Help translating a Tsuba

[jlmeadowsjr]

I am asking for help translating this Tsuba. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

[John A Stuart]

Goshu Hikone ju Nyudo Soten sei 江州彦根住藻柄子入道宗典製 John

[jlmeadowsjr]

Thank you John, I really appreciate it.

[Jean]

James,

 

BTW, if you search the translation section, I think this has been translated at least a dozen imes :D .

[Pete Klein]

These were produced in vast numbers. It's not one of the first two generations from what I can see. They could be quite interesting.

[jlmeadowsjr]

Thank you everyone. I'm sorry Jean, I had an eye exam a few weeks ago and was told my eyes were 20/10. Within two weeks I needed tri-focals, evidently I absorbed chemicals into my skin which attacked my eyes for some reason. Can anyone suggest a book which will help in my translating?

[Brian]

As Pete said, these are mass produced. In fact, with those striations on the seppa-dai, I would have called "cast" but am not sure.

Someone thought enough of it to mount it and fill the ana.

 

Brian

[IanB]

Brian, Definitely cast, and I would suggest, complete with signature. Notice how the basic plate has been produced with the faces of all the figures missing. This is very obvious on the rear view at the four 'o clock position where the figure is holding a gunbai. He has neither head nor hand but there are the flattened areas to which soft metal pieces could be attached by soldering for subsequent carving to provide the missing anatomy.

Ian Bottomley

[Brian]

Ian,

Thanks for that info, which I had not seen or noticed before. That's very interesting. The plot thickens :D

 

Brian

[IanB]

Brian, Despite it being the season of goodwill to all, I think it would be fun to take on the role of a mischievous woodland sprite and give the tsuba buffs a frisson of disquiet during the festivities.

I have always taken the view that tsuba of this kind, that is basically most of those described as sukashi, were initially cast and then de-carburised by heating in iron oxide before being worked up. In answer to the shrieks of protest, I do accept that some were laboriously hacked out of a solid plate but I suspect not many. As for the so-called 'bones' which are often quoted as evidence that casting wasn't involved, the casting and subsequent processing would invariably create hard and soft regions that would wear at different rates, particularly where the tsuba rubbed against the clothing, and produce the effect. It would be interesting to see if the 'bones' effect is most often found on the inside edge of wakizashi tsuba, which would rub on the clothing much the time, as opposed to the outer edge or to katana tsuba which were generally worn rather more forward in the obi and less subject to rubbing.

The idea that an average tsuba maker would start with a solid plate and create such a complex design as this tsuba using drills, files and chisels just doesn't make sense - he had to make things for a price that gave him a living. Yes, there were great artists steeped in tradition who could gain the patronage of a rich daimyo enabling them to drill, chisel and file away for months or years. Without such financial security a tsuba maker using these techniques would collapse emaciated over their work bench. How many samurai could afford to pay for weeks or months of work on a tsuba as well as buying a blade, and paying for the other mounts - despite the supply being somewhat accumulative, not many I suspect. There was a sukashi Umetada tsuba pictured on NMB recently of uma blossoms. I have now seen three of these, all identical, one of which is in the Royal Armouries' collection. A microscope showed where tiny air bubbles had adhered in some of the crevices of the wax pattern used to make the mould. It is a beautiful tsuba with a rich brown patination, but there is no doubt it initially started life as a casting.

Ian Bottomley

[Brian]

Ian,

All I can really say to that is that I hope Ford has a large trout in his refrigerator right now.

:lol:

I am not sure I agree with the majority of sukashi works being cast. Look at all the Akasaka, Kyo-sukashi etc. They clearly show the cutouts having been done with whatever saw was available to them. I will have to go back into the NMB archives to read the discussion we had about casting. I know that Ford showed that casting wasn't possibly at that time..but will have to check those threads again.

 

Brian

[Pete Klein]

Here's a link to the real deal: http://www.edo8.jp/products/detail.php?product_id=7

 

This is not 'early' Soten School but by a later master. They did a lot of inlay and onlay work, attaching soft metals to the iron, along with gold and silver inlay accents.

[IanB]

Brian, I am curious as to what the evidence is that shows the cut-outs of an Akasaka or other sukashi tsuba was done with a saw. I will acknowledge that the cuts of Ito sukashi were done with some form of saw, probably one with a soft metal blade and an abrasive. However, the cuts in these tsuba are usually of limited length, a couple of inches at the most, but not the several feet of outline that many sukashi tsuba have. Remember also that if a saw is used, the width of the blade had to be less than the largest hole that can be drilled in the space to be sawn out. Also the wider the blade the larger the radius of the curves that can be cut.

