Ken-Hawaii

Stephen, I didn't say that there aren't any tanto in koshirae, just that I've never seen one - should have said that I've never held one, & certainly don't have one in my not-so-vast collection. I do have several nice aikuchi tanto in shirasaya, one modern tanto in saya. But thanks for the links. I may have to start looking for a tanto in koshirae for myself.

Not exactly sure what you're asking, Henry. First, I've never seen a tanto in koshirae, per se - those are usually saved for wakizashi (often with kogatana & kozuki), katana, & daito/tachi. Are you sure you don't have a fairly plain wooden shirasaya with an aikuchi (close fitting) tanto? Are you displaying the tanto IN its koshirae? If so, then the koshirae should be positioned with the blade facing up, & the tsuka to the left as you face it, & generally centered on the short katanakake. If you're displaying the tanto separately from koshirae, the tanto will be mounted on top, again blade up & with the tsuka to the left, with the koshirae underneath on a second katanakake support, matching the orientation of the tanto. Hope this helps, Henry, but I'd like to see a photo of your tanto koshirae.

I got stuck with one of those recently, on eBay, of course. The seller had somehow made a hamon appear on what looked to be a fairly decent blade at a too-good-to-be-true price. The idiot quit eBay right after I started complaining, despite his 1,000-plus feedbacks....

Stephen, in general, uchiko should be used to remove caked-on oil that was applied to the blade, not for removing rust. Also, uchiko comes in several "grades," but I haven't found any way to tell whether my grade of uchiko is good, or not. So I'm careful to buy only from vendors whom I know & trust. Take a look at this article, http://ejmas.com/tin/tinart_fowler_0402.htm, to get some more input. Good luck!

Mike, I agree with John that many swordsmiths didn't target sharpness as much as they did overall durability, especially with wakizashi & tanto blades. I have one wakizashi that is incredibly sharp, but also have three others that I wouldn't use to cut anything at all. I found that to be very interesting because two of the smiths on my dull wakizashi were awarded Wazamono, according to my manuals. But after thinking about what the blades were likely used for, I began to understand why those smiths might also have created a "utilitarian" blade.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "heavily crisp," Tiziano, but I get the impression that you're talking about the ha (cutting edge) being ruined when used in battle. If my interpretation is correct, then I think you're worrying about the wrong thing. First, steel is very durable, & the folding process used by Japanese swordsmiths made the blades even stronger by removing the vast majority of impurities. That isn't to say that you can't break a blade or take chunks out of the ha, but that's the rare exception, rather than the rule. Second, although I'm sure that there were lots of edge-to-edge encounters in Japanese battles over the centuries, modern-day iaido, which is based on hundreds of years of battle, teaches us to avoid that situation whenever possible. Any iaidoka on this forum will likely have been exposed to a waza called Ukenagashi where you are taught to intercept your opponent's blade with the side of your own sword, & then let it slip off without doing any demage. I know seven different ways to perform Ukenagashi, so it must have been widely taught. Of course, there are a number of other waza where you do go edge-to-edge, but that's only to save your own butt. Third, Linda & I practice tameshigiri (practice cutting) on a number of materials including tatami omote (thick reed mats wrapped in a cylinder), bamboo, & combinations of those. My shinken (live sword - a sword with a sharp ha, rather than an unsharpenable iaito used in iaido practice) has cut through many hundreds of tatami omote targets wrapped aound bamboo to mimic the resistance of the human body, but other than some minor scratches caused by the silicon in the bamboo, there is absolutely zero damage. Hope this answers that part of your question Tiziano.

I wondered who outbid me on that blade. Looks pretty nice, Reinier. Congrats.

Superb Nihonto! I just wish I had your budget!

