nulldevice

Traditionally, ibota powder (secretion of a cicada) is used. It's kind of hard to source and comes in a powdered form. Darcy seemed to be a proponent of bees wax as its easier to source and apply. But there aren't a lot of articles specifically covering the application of ibota, bees wax, etc. that I can find. Hopefully some more members can chime in but this has also come up in discussion as many people will get a sayagaki put on their shirasaya and people are looking for a way to refinish their shirasaya again after having a sayagaki added.

Technically its all rust. The darker rust is the more stable form Fe3O4 or Iron 2 Oxide whereas the red rust is Fe2O3 or Iron 3 Oxide which is the more volatile rust that we want to avoid. Darcy is a proponent of oiling the nakago to prevent further degradation (Yuhindo - Oil Your Nakago). On an o-suriage mumei blade like this, a light coat wouldn't be a bad idea. Just make sure to use separate tissues when applying oil to the nakago vs the blade so you don't get rust or dirt particles that scratch the polish on the blade.

Did the inclusion of utsuri in blades decline because of lack of necessity or due to a lack of capability? We see a big decline in the overall quality of swordmaking in the mid-end of the Muromachi period before a revival again beginning in the peaceful edo period. This can be seen clearly in our modern lens just by tracking which periods of blades have the most Juyo+ swords out there. The need for swords was still presumably very high during the warring states era as there was fighting all over the country and we see many surviving swords from this period showing that swordmaking didn't stop, but that the average quality was lower. Is it possible that over the ~200 years or so spanning the end of the Oei period (1394) to the beginning of the edo period starting around Keicho in 1596 that some traditions were lost? Edit: I would love to see some older documents from the Edo period, if they exist, discussing utsuri. Aesthetically, its very pleasing to modern collectors. But I quickly reach the end of my knowledge regarding polishing techniques in the 1600s being able to showcase utsuri, mention of utsuri in general, and if it was a desirable thing for swordsmiths to pursue in their artistic endeavors. I feel like I could probably find some answers in older surviving Hon'ami documents, or commentaries on family collections that have been passed down for generations.

I was in Oregon all last week and was thinking "If only there was a Rain Dragons meeting, I could sneak away!" Hope you can find a good group of collectors out there Sam!

Wishing you all the best on this Hoshi! I've really enjoyed your input on topics and comments of mine here on NMB in the past. Your knowledge has been incredibly insightful and has taught me a lot. The photography is amazing. Was this done with a scanner or with a DSLR type camera?

It paid off, those pictures are much better and show off the hamon quite nicely.

Osawa Kanehisa Saku 大澤兼久作 He was a WW2 Seki smith and you can read up more on him here

You can see that someone with the same name and email has been active on many different blade, cymbal, music, and other forums going back years now and that the poster has a very unique writting/commenting style that is consistent across the years, forums, and disciplines being discussed. Going even further, you can find social media accounts tied to the same person and email as well. People will post way too much about their personal lives on the internet and with some google searching, you can dig up quite a bit on people without too much effort. Combining this information, you can start to piece together a map of someone's hobbies, family, profession, and much more depending on what they choose to share. I don't want this to sound creepy, but that's the nature of things these days. Of course Brian could look at the IP addresses of this account and others to see if there are any matches. Someone who willingly divulges full names, emails, and location is probably not using a VPN if I had to make an assumption. I wouldn't ask Brian to divulge that information anyways as that is now bordering on abusing admin privileges in my opinion. Everything else I found, was done in about 5 minutes and a few carefully crafted google searches. Based on all of the above, I would say with fairly high confidence, that the gmail account is legit, the person is who they say they are, and that they have a sister who is a professor (hint hint, you can search all of this stuff too and confirm all of it). As they say, there is 0 privacy on the internet. Sincerely, Someone who does stuff like this a lot for a living

I guess a good question to ask is, do you see a clear boshi in person when inspecting the sword? If you can see the boshi you're trying to photograph, it makes the photography much easier as you'll know what you're looking for. Someone else here mentioned drawing an oshigata of what you see and then you can compare that to your photos.

Is that last photo showing maybe some of a boshi? Since the kissaki is small, you don’t want the direct glare in the photo. Usually you can see the boshi best with the glare (direct reflection) just off the blade and having the angle just right to see the temper line where it transitions to the tip. Some blades have a boshi that runs very close and may be touching the cutting edge or they may have a reshaped kissaki where the boshi runs off indicating previous damage to the tip that was reshaped.

Photos of the Boshi can be difficult. Having the blade laying flat on a cloth in a table and then having a portable light source such as a table lamp that you can position and then angle your photos is probably the next bet. Capturing high resolution photos will also aid in identifying the boshi pattern.

Congratulations, looks like a very nice blade with a strong sugata reminiscent of the era

Echizen ju Shimosaka Omi no kami fujiwara Tsuguhiro 越前住下坂 近江守藤原繼廣 From Fujishiro: Tsuguhiro was a fairly high ranked sword smith from the late 1600s. I can't speak to the authenticity of the mei (signature).

Here's my nerdy IT guy routine if a site I visit regularly doesn't load: 1. Try site normally 2. Try same site in private browser (incognito mode), this will clear out cookies, saved passwords, and all of the other information your browser stores that sometimes can cause issues 3. Try site on my phone with wi-fi off so I'm on a different network and IP 4. Do a nslookup to see if there are any glaring DNS record issues 5. Try a VPN connection from a different city If all of this fails, I usually assume an issue on the host-side and not my side. This site is managed behind Cloudflare and sometimes you'll get error messages stating if there are issues on the host side. I haven't experienced issues yet but if you see some Cloudflare page, its likely a host issue and not an issue on your side. Rebooting a computer is always a go-to as well, especially if it's been a long time. It's pretty much the golden rule in tech to "turn it off and on again" and even in 2025 when everything is cloud based and automated beyond belief, this is still often a fix for random issues that come up! However, if the site isn't loading on my phone, VPN, or home internet connection, its unlikely to be a tech issue on my side.

There isn't an accompanying oshigata on that page in the books.