There is no doubt that with modern piercing saw blades, making a sukashi tsuba is tedious but not difficult. It would also be possible by chain-drilling around the shapes to be removed and chiselling through the bits left between the holes, but producing all the holes with a spear drill would be a major task. To my knowledge there is no image of a tsuba maker that shows saws or sawing. Similarly, as far as I know, no such Edo period saw or blade survives. Maybe Ford can answer this, but is there any Edo period writings that describe the process of sawing metal?

In favour of casting is the fact that it would be the most economic method of making these tsuba. There is also the fact that there are a heck of a lot of cast tsuba out there and not all are modern. I had one which I gave away recently that was obviously cast but had gold inlay on it. I also quoted my observation on an Umetada tsuba. From these fact alone, we know that casting tsuba was done. We also know that tea kettles were cast and de-carburised so that the surface became malleable and could be chiselled. There is also the famous quote about putting tsuba in a mortar and bashing them with the pestle - choosing the tsuba that didn't break. Now, the mortar being referred to is a rice mortar, made of a section of tree trunk. Bashing an iron tsuba with a wooden pestle in a wooden mortar might bend it but not break it. It would however break a cast tsuba that has not been properly de-carburised.

Ian

[Jean]

I hope this theory is just a mistake of casting :D

[IanB]

Jean, No, it is a serious attempt to get to the bottom of the matter. Understanding how something has been made is fundamental in our appreciation of it. We can all appreciate the artistry of the tsuba maker, and by diligent study recognise the evolution of their designs, but unless we know how they produced them we only have part of the story. Whenever the matter of cast tsuba is raised the stock response is a pitying shake of the head and the reply 'no they weren't' - but nobody produces any evidence to negate the idea. I know it is difficult to prove a negative but it really seems that the idea has become an accepted 'fact' that mustn't be challenged. We all know the 'nail that sticks up proverb' - well hit me on the head with some evidence. I know some tsuba plates show de-lamination in the plane of the plate, but has anyone seen a sukashi tsuba with them? If they have it would prove the plate had been forged and then cut out. I also know that some chysanthemum tsuba are built up from forged seppa dai and rim joined by separate 'spokes' but these are not typical. So come on you tsuba collectors, look carefully at your treasures and find me an iron sukashi tsuba with forging striations in the rim running in the plane of the plate and stop me ranting.

Ian Bottomley

[Jean]

Suppose your theory is right, Ian :

 

- you have mentionned some tsuba which were obviously forged. Did you find the evidences you mentioned on these tsuba (not found on sukashi tsuba)

 

- if Higo/kyo sukashi/owari tsuba were casted, what would be the price impact on sukashi tsuba market, would it collapsed? Now, are the best sukashi tsuba artists only mold carvers and their value based on their ability to carve mold?

[IanB]

Jean, You make a very good point there. However, when it was shown that some renaissance artists almost certainly used a camera obscura, I don't think it dropped the price that much.

Ian B

[Jean]

Sure, if you are referring to Canaletto :D but they were the exceptions. Here we are talking about mass production, sukashi tsuba are not Venice, less details but should this hypothesis be true, it will be a tsunami in the tsuba collecting world.

[Pete Klein]

Here Ian:

 

 

This tsuba can be found at http://www.tetsugendo.com

[ROKUJURO]

..... it is a serious attempt to get to the bottom of the matter. Understanding how something has been made is fundamental in our appreciation of it. We can all appreciate the artistry of the tsuba maker, and by diligent study recognise the evolution of their designs, but unless we know how they produced them we only have part of the story. Whenever the matter of cast tsuba is raised the stock response is a pitying shake of the head and the reply 'no they weren't' - but nobody produces any evidence to negate the idea. .......I know some tsuba plates show de-lamination in the plane of the plate, but has anyone seen a sukashi tsuba with them? ....... look carefully at your treasures and find me an iron sukashi tsuba with forging striations in the rim running in the plane of the plate and stop me ranting.....

Ian,

 

this is a matter I have done and am still doing some research work in. An article about TEKKOTSU I wrote was printed in a JSSUS magazine. In short words, you are completely wrong.

 

I will try to explain some basics:

 

You cannot decarburize cast iron just by heating it up. You need high temperatures up to liquefaction to achieve this. This is how the industry used to convert raw cast iron into malleable iron or steel (Puddle steel) until about 1870. Carbon diffusion in steel is slow at temperatures below 1.000°C, and especially slow in cast iron.

