OceanoNox

Indeed, if made-to-order prices (or some that I have seen) are anything to go buy, the new tsuba could end up at least half the price of a gendaito. The only place where you might have a chance at ordering a tsuba now remains Japan, but I have no idea about the price (as far as I know Paul Martin might be able to contact craftsmen for such an order). On the topic of price, Kawami Norihisa has cited Alessandro Valignano who wrote that lord Otomo Sourin bought an iron tsuba for the equivalent of 4500 ducats. Swords would be bought for the equivalent of 3000~6000 ducats. Some conversions give the value of a 16th century ducat to about 148 USD. So the price of the tsuba was about 666,000 USD and the price of swords was in the range of 444,000~888,000 USD (due to how money was handled in the caste system, this may be a useless conversion).

Here are some thoughts. ● I think it was mentioned in an old thread, but maybe not quite clearly: The poem that is engraved on some skull tsuba akin to "being under crossing swords is hell, one step forward is paradise". There is a variation in a book written by a Mr. Hayashi (鐔―意匠と技の美, 林 盈六, 2012), where it says "being under crossing swords is hell, just keep cutting and then is paradise" (切り結ぶ太刀の下こそ地獄慣れ　ただに切れ切れ先は極楽). I am not sure why those poems are associated with bleached skulls on some tsuba, but they are apparently known in kendo, where there is a concept of sutemi (throwing the body/life away): the idea being that trying to not get cut will get you killed, and committing to the attack will allow you to win. ● The tsuba you posted seems to fit the Ono no Komachi theme. An earlier post referenced also an aname tsuba (tsuba with a plant growing through the eye socket of a skull): I think aname means simply that "eye hole", as it is said that the wind blowing through it makes a sound like Ono no Komachi's wailing. Her spirit also complains of the pain in the eye due to the pampas grass growing out of the socket. The stories mention that she used to be beautiful and popular, but as she aged and became poor, she returned to her birthplace, but died outside (the words I saw were 野垂れ死に, dying a dog's death). ● This is not quite relevant, but it reminds me of a French comic book titled "Kogaratsu": in one story, he meets a noble lady who murders her way into succeeding a lord, and the protagonist opposes that a fair battle would have been a better way (to avoid being found out, she murders a lot of people to make it look like a maniac). She replies that the men would certainly have enjoyed battle, and calls the samurai's honour and fame "the rattles that please men so much". This seems also close to the Basho poem, that was cited by @Baka Gaijin in the old post, that I copy below: 夏草や 兵どもが 夢の跡 Natsukusa ya Tsuwamonodomo ga Yume no ato The summer grasses— For many brave warriors The aftermath of dreams. ⇒ I think the translation loses meaning, because the kanji 跡, means trace or ruin (as in castle ruins). This shows much more the futility of trying to rise in the world by strength of arms.

I think it's 地五九.

I have looked at tsuba measurements in online collections (MET, etc.) and for Edo period, the average mimi thickness is 4.8mm, the average height is 76mm, and the average width is 73mm (this is the value for the top of the bell curve (distribution) for each measurement). The overall size of tsuba decreased since Muromachi period, and tosho and kachushi tsuba are usually much bigger (85 to 98mm in diameter, but also thinner mimi in general). N.B.: I took all the iron tsuba of Edo period together (labeled them as "sukashi").