Rich, I think there would be quite a bit of publicity if modern swordsmiths were to test their blades, & I've certainly never heard of any of them doing so. I've privately tested a number of shinken for a friend of mine who manufactures them, & give him a written report based on how well each cuts in tameshigiri on tatame omote & bamboo, but that's not the same as a formal wazamono test. Which is good because of how Nihonto used to be tested. Here's an excerpt from an article that I found a few months ago: "Japanese swords have long been noted for their sharpness (wazamono) and cutting ability. In olden times this was judged by testing the cutting ability of the sword on bodies of condemned criminals. The practice of test cutting is called tameshigiri. The bodies were mounted on a cutting stand and specific cuts were made. The sword was judged on how many bodies were severed with each type of cut. In 1815 an article in the Kaiho Kenjaku ranked the cutting ability of approximately 200 swords by various Koto and Shinto smiths. The swords were ranked as: Saijo O-wazamono - (best cutting swords) O-wazamono - (excellent cutting swords) Ryo-wazamono - (very good cutting swords) Wazamono - (good cutting swords) Among the blades ranked saijo o-wazamono were swords by: Kanemoto I, Kanemoto II, Osafune Motoshige, Nagasone Kotetsu, Mutsu Tadayoshi, Sukehiro, Kunikane, and Okimasa. Among the blades ranked o-wazamono were swords by: Yasumitsu, Mino Kanesada, Osafune Sukesada, Higo Kuniyasu, Nobuyoshi, Kanewaka I, Omi Daijo Tadahiro, and Kaga Kanemori. Among the blades ranked ryo-wazamono were swords by: Norimitsu, Kanesada III, Kanabo Masazane, Tsunahiro, Tadamitsu, Katsumitsu, Masatoshi, Ujifusa, Tanba Yoshimichi, Sukenao, Yasutsugu, Korekazu, Yoshihiro, Hisamichi, Kunimune, and Naomichi. Among blades ranked wazamono were swords by: Kiyomitsu, Sukehiro, Tadakuni, Sadahiro, Masatsugu, Kuniyoshi, Kinmichi, Masahiro, Yoshimasa, Kunikiyo, Morikuni, Aizu Kunisada, and Tadayoshi. None of the great Koto masters were tested. Among blades not tested were swords by Soshu Masamune, Soshu Sadamune, Bizen Nagamitsu, and Ise Muramasa. Their swords were considered too valuable as historical art objects to risk damage by testing. Their swords have traditionally been considered among the finest blades ever made."

I was doing my daily eBay browsing, & came upon a tanto with the strangest hamon I've ever seen. Please check out the photos & tell me just what the swordsmith created. It's possible that the photographer didn't know what he was doing (I'm not all that impressed with his images), but otherwise the hamon in the middle of the blade has gone far above the shinogi almost to the mune. Am I seeing wrong?

Stephan Hiller & I had a similar problem about two months ago when I purchased a lovely wakizashi from him. It shipped from Germany to Hawaii, & took about five weeks to arrive.... We're still not sure where the extraordinary delay took place, but it was likely U.S. Customs. But believe me, Customs' computer systems are not very helpful! One of my fellow Rotarians is the head of Hawaii Customs, & even using his in-house system, he was unable to locate or track the wakizashi shipment. It just magically disappeared - only to reappear equally magically at my office over a month later with absolutely no explanation from anyone. Stephan had already started an insurance claim on the blade, while my wife & I were really upset that we had lost a nice addition to our collection. There was no Customs form in the box, although it had obviously been opened, probably more than once. Stephan ships Nihonto worldwide all the time, & he said this was by far the longest a package had taken to arrive. So no matter what you do, sometimes delivery is a crap-shoot!

A very interesting article, Barry. Didn't know you were a physicist. I looked through some my old chemical engineering references, & found several different phase diagrams for iron/carbon, none of which were the same as in the article. I guess that science has progressed a tad farther in 40 years. It's definitely a different look at what swordsmiths have been doing by "feel" for over a thousand years.

I knew Bob was working on a "secret project" the last time I was over at his house, but had no idea that it was with you, Darcy. Small world! If you're looking for a proofreader for Nihonto technical details, then I'm probably not experienced enough. But I've co-authored a number of technology books, & have published over 200 technical articles over the years, so I'm fairly adept at finding syntactical & other errors. If I find enough errors, will you give me a free set of your books? Oh, & if any of you happen to use AutoCAD, I'm one of its authors, too.

Speaking as a Chemical Engineer with 44 years experience, just about any alcohol (chemical name will end in "ol," i.e, ethanol, isopropanol, etc.) will clean most greases & oils. You don't need "pure" or "100%" anything. These liquids do contain water, because ALL alcohols will pick up water from the air faster than you would believe. So, yes, as soon as you've cleaned your nagasa you should immediately add a thorough coat of oil (choji works fine). If you have to go to more powerful solvents for some reason (the only situation I can think of would be a coating of shellac from badly-dried oils), you can certainly use xylene. The caveat is that xylene is a possible carcinogen, explosive around sparks & open flames, & not a good thing to breathe or get on your skin. So be smart & do your sword cleaning outdoors, carefully using a small cloth that you can throw away, & wearing gloves that will probably get partially dissolved. Don't get paranoid around chemical solvents, just think about what you're doing. If you get xylene on you, just go wash it off - it's not going to eat your skin. And of course don't splash any of these solvents in your eyes, drink them, or anything else that common sense tells you is bad.