 

Water kettles could probably have a signature chiselled on without being 'decarburized'. Cast iron is brittle, but not hard. No cast iron is malleable. Only the handles of kettles are forged.

 

Many SUKASHI TSUBA show chisel work traces on the insides of the SUKASHI and NAKAGO ANA. If you remember Ford's famous UTSUSHI video, you get an idea about how the artists used to work, and there is no great difference between soft metal TSUBA and iron TSUBA. The work progress on steel was/is admittedly somewhat slower. If I remember correctly, many AKASAKA TSUBA even show a SAN MAI welded construction in the plate, and traces of lamination are clearly seen on the rim of many other schools' TSUBA.

 

I have heard that the file was a relatively late invention in the Japanese crafts, but I can offer no date for that. Probably the early artists had stone files, but I have no proof for that either. But they had jigsaws with steel wires, which could cut steel with the addition of diamond powder and some oil on the wire. I have no pictures for that but some ITO TSUBA with long hairline cuts were made with these saws (unless the artists had a LASER cutter).

 

The idea of TEKKOTSU being produced by wear on clothes does not die out, it seems. There are some facts that suggest strongly it is impossible.

 

1. The so called 'bones' are not steel but iron. If wear was the cause of harder material standing out, it would have worn away the softer TEKKOTSU, but this would have taken thousands of years of permanent rubbing!

 

2. I have forged samples to produce TEKKOTSU and it is the iron (not the steel) that is more ductile and stands out of the metal matrix of a TSUBA plate.

 

3. Many TSUBA have been etched in the manufacturing process. Acids attack steel (with carbon content) easily while they work quite slowly on low C-content iron. So if TEKKOTSU was not produced by forging alone but by etching, again the iron stands out while the steel is etched away.

 

4. Making a mold and casting something like a fine KYO SUKASHI TSUBA in steel is very probably more work than cutting it out with chisels. Today with refined techniques this is still a lot easier. In general, casting makes no sense unless you have a mold which can be re-used to produce large numbers of cheap TSUBA for decoration only.

 

5. There are many TSUBA design books and sketch papers known. What would be their use if TSUBA were cast?

 

Maybe Ford's competence is more convincing than mine, so I really hope he will join in the discussion.

[Pete Klein]

http://www.ksky.ne.jp/~sumie99/tekkotsu.html Interesting reading.

 

I have for some time now wondered if the early tsuba we see with tekkotsu were made from the remnants of sword forging, where both high and low carbon steel were admixed. The high carbon steel would be harder and with wear stand out as, 'bones', or might possibly 'float', for lack of a better word, to the surface in yaki-ire as with Kanayama, early Owari and some Yamakichibei tsuba, where they appear to have been heated to almost floppy molten.

 

BONUS POINT: where is the best area of most tsuba to see tekkotsu??? ... and why???

[Brian]

I'm not buying the "clothes rubbing against tsuba wear away the soft part" bit. Never have never will.

The idea that rubbing an iron/steel tsuba with silk or cotton lightly will eventually wear away enough metal to show "bones" is not a credible one imho. Those of us who carry a firearm daily under a t-shirt...after 10 years, maybe some of the bluing is wearing a bit thin. No metal loss. Even after 100 years, I don't believe you are going to get significant metal loss.

Maybe accellerated rust would do it, but I think that tekkotsu come from some other phenomenon besides wear against clothes. They were either there when made, or aren't there at all.

Just my opinion. I hope Ford does comment on this, as he has some good points to make about the whole cast tsuba/tekkotsu thing.

 

Brian

[IanB]

Brilliant! Thank you Peter for the image of the tsuba. At last proof that this tsuba was produced from a forged plate. We now have an answer and I climb down and bow my head to that one. I must now start trying to cut holes in iron with a drill and chisel.

On the subject of decarburisation of cast iron see 'Iron and Steel in Ancient China' by Donald B. Wagner, section 7.3.4. where he describes the technique of heating the object in a sealed vesssel with fire scale at various temperatures between 723 and 910 C. In that range there is no oxidation of the metal surface, just the gradual loss of carbon which diffuses out. He quotes an example of an artefact from a tomb of around 110 B.C. made of cast white cast iron that was subsequently decarburised at about 950 C. Sectioning showed that the carbon loss had penetrated to some 2mm from the surface and he calculates the process took 2.4 days. Hence a tsuba 4mm thick would be largely decarburised in 2 - 3 days of heating. Feasible if done in batches.