I have checked several sources, such as the "Tsuba" book by Ogasawara, and the opinions vary a lot, but mainly two camps: hand protection versus slip prevention. Sasano is in the later, arguing (correctly) that thrusts are better at bypassing armour (but somehow forgetting all the koryu teachings of cutting "inside" the armour, i.e. armpits, inside the arms, inner thighs, and the use of half-swording for close-distance thrusting), nevermind the fact that the tachi and uchigatana are thought to be an evolution from the straight blades and thus a focus on slashing rather than thrusting, hence little need for slip prevention (especially in tachi with such a large and "weird" curvature). My in-laws took me there about two years ago. It was very interesting to see the place, although I expected it to be a deeper cave. It does show how far Musashi was from the world. I had always the impression that swords with minimal guard for use on the battlefield were usually paired with a shield, hence a minimal need for additional protection. The swords used in WW2 do not, I expect, require hand protection, as most opposing troops would not have swords. This is a point in the "War and tsuba" book by Nagaoka (1942) where he states that "large tsuba would be a hindrance against foreigners as they do not use swords" (from memory, might be wrong). But it is also correct that the early katana (as a companion to the tachi) were, or so I have understood from academic papers, without tsuba and more akin to the wakizashi or the tanto in size and purpose.

I will be getting a bit off topic, but I remain in the camp that thinks tsuba were (or should be) hand protection. Sasano (in the Origin of tousougu book) also says that the namako tsuba doesn't look like it would work as hand protection. The issue is that it remains an opinion based on a feeling (there is another one in a MET article where a delicate sukashi tsuba is said to be strong against sword blows, again without ANY supporting evidence). I always remember that the additional hand protection on longswords was a ring or pair of rings, quite similar in aspect to this namako tsuba, and they are usually lauded as effective.

This is pretty interesting. I only skimmed the book I mentioned, so it may have been explained there as well. One of the teachings in the Muso Shinden Jushin Ryu (and Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu and Muso Shinden Ryu), is something akin to "6 sun from the tsuba", i.e. "attack the (right) wrist". On a lighter note, in the movie Sword of desperation (2010), the protagonist uses his sword tip to snag his opponent's tsuba and uses that to force his opponent's sword into a beam.

Here I come again about this already dead horse. I was in Kumamoto today, and took the time to visit the Shimada art gallery (museum?) not too far from the castle (still very much under repair after the earthquake, only the keep is open, but it's air-conditioned now). The main interest was the (in)famous namako tsuba, and potentially Musashi's sword. Interestingly, there were conflicting information. The tsuba is 79mm high and 78mm wide (thickness unknown, but maybe in the 4mm range) with a weight of 83g (indicated on a reproduction made to feel its lightness). ① The museum itself claims that Musashi either made the tsuba or liked it very much. The text seemed to hint at the twin namako being a possible image for the two swords. But more than that, the main point was that the tsuba needed to be light to allow for a more nimble use of the sword. This seems to contradict the fact that lighter tsuba will put the sword balance towards the tip.At the same time, Tsukahara Bokuden did write that overly heavy tsuba were a hindrance when cutting. The large sukashi on this tsuba is also in contradiction with the Suzubayashi ruisan (鈴林類纂) which was cited by Sasano in his "Origin of tousougu" book, where large sukashi are to be avoided to prevent being stabbed through the tsuba. Unfortunately, there is nothing about this in Musashi's writing, but some contemporary paintings of him show the namako tsuba on his sword. I would personally say that it seems unlikely that a thrust would hit the tsuba instead of anything else (while there are enough instances where a slash would end up against a tsuba). ※ About Musashi's niten ichi ryu, it is also interesting that many people harp about its simultaneous use of two swords (quite literally, as the kata show both swords usually swung at the same time), but most of the kata are for single sword (long or short). ② A book about Musashi-related items (in particular his artistic creations) states the tsuba at the Shimada art gallery is likely made by a Higo craftsman. Interestingly, it seems the reigning Hosokawa in Musashi's time also made his own namako tsuba, although a bit more geometric. ③ The sword supposedly owned by Musashi, and succinctly called "Yoshioka giri" (Yoshioka cutter?), was a mumei Kaneshige sword, apparently a shortened odachi. The displayed blade was polished and featured a groove, but it is unclear when the groove was added. I couldn't see scars on the blade. Overall a mixed bag: it was quite interesting to actually see some of the items attributed to him, but I felt I left with more questions than answers: I wasn't able to get any shred of evidence for the tsuba or the blade actually being Musashi's.