Guido, I've been puzzling over that system for many years - thank you for clarifying a lot of my questions!! I hope that you will post more of this explanation as you finalize it, as I'm sure it will be useful for many of us. (BTW, the correct spellings are "restoration" [first paragraph] & "governors" [last paragraph]).

As I understand the term "(no) Kami," it could also refer to a title that the local lord bestowed on the smith. I'm not sure that made things any clearer, though....

FYI, I sent the seller an e-mail asking many of the abovementioned questions, but have gotten no response at all. From my prior experience with him, I would also advise passing on this blade.

Nah. Can't you see the blood stains, Henry?

Well, the hamon definitely looks Bizen, Scott, although I don't recall ever seeing a bo-hi that went quite so far into the nakago. And I'm wondering just what happened on the mune/hi area; kinda' weird-looking. No sign of yasurime that I can see, where I would expect either kiri or katte sagari. Something about that bothers me. I've dealt with that seller once, with okay results. He sold me a wakizashi that wasn't exactly as advertised, but immediately refunded my money when I complained, including shipping. Not much more you can ask -- other than getting me what I wanted in the first place, of course. :D

It has a very lovely & interesting hamon, Anthony. I hope that someone can make a positive identification of the smith, because I'd love to find a tanto just like it! If that's a kitchen knife, I want a whole set!! Can you please tell me where you found &/or bought it? And the approximate price? Thanks!

Umm, Reinier, I live about 20 meters away from the Pacific Ocean with strong onshore tradewinds almost all the time, so I definitely understand both humidity & blowing salt. But not taking a look at your sword because you don't yet have choji oil is really overkill. Remember that your blade has likely been through a lot more humidity, dust, dirt, & possibly blood than it's going to see in your hands (or so I hope!). I do keep our Nihonto in a case with a dry-wand, but take them out at least a few times each month to admire or examine, which is why I think any of us collect them. I add a bit of choji oil once a month or when I've handled them for any length of time. But trust me that steel is not going to rust very quickly unless you do something really dumb (sprinkle with acid, dip into salt water, leave covered with blood). Just go & enjoy it!!

The rust pattern isn't at all consistent, either, so I doubt that it's "real" by Nihonto standards. The mei also looks almost too perfect, even if I can't translate it. I wonder why anyone would try to disguise/mimic/masquerade a sword with an otherwise authentic-looking nagasa?

Just to add my two yen, my wife & I both practice MJER iaido using standard zinc-beryllium iaito, & we're certainly used to their weight after many years of swinging them. So when we started tameshigiri a few years ago, we were both a bit surprised that the modern-day folded-steel shinken ("live blades") are so much heavier. We're also both engineers, so we carefully weighed & measured the blades. My shinken, which is exactly the same length as my iaito (2-4-5, or two shaku, four sun, five bu), weighs 17 ounces more. That's obviously because of the steel blade instead of the Zn-Be alloy, so no big surprise. The balance of the shinken is about two inches forward of that of the iaito, probably because it's made to do physical cutting (rather than the virtual opponents we slice & dice in iaido). But what was really interesting was when Linda bought her Showato katana last week for jodo practice. It weighs four ounces more than even her shinken, although it's about 3.5 inches shorter. So we measured the thickness of the blade at the nakago & along the nagasa, but both were slightly smaller than the shinken. So the only conclusion we can draw is that the Showato steel itself is more dense than modern-day steels. The iaito & katana both balance in almost exactly the same place, thank goodness, so her forearm will just have to get used to the weight difference. I haven't quite wrapped my brain around that one.... So if anyone has ideas on steel density, please comment.

You know, Rich, I've been on Rich Turner's Web-site a thousand times, but never noticed that set of links.... Thanks! I did notice that I've already visited about half of his links, but I can see a bunch of really interesting new places to visit. And another database to play with, oh, boy!! How does ToShow compare/cross-reference to Hawley's?

Thanks, Rich. My wife keeps saying that we just have to learn Kanji, but even with my detailed dictionary in front of me, along with a few cheat-sheets specifically on Kanji for mei, I get only about 10% of my guesses correct.... I see the three smiths in Hawley's, but what is "ToShow?"