Dutch iron?

[Tavroch]

Dutch iron update:

 

The plot thickens...

Mr. Jinsoo Kim mentioned the term "Mantetsu" in relation to his Yasutsugu Katana.

Which apparently is a term used to describe blades made from steel from Manchuria:

"Okiyo Isshin Mantetsu Kore Wo Saku".

And this apparently is a Mei frequently found on blades from WWII.

This, in combination with the Kyu-gunto mountings it was in before,

did make the people from the NT-project here in Holland wonder.

I'm curious to see where this goes.

 

And now you can let me have it Stephen

[Stephen]

nothing to let you have, JK's blade is not gunto with the mon on it...keep digging youll get there. I have no hard feelings its just when new members come in it take adjusting for everyone to style and how they think and post...all is well in nihonto world ..(be better if i could hold James sword).

[Jean]

Jacques wrote

 

Hi,

 

I wonder if this nakago is ubu...

 

And i can't see the start of the nakago.

 

To be positive and help Rob, I have done what should have been done if there is any doubt about the blade being ubu, send a mail to Tsuruta san. here is his reply :

 

"Dear Mr. Jean LAPARRA,

Thank you very much for your mail.

 

We answered his question.

The wakizashi Kanemoto is very nice.

The Nakago of wakizashi Kanemoto is Ubu.

It was not moved up, not changed.

This is original.

 

Best regards

Kazushige Tsuruta

 

You can make your move Rob, (if you wish) ..

[Brian]

To be fair, I do see exactly what Jacques is noting though. It is something that does cause suspicions of machi-okuri, and even if that isn't the case it is good to note it when examining the nakago. To me it looked like the nakago wasn't shortened from the bottom, but the machi were moved up. Might just be wear from something or there was slight reshaping, but what he indicated is definitely there though. Not serious, just worth noting.

 

Brian

[Jean]

Brian,

 

I had noticed what you were looking at.

 

Now if you carefully look at the pictures provided by Aoi Art (High resolution), you can notice that the notch indicated by Jacques on the Ura side does not show on the Omote side.

 

If you take now the Oshigata, you will notice that on the Ura side that the hamon drops at the hamachi. One can always criticize the Oshigata provided by Aoi Art but I have bought more than 5 blades at Aoi Art, all with oshigatas and I make a point to compare what I see in the blades and the oshigata provided, they are deadly accuate. Dont let the hadori fools you.

 

Last point, the first reaction one you are facing on a nakago two mekugi ana, is to say the blade is machi okuri. If you carefully look at the mekugi ana, I am ready to bet that the upper one is the original one and not the lower one. The upper one is more centered and above the mei. I have already seen that on a Soshu tanto I used to own which had 3 mekugi ana, the lower one being the most recent.

[Tavroch]

Thank you for checking Jean.

I got nearly the exact same answer from Mr. Kazushige.

I think I should be glad if Mr. Kazushige doesn't raise the price now

that he's getting all this attention and questions about the Kanemoto.

Now all there's left to do is scrape together the funds and pay the good man.

What's your advice on payment? Creditcard's the least fuss I think.

Or is there a good reason for going through all the hassle of making a bank payment to their Japan based bank?

The security of their orderform should be thight enough, or should I mail them the number in batches?

Newbie questions, I know.

I'm not new at paying foreign sellers by creditcard, but I would definitely be new at booking money to a Japan based bank.

I thank you all for the help and input I recieved in making up my mind on this one.

If you like I will keep you posted how this turns out.

 

B.t.w: Is anyone else having trouble surfing their site recently?

Is a major revamp going on or something, or is it just me?

[Jean]

Rob,

 

I pay the same amount for my Kanetomo through Credit card.

 

Usually, Aoi Art prefers wire transfer for there are less fees. It is very easily done from Europe.

Just ask your bank to make the transfer (giving all details mentionned in Aoi Art website) of the equivalent of 450 000 yens (unless you got a small discount from Tsuruta san)

[Jean]

Rob,

 

If you wish to pay by credit card, do not let the option to Aoi Art and send your agreement to purchase the Kanemoto by mail together with your credit card number / expiry date.