I am not sure how this sandwich style would be processed, but in the process of making mokumegane, you have to make a mille-feuille of your different metals. The traditional process as I understood it is to heat just below the melting point, and hit the whole block with a hammer, and then work gently from there. However the process is that of solid diffusion, that is atoms from each metal sheet will diffuse into the neighbouring sheet (that has a lower concentration of atoms, so gold would move from shakudo to pure copper). Adding pressure should remove the voids that form naturally as the diffusivity of the atoms are not the same (if gold moves faster than copper, then the gold would leave voids) (this is the Smigelskas-Kirkendall void, apologies for any spelling mistakes). The end result is a solid block. The parameters are temperature, pressure, and time. If the process has failed, you could almost see lines with voids and oxides where the two original sheets met. Additionally, since this is a diffusion process, it should mean that there is less and less gold and any other alloying elements of the shakudo as you get closer to the copper. If anyone is interested, there is an article about shakudo by Prof. Oguchi in 1983 (https://link.springe....1007/BF03214636.pdf) where the composition for varying shakudo grades are given (also for Edo and Meiji eras). There are recipes for niiro, both in research articles available online and in books written by Japanese craftsmen, but it is unclear how each should be adapted to a specific alloy. Although the recent articles do clarify what is the role of daikon (apparently the breaking down of the cells of the daikon allow the formation of Allyl isothiocyanate, in the case of copper, which promote the formation of CuO).

Yes, that's what I was saying in my message. The furnace is in fact connected to an argon gas bottle, but I fear the furnace door is not well sealed when closed. Since I did not know the chemical composition and the final treatment of the steel, I opted for the higher temperature to obtain at least soft ferrite, at the risk of grain growth (I could check the grain size from the cutouts of the namako tsuba). In the end, it didn't matter because I had to repolish my chisels several times (which might be an issue with the chisels themselves). This soft steel/iron is not un-historical, as in a previous article, iron tsuba were measured with a Vickers hardness ranging from 77 up to 230, so very much in the range for annealed iron to well-worked iron or low-C steel (鐔集成, 中村鉄青, 1963, pp.20-26, available at the National Diet Library digital collection) (For reference, the Vickers hardness of well annealed pure iron is 60, and 90% cold-rolled pure iron has a Vickers hardness of about 224). A professor I met did a tatara project in his lab with his students, a one-time experiment to teach them the difficulty of producing steel. It might be possible for me to organize something like that if I can link it with research or education in my university, but we are also very much trying to work on low-carbon topics, so even with low-smoke charcoal, I am not sure if that would go through. I might try to find a blacksmith, but again, my personal funds for such projects are low, so it might remain on the wishlist for a while.

I misused the words, but the meaning was straight scribed lines in an exploding pattern. Thank you for joining, Ford. In my case, I don't have access to (char)coal or gas furnace, only an electric oven. So annealing was done at 1000℃ for about an hour in the steel case. Because the atmosphere control is not good, there is quite a lot of scale, and for some reason the tsuba blanks end up looking like partially melted metal on the surface. If I could, I would try to get scrap metal to do oroshigane, but alas, time, equipement, and ability are limited.

Unfortunately, I cannot upload both sides at the moment (because I haven't taken photos of them). At the very least, I can tell you that the skull tsuba and the gunbai tsuba are quite heavy, while the other are very light. I haven't mounted them on a sword yet, so I cannot confirm that the mimi will snag anything or not (or any other part).

Oh, now I understand better! Thank you again for taking the time to write it down.

Carlos, thank you for you insight and comments. Indeed yasurime should be done with a file! I will try next time to make them deeper. Also, and this especially true for the uchikaeshi mimi, I have not always taken the sharp edges off. For sukashi, I usually try to scrape at a 45 degree angle. I have to admit that I did not even try to do an actual utsushi. But if I get better, I would try to emulate some nice iron tsuba (I do enjoy the kachushi tsuba). Could you elaborate, please? I am not sure to follow, do you mean the angle between two faces? (such as the mimi being completely square?). By the way, I apologize for the side pictures, but the details did not come out too well when taking them straight on (you cannot see the skull or the writing for example). Thank you again for the recommendations. At the moment, I have watched Ford's youtube channel, and also borrowed several books from the library on such topics.

