawa is a full wrap, by the way. We also used the magnifying glass on a couple of our Nihonto. We have a lovely Owari-Seki blade in full koshirae, both of which have NBTHK origami; portions of the ito were slightly "ragged" (not perfectly smooth), which leads us to think that the ito is likely cotton in a battle wrap. But two much older papered wakizashi have extremely smooth ito, & we can't hazard a guess on either. Is this a lost cause, or does someone out there have some definitive ways to tell what's wrapped?

I use a shinken in my Shinto-Ryu training, & a zinc-beryllium iaito in MJER. My shinken is an old Bizen blade that's not collector-quality, & looking at the tsuka, it's definitely not of recent vintage, although I can't tell what the ito is made of, even under magnification. I'm buying a brand new zinc-aluminum iaito. My old blade definitely looks the worse for wear after nearly 20 years (yeah, it was my first one). There are a multitude of mini-pits on one side of my iori mune, & they frankly worry me. I'm fairly sure that my saya's ho wood isn't hard enough to do that type of wear even if I was doing noto completely wrong for all these years (& I'm sure that Sensei would have said something to me long before!). And in the past few months, both Sensei's & another student's iaito have broken - the boshi of Sensei's blade came whizzing along the floor directly at me, & I had to jump over it - so Linda & I have decided that it's time for new swords completely. Whatever the ito is on our iaito has worn extremely well, even though my wife uses tons of hand lotion, & I'd love to know what the material is, but after two decades, I'm not sure I could still find the shop in Tokyo where we had them made.... I'm looking at iaito from both Yamato Bodogu & Tozando, as I've done business with both. We'll both probably get the customized Bishamonten blades from Yamato, but I'm awaiting some answers from them on the specific furniture we want. We're spending about the same amount that we would on a decent Shinto wakizashi, so we'll take the time to be picky. That still doesn't answer my question about how to tell what the ito is/was on older Nihonto, but I appreciate knowing that new tsuka were refitted to Samurai weapons back in the day. I had never heard about that, although it makes sense. I know that heating cotton will make it burn, & heating silk will make it ball up, but non-destructive methods are probably a better idea. :D

I recently handled an iaito with a nicely-wrapped leather tsuka, Chris, but it just didn't have the same "response" than the silk ito I'm used to. And I haven't seen any Nihonto with leather, either. Have you?

My wife & I are upgrading our iaito after many moons, & have been pondering about the best material for tsukamaki ito, silk or cotton. That got me to wondering about which materials were used for wrapping the tsuka of Nihonto. I can't find anything on when silk arrived in Japan, or whether it would have been available to sword smiths. I've checked out my own Nihonto, but honestly can't tell whether silk or cotton has been used. Any ideas?

That may be a good idea if you're a locksmith, Dirk, which I'm certainly not. One key-slot is straight, while the other is straight on the bottom half, & dog-legged left on the top half, & I have no idea what the inside mechanism is like.

I purchased a great katanadansu from Craig Harris - thanks, Craig! - which is perfectly functional except that it lacks a key to the locks. Does anyone know of a locksmith for these lock plates?

Nagamaki?? Surely you jest!! Show piece only, I'm sure. And why is the curator handling the blade with bare hands??

Perhaps a very early instance of Smilies...?

That does seem rather "worn" for a Shin-shinto blade, tho'....

Chris, Noxon does contain abrasives (pumice & limestone) according to its Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) at http://www.rbnainfo.com/productpro/Prod ... template=1. It also contains oxalic acid & ammonium hydroxide, which appear to cancel each other out pH-wise, so I'm not sure just what chemical reactions take place in the cleaning process. I've never used Noxon on a Nihonto, but am glad to hear that you've used it with good results, & I may try it the next time I do something stupid to one of my blades.

Jason, you need to determine whether your blade is an iaito (usually made from an aluminum alloy) or a shinken (live, sometimes sharp, blade made from steel). If you have a steel blade with a real (not acid-etched) hamon, you will want to treat it the same way you would a Nihonto. Fingerprints themselves are just globs of oil which can be easily removed a number of ways. Start with denatured (NOT isopropyl!! Denaturing removes the water) alcohol on a soft cloth, followed by an immediate wipe-down with a different soft, dry cloth to remove all liquid. Then you can simply oil the blade lightly to preclude rust. If the blade has rusted because of fingerprints or anything else, then you get to decide on whether you want to use Chris' method of applying Noxon - great stuff, but definitely abrasive - or getting the rust removed by a togi. Hopefully, your iaito is aluminum-based so you can use pretty much anything to clean it. Good luck!

Does that mean the togi made a mistake in polishing? I would think that recognizing that a blade is tired or thin-skinned would be a pretty important thing for him to know before starting the process!

Chris, why would shintetsu be exposed like that in the middle of the blade, & only in spots? I've seen shintetsu but only on badly-worn &/or -polished blades.

Jamie, I really hope we're not getting sidetracked into a discussion about Nihonto as an investment! The pros & cons of buying & selling blades at a "fair price" is already off-track from the topic of kantei versus picking a good sword, & the original thread has been quite interesting to follow.

It has always been my goal to try very hard to obtain only those Nihonto that were the best-made of their particular period/era, & I've seldom had any qualms when I did so. That's not to say that I've never bought other blades for study, but almost always for comparison with the best-in-class. Excellent post, Reinhard!! Brian, is there any way that Reinhard's post can be permanently posted?

Gotcha, Louis. Nugui is definitely not a chemical treatment. Sorry that I misunderstood.

Louis, if the treatment isn't a physical process (i.e., grinding, polishing, etc.), it's chemical. Ferric chloride itself is not acidic, but hydrolyzes with water to form a moderately-strong Lewis acid that is considered as a very strong iron etchant. So if ferric chloride is used on a blade, by definition it's an acid treatment, & not one that's particularly controllable, either.

James, if you're going to resurrect an old topic, at least post a link to it!!

My guess is sandpaper, followed by file, with acid as the final insult to the blade. If you can get your money back, Jock, I suggest you do so.