 

It will run smoothly :D :D

[IanB]

The following may be of interest. It is taken from letters written by Will Adams to the East India Company. The first being sent home in the ship Cloves in 1613. In a list of trade items worth shipping from England he states: 'Stylle in long barres still holding his old prise at 20 crown the picoll, which is 125 l Inglish wayt and sometymes being coum worth 3 l 15s'. In other words long bars of steel 125 lbs sometimes fetching as as much as £3 15shillings. In another letter (undated) he describes the most suitable presents to send to give to Ieyasu and says: ' And for marchandis, he deessired to haue soum 100 barres of steill 4 squar, in length soum 8 or 9 foout; which goods the Hollanders haue brought and sold to the emperour (Ieyasu) at 5 l starling the picoll, which is Inglish waight 125 powndes'. In this case square bars of steel 8' or 9' long that the Dutch had sold for £5 sterling.

 

Ian Bottomley

[Jean]

Thanks a lot Ian for the translation :D :D

[Brian]

Yep..don't you love those English to English translations?

 

Brian

[Tavroch]

Hello Ian,

 

Thank you for the pointer to Wm Adams' letters.

I've been reading those as we speak, but haven't come to the part you refer to yet.

Did a search in the text for the term "steill", and shure enough there it is:

on page 300 from "More Queer Things About Japan", a text from 1905,

available here http://www.archive.org/details/morequeerthingsa00sladrich, for anyone who's interested.

I'll bring this to the attention of the NT-project people too.

If this also is new to them, I think they should start paying us for the research we're doing for them.

[IanB]

I've just done a few calculations and if Adams was right about the weight, the bars of steel he was talking about would be somewhere near 1.7cm square.

We also know that the Japanese were getting steel imports in the form of 'gourd shaped' ingots as well as 'nail shaped' ingots. The former may well have been from the Portuguese base in Goa since this was not a form that the Europeans would have produced. If so it would have been wootz steel from an Indian or Central Asian source. Since the structure of this material breaks down above 750 deg. Celcius, to the Japanese it would work like any other carbon steel.

Jan Piet Puype of the Legermuseum, Delft did some work on the export of sword blades by the VOC. I had done some similar work at the Royal Armouries and what seems to have been happening was that they would obtain a native sword and have copies made in Solingen. These copies would then become a desirable item of trade in that region. I found that in the RA's collection of Indian swords, some 75% had either Italian or German blades. I also bought an aiguchi for the RA collection a couple of years ago with a blade made in Solingen (with an inscription surviving in the fuller) that had been reshaped from a cavalry sword or a hanger and then re-hardened in the Japanese style to produce a yakiba. This was mounted with fittings bearing a Matsuura kamon and a saya covered with Dutch leather. I also own an armour having the front of the do covered with Dutch leather. Quite a trade

Ian Bottomley

[Guido]

Yep..don't you love those English to English translations?

I strongly suggest you stop talking to my twin behind my back!

[Tavroch]

You're talking about some real treasures there Ian.

You wouldn't happen to have some pictures of them that you are willing to share, would you?

Especially of the Aiguchi. Sounds like you have a dream job.

If you want I can bring you into contact with the people from the Namban Tetsu project here in Holland.

Because if you want to take this any further its out of my league.

And there's that Wootz again.

If you can point me to some accessible articles about Wootz steel I'd be much obliged.

If I understand correctly, and if it was indeed Wootz steel they were importing,

the Japanese unwittingly destoyed the unique properties of the Wootz

by treating it like the steel they were familiar with (i.e. Tamahagane/Orishigane)?

But this is mere speculation, right? Would you care to tell us who is doing this speculating?

Any references? I for one would be very interested.

Don't you love it how everything seems to be linked?

The Dutch, Adams, the first Shogun, iron, Nihonto and now Wootz comes up.

I think I'm going to apply for an extra life, because I think I'm gonna need it.

[IanB]

Rob, I'm now retired but of course still keep very much in touch with the Royal Armouries. The guy who really needs to be in on the project is Dr. Dave Starley. He was Science Officer at the Royal Armouries but has just been ousted by the management! I will try and make contact. We had many long discussions about wootz and it is from him I learned of its intractable nature. It is essentially a crucible-steel and could only be made in relatively small quantities. Because it decomposed when heated above 750 it couldn't be welded. I came to the conclusion that this is why so many early Indian long swords have a riveted strengthening rib down the blade - they could only make a decent sized blade by beating the block of wootz rather thin. As far as the Japanese would be concerned it didn't matter since they would have done their usual folding and welding. All they wanted was a carbon steel.

As for the Dutch and English steel, I wonder what its composition was. I would guess that at best it was very variable. I suspect it was being used more for its novelty value than anything else.