There have been a few posts about homemade tsuba recently, and while I am worried about starting a trend that it is quite in line with the aim of this sub-forum, I am at a loss for educated opinions. Since I do iaido, I have been increasingly interested in tosogu. And while flashy koshirae is frowned upon in my federation (ZNKR), I have been wanting to personalize my own sword. Unfortunately, I cannot afford the prices of the craftsmen that do made-to-order work, and I dislike the tsuba sold on martial arts websites (I have been wanting very specific decorations or themes). Thus I would like to ask your opinions on what I have produced, and what points you deem more work is necessary. More info about the aim behind each tsuba: Namako tsuba: There was a similar tsuba in the book 刀装具大全 (I think), but the tsuba was more elongated, and the lightning on the rim was made of silver like staples interlocking. I am not good enough for such zogan (although it was unclear whether it was nunome or sen zogan), so I made the crenelation pattern. Gunbai tsuba: My in-laws family crest. I tried to do amida yasurime with a scriber, but didn't take into account the effect of the patination, so if anything, the effect is too subtle. Skull tsuba: This is very inspired by a tsuba in a book by Mr. Hayashi, where the text is 切り結ぶ太刀の下こそ地獄なれ　ただに切れ切れ先は極楽 (which is a variation on a famous saying in Japanese sword arts, except the end is usually "step forward"). I tried to make a stone-like finish, but I have overdone it on the omote. Octopus tsuba: This is the second version of this design, trying to have the octopus grabbing the mimi. Pure copper, with rokusho patination. All the material was simply bought online, I am not even quite sure what the steel composition is. The work was done exclusively by hand (even the holes with a hand drill). All tsuba are 80mm in diameter, and between 3.5 and 4mm in thickness. The steel tsuba all have uchikaeshi mimi (which I realized later looks nice, but might ruin my right thumb during iaido). The patination for the steel tsuba was made with a solution found in a book about traditional coloration techniques in Japan (some clay, copper sulfate, rokusho, and salt). PS: If this post is considered out of the bounds of this forum, I will happy to delete or move it to the izakaya.

This may warrant a whole new topic, but reading an introduction to a book by Akutagawa, I remember that in literature also, in Japan at least, "copying" was seen as an homage rather than plagiarism. I have been now wondering if the focus is less on originality and more on quality and execution of a design.

The urushi coating process appears to take more than 20 steps, with sufficient drying in a "muro" (humid chamber free of dust). Last time I had a saya made, it took one month, and it was a "simple" ishime finish. There is an interesting article on one urushi technique: The Kyushitsu technique demonstrated on a natsume, by Shogyo Ohba (Proceedings of the urushi study group, The Getty Conservation Institute, 1985) About your questions, as far as I have seen, kurikata are covered with urushi, but I do not know if the process is the same as for the rest of the saya. Unless you know what you are doing, I'd recommend against working on this saya by yourself, but you can always try your hand on a piece of wood to see what effect you can get.

Hi Dale, thank you for the reply. This is indeed very interesting, and a deeper subject than I expected. I had, naively perhaps, thought that kacchushi tsuba would not have such complex processing method as fukurin (I actually expected, conversely to what the article states, that uchikaeshimimi was the dominant style).

