Experimental Archaeology

[Peter Bleed]

Dear Friends,

I hope the NMB will allow me to use this season of charity and goodwill to discuss – or do I mean ‘confess’ – a bit of katana related effort that has recently occupied my time.I dare not call this effort ‘utsushi’ since I would be embarrassed to show the result to some folks who occasionally show up here. I will offer it “experimental archaeology”.

Over the past couple of days I have been recreating a tosho sukashi tsuba. I am NOT trying to ‘fake’ anything. As an archaeologist, I fully expect that this thing I’ve been working on will outlast me to have a life of its own. But the artifact I have spent many, many hours would sell, if at all, for mebbe 75 bucks at the Chicago Sword Show so I am NOT in this for the money!

I began this effort with a rusty old Japanese felling saw. I selected that starting point because years ago I had overheard a couple of Japanese sword guys say that old saws were the ideal resource for making tosho tsuba. Shortly later, I pulled this saw out of a pile of rust at the Sendai flea market. Give me no crap about destroying a cultural resource. This was a worn out tool from no more than the Meiji era. I moved this saw several times and even brought it with me here to retirement.

Friends had suggested that modern cutting machines could make this project quick and easy. I did not want to simply show a computer some images from Sasano.  Instead, I asked a local steel worker to use a plasma cutter to reduce the saw blade to a series of discs. He asked if that was all so I said that a central hole – and nakago-ana – would be handy. I free handed an outline and he used it to make me 10 discs.  Diameters varied, but they were all just over 2mm thick.

When I began to work on the first piece, it became obvious that it was of unworkably hardened steel. To deal with that, I used the historic forge at the Historic Arkansas Museum to anneal most of the blanks. After that had been done, the disc was more tractable. Still, forming the nakago-ana was a fair amount of work. I began by using some old Japanese needle files that I had found in country hardware stores and the Arai store near Ueno. Such tools used to be fairly rare, but I have discovered that Harbor Freight has them for sale cheap. Ko-tsuba-ko would have loved Harbor Freight!

After roughly forming the ana I turned to cleaning up the edge. I did not take this task as seriously as I should have. I simply knocked off the scale and ash left by the cutting before starting to raise an uchikaeshi mimi. This is a remarkably easy process that took something like 30 minutes. I worked the edge cold and did not anneal the piece. It must have work hardened, but it felt pliable the whole time. My mimi easily got to be 3.5mm thick, but all of the thickening was right at the edge. The plate itself did not thicken toward the mimi as you sometime see on old guards.  A couple of flaws and irregularities in the raised edge resulted from NOT entirely cleaning the margin. My bad. In general, my mimi is not as thick and solid as some tosho/katchushi. I think that may be partially due to the fact that I had not completely cleaned and smooth the perimeter edge.  I also wonder if old tsuba makers may have initially flared the plate by working it hot…

There is more to report, but I’ll stop now and see if anybody is listening.

Peter

[paul griff]

Hello Peter,

Well done..I do a similar thing making sarute..Visited an antique dealer the other day and he asked me to look at some of his swords he was selling ( not that I'm any expert..just a bit more informed than him )..sarute on the gunto was one of mine...good feeling... And I must add ...not made to deceive but to enhance...!

Merry Christmas,

Paul...

[Brian]

Good going Peter. Gives a bit more understanding of what time and dedication it took them, and the effort involved.

[kissakai]

Hi Peter

Always worth a go and you will learn as you go along

There are many NMB members who have made tsuba so expect for information

I've no idea if you can do it but we like to see activity on the surface rather than a plan plate with a 'dead' surface

Then there is the sukashi if you intend to add this later and there are many examples to use and trust your eye for the composition

Ford Hallams book will help with the patination

If it looks right then it probably is

Keep the images coming

[vajo]

Hello Peter

In my understanding the tosho tsuba were forged from tamahagene. Or did you try to remake a late Edo piece from mill steel? Sorry if i maybe wrong and didn't understand all right.

[Peter Bleed]

Chris,

I'm sorry that I was not clear. I began this project, with a piece of "old" sheet iron from a premodern felling saw. Until well into the Edo period Japan produced a great deal of "bloom" or "bloomery" iron. Tamahagane was carbon rich bloom iron that was favored for swords and other cutlery such as saws.

Peter

[ROKUJURO]

Peter,

I find it interesting to look into old techniques and to try to reproduce an artifact, but I think it is important to do it the same way it was originally done, or as we assume it was. Almost every handmade item tells a story of its manufacture,

So, I am a bit surprised that you as an archaeologist are not taking that way. It would not have been a lot of work to forge a TSUBA blank from scrap iron and to make some cut-outs with small chisels. This was very probably  the method these early TSUBA were made.

Keep us informed about the progress of your work, and we will see if it comes close to a TOSHO TSUBA.

TAMAHAGANE can have differing content of carbon, as far as I know, and the usable parts (there are pieces of pig iron that are not usable) range from very low C content up to something like 1.3 %. 

[Vermithrax16]

Great work, and a labor of love and attention.