1kinko

Thanks Piers, I should have looked it up in Sesko by motif, the first character is so different from the written kanji, I gave up. Ford took as quick look at this but didn’t have anything nice to say about it. Nevertheless, good enough for me to learn from and not $20,000! So, probably gimei?

No idea where to begin. I tried the Kanji Learners Dictionary. Next step maybe flash cards? I’ve got at least 3 more and one confirmation or gimei to go.

Thanks again- I’m lost without you guys.

I spent the last 3 days trying (once again) to understand kanji at the most basic level, and failed once again. I’ve got 4 more these. Please bear with me.

Whatsa matta Baba, didn’t she consult you? Or just none of the conspiracies your thrive on?

That’s basically how kozuka are made. Once the sides have been soldered together the carving begins- but any work on the outside will bend the outside shape unless it’s filled with pitch that gets rock hard. You can use steel inside but after the carving is complete you may find there was some compaction after all and you can’t get the steel out! So I fill the kozuka with liquid pitch and then insert a wooden kozuka and burn it out when I’m finished. Pitch holds very well.

So they’re free, just postage?

Ah yes, a combination of my fingers on iPhone and iPhones wonderful spell check! Thanks for the corrections. At least I got the numbers right, huh?

Nihonzashi.com posted a table of grit and particle sizes. The following are in microns. honyama awasi (brown stone)- 1 karasu (blue stone)- 2 uchigunori- 3 ao-to )blue stone)- 6 koma natural- 15 chu natural- 25 binsui coarse- 60 arato- 110 Tsushima-do wasn’t listed.

There were a bunch at $2000. The Ishiguro eagles I posted weren’t priced but one of Mike’s said somewhere around $22,000.

As you know borax will change the pH. Some also add an acid. Some years ago posted that he had found the perfect recipe to create black shakudo and red copper- but he didn’t share his secret. I still don’t know what alum actually does.

I finally found the % As- 0.5%. Also, you need CuSO4 for the patina. Some also add a pinch of alum- though I don’t know what it does. In my hands, shakudo takes about 30-45 minutes to darken. You can take it out if the bath but do not let it dry until you are satisfied. Place it in H2O d to view it.

The shakudo recipe Ford gave me is 1.5% Au, 1% Ag, some As (can’t locate this percentage just now- I use kuromido), and the rest Cu. Above 3% there’s no change in blackness. Nowhere near 37.6%. Yikes!

Thanks for the link! I have some mystery natural stones that I need to sort by cutting, slurry, and hardness.

I thought the mine was flooded and closed quite a while ago. If that really is Tsushima-do, that’s a very good price. I bought quite a bit of it about 10 years ago and it cost more then. Tsushima-do also cuts very well on soft metals, much faster than scotch stone, so be careful. Charcoal powder does take a long time and it’s messy, but if you’re concerned about damaging your piece, you might want to try it with a horse hair brush (used to be Japanese woman’s hair). The nice part about these brushes is that penetrate evenly, not just on the top surface (they also get into the katakiri cuts).

That was quick! Thanks a bunch. I guess it’s time for me to buy kanji flash cards…

One more, similar. My taste revealed!

I usually take a bunch of photos, but only ended up with a few this year. This was the best, but way beyond my means- so I’ll have to up my skills with an accurate utsushi.

Here’s another shot with better contrast and the top not cut off-

I just bought a kozuka at the NCJSC show in San Francisco. I will try to upload what I think is a pretty good photo of the signature, but I can’t understand how to get Desqueeze to go to my photos, so this bay exceed the pixel requirement. Here goes-

Maybe for chronic viral infections and some cancers, but there were no citations concerning contact dermatitis or urushiol. I gave up a few years ago and I see nothing new has been developed since Hapten Research at Ole Miss thought they had a vaccine that might work. That was back in 2015-2019 when they predicted a vaccine might be available by 2024, but a Google Scholar search reveals no published papers (either old or new). This strongly suggests they were unsuccessful. In 2021 a (short) Scientific American article reviewed the available research and noted that interleukin 33 is also involved.

I’ve read that too, but it makes no biological sense.

If that were true, urushiol would be the 1st allergen to not induce t-cells.

Only about 8-9% of the population is not allergic to urushiol. I am allergic but I thought I could get around it by wearing gloves. I also completely covered my arms and chest with plastic sheeting. I never had direct contact with usushi. I turned bright red for about a week and even the bottom of my feet itched. The only relief was to take a very hot, nearly scalding, shower. Apparently, I was exposed by inhalation. Cashew is a much better lacquer than western black lacquers.

If you are at all allergic to poison ivy, working with urushi will be a big mistake. If all you want is a black lacquered saya, cashew lacquer will do just fine. It is really aromatic and should be done outside, but you can add dried urushi granules for an ishime finish or polish it for a high gloss. It dries very quickly and makes a very hard finish. There are premixed shitogi undercoats as well. Many other colors are available.