The aiguchi had been around and known about for a while. It used to belong to Clem Milward of the ToKen Society and appeared an article in Apollo magazine in 1940 and was exhibited in the 1968 ToKen Exhibition in Oxford. The blade has traces of an inscription that reads on one side - ME FECIT SOLINGEN 16?5 and on the other - F???SS KEISSER ANNO. The tang is also marked with a crossed scepre stamp in an oval. I cannot trace a suitable member of the Keisser (also Kaiser, Kayser or Keyser) family, but the first letter might be a P in which case it could be PETRUSS. I'm sorry I don't have a suitable photo but the unknown smith has shaped it so as to leave the original riccasso and has added yasuri to the tang. If you are interested I wrote it up in 'Arms and Armour' Vol4 No.2 2007.

Ian

[Jacques D.]

Hi,

 

I've already posted this link, but i think it can be helpful (it seems wootz was good for forging Japanese blades).

 

http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/110001457670/

[Nobody]

I've already posted this link, but i think it can be helpful (it seems wootz was good for forging Japanese blades).

 

http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/110001457670/

Thank you for the info. That seems to be an interesting paper. I found the whole text.

 

This is the full text (Japanese) of the article.

http://nels.nii.ac.jp/els/110001457670. ... 019481&cp=

 

In general, the article says that Namban-tetsu is not good for sword making, though some types are not so bad.

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

it seems wootz was good for forging Japanese blades.

 

Only if re-melted, becoming something else then wootz-pulad.

Otherwise it definitively isn't for the reasons quoted by Ian.

And still it have to be fixed *what* is intended for wootz.

The word is used for all indian steel, and that's incorrect.

[Jacques D.]

Hi,

 

In general, the article says that Namban-tetsu is not good for sword making, though some types are not so bad.

 

However, it was largely used and by some big smiths such Masahide.

 

A quote of Kanzan Sato Sensei:

 

Early Period of Shinto (Early - Middle 17th C.)

 

All swords made earlier that Keicho era (1596-1614) were classified as Koto, or Furumi (old blade), and those made since then as Shinto, alias Arami (new blade). So called because the Momoyama age (middle-late 16th c.) was a time which witnessed the disintegration of th eold order of the thigns and the rise of a new culture under the reign by military rulers who reunited Japana after a long civil war age. those military rulers were straight-forwarded men unfettered by conventionalities and gave free scope to their tastes. It was only natural that the swordsmiths who came gathered and worked in the new rising cities and towns reflected the ruler's taste in their works. That is, so long the civil war age in duration that classic art of tempering sword had been submerged by the prevailing custom of rough making sword. Another new wave of this time is the use of Nanban-tetsu (Western steel) brought from Holland and Portugal mixed Wagane (inherent Japanese steel). Although widely used by swordsmiths throughout Japan, only Yasutsugu in Echizen province clearly incised on the tang as Used in Nanban-tetsu with a pride of skillful use of Western steel, that relates the habit of their secret use of Western steel. Modern science had discovered that it is more difficult to use Nanban-tetsu to make Japanese swords compared to Wagane.

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

However, it was largely used and by some big smiths such Masahide.

 

Again, the word wootz is improperly used for generic indian steel,

there are no sources stating the nature of the different steels imported and

Masahide used Nanban Tetsu that definitively doesn't mean "wootz/pulad",

there is no way to know which type and how much was used.

 

Kanzan merely talks about "Nanbantetsu" and "western steel".

 

Let's try to not mix "Nanbantetsu" with "wootz" just to prove previous statements.

[Brian]

Yes, I think we have to clearly differentiate here between Nanban-tetsu, Wootz steel and other imported steel.

That article does say that the steel that was imported from India was called Wootz steel, but I think that they would have lumped all the steel under that classification possibly, and it was likely not all Wootz but more plain steel.

It seems from all the articles together that Nanban tetsu was sometimes used, and that could be both Indian Wootz...or Dutch, Portuguese etc plain steel.

The Wootz was only really useable when forged further until it lost its inherent properties and became more like normal steel. Most likely these were all mixed and forged with Japanese steel to create a forged billet of useful properties.

 

Brian

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

I would like to add that, at that time, real wootz/pulad had a very remunerative market

in middle east, so should have been quiet not profitable to sell it to the japaneses

as "raw material" when elsewhere it was sold as precious metal, especially knowing

that other steel would have been welcomed (by japaneses) the same way.

 

As per the gourd shape once, discussing this very same topic, it was rised a good

supposition :

 

Big mills = ingots well shaped, something "standard" looking.