I have found recently some old articles on the National Diet Library (I had to register, but it took less than a week). One article was published in 1954 in the journal "Museum" from the National Museum of Tokyo, by a Mr. Sato (Museum, 東京国立博物館編, 通号36, 1954-03, 佐藤貫一). He writes that most kacchushi tsuba have a dotemimi (土手耳) and the other prominent style is uchikaeshimimi (打返耳). From my understanding, the uchikaeshi is like a mushroom in cross-section, and the dotemimi looks like thickness was left on the tsuba mimi. My questions are: ➀ Is my understanding of the shape correct? ② How were they produced? Just by the shape and name, it seems the uchikaeshimimi was made simply by hitting the mimi towards the center of the tsuba until it flared. But I am not sure about the dotemimi: Did they carve the center of the tsuba to make the center thinner and leave the thicker mimi? Did they forge the center until it was uniform and thinner than the mimi? Or was a process similar to the uchikaeshi but with some heating and possibly carving involved to obtain the resulting shape? ※ The amount of old documents available for free after registration was mind boggling. I also found a book from 1963 (鐔集成 by 中村鉄青) where they did hardness testing on over 50 tsuba (the Vickers hardness varied wildly from about 77HV to more than 200HV, which is in line with some of the data gathered by Savage and Smith, implying that the material ranged from relatively pure and annealed iron to heavily worked iron or mild steel).

The tanka of the chuden of Muso Shinden Ryu / Muso Shinden Jushin Ryu / Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu are interesting. They are supposed to let you feel the violence and speed of the kata they describe. There is a topic on Reddit: https://www.reddit.c...bout_mjer_msr_poems/ 横雲 深山にはあらし吹くらしみよし野の 華か霞か横雲のそら 虎一足 猛き虎の千里の歩み遠からず 行くより早く歸るあし引き 稲妻 もろともに光りと知れと稲妻の あと鳴雷の響知られず 浮雲 麓より吹上られし浮雲は 四方の高根を立包むなり 山颪 高根より吹下す風の强ければ 麓の木々に雪もたまらず 岩波 行舟のかちとり直す間もなきは 岩尾の浪の強く当れば 鱗返 瀧津なみ瀬登る鯉の鱗は 水関上て落る叓なし 浪返 あかし潟瀬戸越波の上にこそ 岩尾も岸もたまるものかは 瀧落 瀧津瀬の崩るゝ叓の深ければ 前に立添ふ岩もなきかな

There was a kakenhi (national research fund) project on analysis of molds found in Nara, which were used for casting brass fittings, in particular menuki. One of the casting methods is said to be pouring the liquid metal into the menuki shape imprinted in sand, giving a solid piece. Other methods imply having prepared both back and front imprint to cast a menuki that would be thin like one made by uchidashi. Project details: Project number: 研究課題番号：18H00015 Project title: 刀装具鋳型の三次元分析からみた近世鋳造技術の研究

Having tried to patinate a copper tsuba in an electric oven, this is consistent with the whole tsuba being heated "at once". The edges heat up faster and thus turn brown earlier (I think a research paper on the manufacture of copper oxide stated that the temperature for the reddish-brown oxide is in the 250~300℃ range). But this could be very well be intentional, and it does not mean the tsuba was in a fire incident.

I don't follow you, since the other posts (on Reddit) show almost a step by step process: there is no misdirection here, I do not think any processes or methods are hidden.

In the 12th century, and peaked in the 15th~16th centuries, as I understood he meant the tosho and kacchushi tsuba appeared in the 12th century. But I think Sasano in his book on the origin of tosogu (刀装具の起源, 1979) also claims that katana tsuba appeared in the Kamakura period (please correct me if wrong, I cannot check the book). They were making the swords already, the material was there. One of the points raised by Tressan is that tsuba have been misjudged in terms of age, with most people making them newer than they were, and a merchant named Hayashi making them much older than they could be (and Mr. Hayashi having died without publishing his work, his sources could not be checked).

Unfortunately, I have not been able to find the original paper by the Comte. It should be in the Bulletin de la Societe Franco-Japonaise de Paris, number 28 (XXVIII) of the year 1912 (possibly published in December). The BNF site has numbers 27 and 29, but not the one in the middle! Reading old articles, I have to say I am grateful for the updated norms in referencing sources, because sometimes in old journals, there isn't even a publication date: how can anyone find the origin of citations? And thank you for the scans of the collection pieces!