As for wear on the edges of tsuba, the image below is of one of my tsuba, 3.88mm thick. Note how the loop ends on the upper right and right are paper thin. Was this sloppy work by the maker or wear from the owner's sleeve?

Ian Bottomley

[ROKUJURO]

.....On the subject of decarburisation of cast iron see 'Iron and Steel in Ancient China' by Donald B. Wagner, section 7.3.4. where he describes the technique of heating the object in a sealed vesssel with fire scale at various temperatures between 723 and 910 C. In that range there is no oxidation of the metal surface, just the gradual loss of carbon which diffuses out. He quotes an example of an artefact from a tomb of around 110 B.C. made of cast white cast iron that was subsequently decarburised at about 950 C. Sectioning showed that the carbon loss had penetrated to some 2mm from the surface and he calculates the process took 2.4 days. Hence a tsuba 4mm thick would be largely decarburised in 2 - 3 days of heating. Feasible if done in batches.

As for wear on the edges of tsuba, the image below is of one of my tsuba, 3.88mm thick. Note how the loop ends on the upper right and right are paper thin. Was this sloppy work by the maker or wear from the owner's sleeve?

Ian Bottomley

Ian,

 

thank you for the information. Unfortunately I have no access to the book on 'Iron and Steel in Ancient China', but when I wrote that a noticeable migration of carbon in steel progresses at a very slow rate and only at temperatures considerably above 900°C, then this is nothing of my invention but can be re-read in books on metallurgy (e.g. Paul Verhoeven). I don't know how educated Donald B. Wagner is in this field. In case he was an archeologist, I would not trust his conclusions. As soon as I am back at home with my books I will look and give you some more data about this.

 

Your TSUBA was certainly made intentionally this way. Patination of the steel can include the use of aggressive substances, so I can imagine a small extra loss of material on the rim which ended in this design. I have seen similar thin material in KO-TOSHO TSUBA in the SUKASHI.

[John A Stuart]

I've read some of Wagner's work. His main theory is that steel in China, some of which was imported to Japan, was produced by decarburisation of white cast iron from traditional Chinese dwarf blast furnaces and that Japanese cast iron, steel and wrought iron were produced from Tatara (bloomeries), the technology of which entered Japan and Korea via Siberia. Two different processes. I also ascribe to the Siberian/ Altai theory. John

Oh, I should mention the decarburisation of the cast iron consists of thin plates in the process. There was also a process by which cast iron was decarburised by oxidation of carbon during a semi-fluidic state.

[IanB]

This has been a fascinating journey that started with a cast tsuba that has led to me accepting that many were not made that way. I still have reservations about saws, which takes me back to drills, chisels, scrapers and possibly files as being the primary tools. I've made a couple of iron tsuba myself, using piercing saws, and that was bad enough - now I must see what I can achieve with chisels and drills. I have watched many of Ford's videos and marvel at what can be done with these simple tools in the hands of a master. Wagner's work is exhaustive if not exhausting, but do give us pointers as to how iron working in Japan developed.

Ian

[ROKUJURO]

Ian,

 

as promised, I had a look into my books. Seems that you are right, as tempered cast iron can indeed be forged to a certain extent.

To obtain this property, the treatment of cast iron has to be as follows:

 

raw (white) cast iron is exposed to intensive heat at 1.000°C for 60 to 120 hours in an oxidising atmosphere, depending on the thickness of the workpiece. It is thus possible to produce a partial or superficial decarburization, which can result in an increased resilience of the surface of the workpiece.

 

However, as we can see, many TSUBA display clear features of forging techniques like TEKKOTSU, laminations from folding and forge-welding, and other hints like TSUCHI-ME.

 

Relying on the information I have that casting iron (not soft metals!) was a relatively late technique in Japan, I am convinced that iron/steel TSUBA were generally forged with the exception of late copies for decoration or for sale to tourists.

[docliss]

Ian, congratulations on your posting of your suspicions regarding the prevalence of casting in the production of iron tsuba. I have for some years shared this conviction but, lacking the expertise to confirm it and the courage to express it in public, I bow to your readiness to accept the inevitable brickbats. John L.

[Brian]

I don't think any mention of the subject would be complete without at least a link back to the "definitive" discussion on casting tsuba:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10717

Hopefully we can continue the debate without resorting to arguments or insults.

 

Brian

[jlmeadowsjr]

Gentlemen,

I want to thank you for taking the time to reply to my message. I have learned a lot watching the debating back and forth between what has turned out to be some very knowledgeable men in an area I feel very unworthy to be in. Thank you, I look forward to learning from you for a very long time.

James