Small mills = roughly made (gourd shaped) ingots.

 

Not necessarely wootz just becasue of the shape of the ingot (possibly) as many

small mills used the crucible to obtain carbon steel, but not necessarely and only

for producing wootz.

 

The fact that wootz begun highly appreciated by europeans after the secret of its production

disappeared (the top level ones not yet re-created) and the following confusion wootz/indian

steel is also a factor we should consider in discussing this matter.

[Tavroch]

Thank you Brian. (And Carlo, Jeez guys, not so fast, I can't keep up!)

I was in the process of summing it up much the way you just did.

You beat me to it and I totally agree.

Anyone who did a search on Wootz must have discovered by now that this is still a rather controversial subject

on which the opinions vary widely, but mostly based on very flimsy "evidence".

See for example the Wikipedia-article about Wootz.

So what I would like to suggest we do here, is try to find references to the really existing undisputed evidence, if there is any.

I'd be interested in pictures and descriptions of extant blades made of Wootz, for a starter.

To get back on topic: I'd be interested in pictures of extant blades made of Namban Tetsu also.

Like the one Ian aquired for the Royal Armouries. And like the one on Mr Jinsoo Kim's site.

I'm not really interested in speculations, unless they are based on undisputed evidence (like the one Carlo just posted);

I can do my own speculations based on assumptions well enough thank you.

Let's first of all try to keep to the facts.

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

I'm not at home and can't post pics but

 

I'd be interested in pictures and descriptions of extant blades made of Wootz, for a starter.

 

If you're referring to NihonTo, unless a miracle, there aren't.

EDIT : discernable by pattern.

 

I'd be interested in pictures of extant blades made of Namban Tetsu also..

 

They don't look different from well made tamahagane swords.

[Tavroch]

Carlo,

 

Any blades made of Wootz would do for a starter.

But I already found some myself, so let me post them to show you what I mean:

http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/9809/Verhoeven-9809.html

http://www.mse.iastate.edu/fileadmin/www.mse.iastate.edu/static/files/verhoeven/muse.pdf

http://www.mse.iastate.edu/fileadmin/www.mse.iastate.edu/static/files/verhoeven/steelresearchsize2.pdf

http://www.sciamdigital.com/index.cfm?fa=Products.ViewIssuePreview&ARTICLEID_CHAR=0012A7E9-1A06-44A3-840C-650820B923C

But this one's not for free apparently, so if someone has already got it and is willing to share, please PM me.

If not, I might go get it anyways, but it would go against my principles: the internet should be a source of FREE information.

 

And your second point: I know they don't look any different,

but I'd still be interested in pictures of extant blades made of Namban Tetsu.

Knowing that it's made from Dutch steel made me look closer at the Yasutsugu from Mr. Jinsoo Kim too.

Not only the Nakago becomes more interesting in this knowledge. To me it makes a difference anyway.

[Nobody]

In general, the article says that Namban-tetsu is not good for sword making, though some types are not so bad.

 

However, it was largely used and by some big smiths such Masahide.

As for gourd shaped ingot at least, Masahide denied its applicability.

 

In the article which you introduced, there is a description of Masahide’s words. After using gourd shaped Namban-tetsu for his sword, he said his comment. That is loosely as follows;

 

“The iron is inferior to Japanese iron. The swords made of Japanese iron seem to be the best in the world. So, we do not have to prefer Namban-tetsu.â€

[Brian]

Rob,

 

I'm not going to let the conversation steer too far into Wootz steel, and that is outside our sphere of speciality here. Unless it is speciafically Nihonto related I would direct those specific conversations to the various SFI forums. The Namban tetsu link and its use in Japanese swords is on topic, but I don't want us veering off towards other swords and other steel.

 

Thanks

Brian

[IanB]

Fully agree Brian, wootz is a minefield and no Japanese swords were ever made from it in a way that retained its structure.

As for the aiguchi, that is made from a European blade. The only treatment given to it by the Japanese was to cut it down into an elegant shape and differentially harden it. I've been looking for my copy of the ToKen Exhibition catalogue hoping to photograph the picture of the sword and failed. If anyone has a copy they could scan the image. I have the Arms and Armour Journal but feel it inappropriate to copy pictures from it without permission.

Ian

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

I'd still be interested in pictures of extant blades made of Namban Tetsu.

 

 

http://www.nihontoantiques.com/gallery.htm

 

Nanbantetsu tsuba :

 

http://yakiba.com/tsuba_nanbantetsu.htm