Rusty tsuba

[PietroParis]

Hi All,

 

I thought I would buy a cheap rusty tsuba to practice "rust-removal surgery" and I ended up with this one:

 

 

The picture is from the seller, more pictures – with more visible rust – can be found on eBay. Do you think this tsuba has any age or merit (apart from the one of being dirt cheap)? Can it be associated to a school?

 

Many thanks in advance for any insight,

 

Pietro

[Ken-Hawaii]

Pietro, this is NOT a good topic. NMB is dedicated to the study & preservation of swords & fittings, not amateur "rust removal surgery."

[PietroParis]

Hi Ken, I may have just been sloppy in my language. When I bought a nice tsuba with a few rust spots a couple of months ago, I received a lot of advice from NMB members on how I should remove those spots by soaking them with oil and then rubbing them with a piece of bone or ivory. This is what I meant by "rust removal surgery". Before touching the nice tsuba – which I am very hesitant to do, as I cannot convince myself that the procedure won't leave scratches – I thought I should try it on a cheap one.

 

Cheers, Pietro

[Alex A]

Don't appear too bad, would just keep wiping it with a rag, touch of wd40 to start with, not in the sukashi.

[Steves87]

How similar is the rust on your newly acquired vs older nice one?

[ROKUJURO]

......rubbing them with a piece of bone or ivory....

Sounds perfectly acceptable as long as you do not try to give it a metallical clean surface. That is the way to a nice patina. 

 

Concernig school or age, I think it is a late (19th century) revival piece. Look at the sharp edges, they do not show age or use. 

[PietroParis]

How similar is the rust on your newly acquired vs older nice one?

 

Pictures of the older one can be found here. The rust is concentrated in spots, but appears to be somewhat more "raised" than in the new one. Anyway I'll get a better idea of the (dis)similarities when I receive the new one.

 

Does anybody have any guess on age and provenance of the tsuba?

 

Cheers, Pietro

[PietroParis]

Concernig school or age, I think it is a late (19th century) revival piece. Look at the sharp edges, they do not show age or use. 

 

Thanks for your assessment! I guess that for 28$ (including shipping) I should not expect too much...

 

Any idea of what style they were trying to imitate?

 

Cheers, Pietro

[PietroParis]

Don't appear too bad, would just keep wiping it with a rag, touch of wd40 to start with, not in the sukashi.

 

Thanks for the advice. I do have wd40, is it considered an acceptable replacement to choji oil?

[Alex A]

Thanks for the advice. I do have wd40, is it considered an acceptable replacement to choji oil?

 

No, i just use it as a starter to clean up old rusty iron.

[PietroParis]

For the record, these are my pictures of the rusty tsuba, after some days of light wiping with a soft cotton cloth (which did not have any noticeable effect):

 

 

The front looks already acceptable to me, but there is some very red rust on the back. I have found some old ivory-looking buttons that passed the "hot needle" test, as soon as I get my hands on proper choji (or camelia?) oil I will get to work...

 

Cheers, Pietro

[Brian]

For cleaning I wouldn't bother with choji. Any decent oil like gun oil will be fine.

[PietroParis]

For cleaning I wouldn't bother with choji. Any decent oil like gun oil will be fine.

 

 

OK, thanks for the tip! I am not a gun person but I can use wd40 as suggested by Alex above. Cheers, Pietro

[brannow]

I would use a sharpened deer antler.

[Ken-Hawaii]

Red rust is active rust, Pietro. Antler, ivory (broken piano key), or in worst case, a copper penny can be used for cleaning.

[SAS]

I have been using automatic transmission oil on tools and some other things due to its relatively low viscosity and rust inhibiting properties.

[PietroParis]

Thank you all for your comments. My bone button (combined with wd40) doesn’t seem to be effective in scratching away the rust, maybe I should try to break it to get a sharper edge.

[b.hennick]

Do not use a new copper penny as it is not pure copper. Arnold Frenzel decades ago gave me an old English penny that is large and pure copper. They are not expensive, easy to hold and work well.

[SAS]

US pennies 1982 and before are pure copper.

[PietroParis]

I gave it another try, with repeated cycles of dabbing with camellia oil, letting rest for a few hours, scratching with a bone button and wiping with a cloth. However, I am not too pleased with the result:

 

 

The "before" and "after" pictures show that quite a lot of red rust came off, but the patina appears to be damaged in one area (see the whitish spots on the left of the nakago ana). Did I scratch too hard? A more-charitable interpretation could be that the red rust had already eaten through the patina: indeed, the whitish spots showed up quite early in the process, and other areas that I scratched just as hard were not damaged. Anyway, it's just as well that I tried this procedure on a low-quality tsuba that I had bought for 26 EUR on eBay. I don't think I'll dare to try it on my "good" tsuba, I guess I'll stick to oiling and wiping...

 

BTW, is there anything I can do now to reduce the damage to the patina, apart from waiting a few decades?

 

Cheers, Pietro

[Stephen]

To my blind eye it looks like some type of lacquer. Lightly rub with acetone Or high grade alcohol.

[ROKUJURO]

To me it looks as if some bone material has been rubbed into the rust. It will certainly disappear if you brush your TSUBA with a (hard) tooth brush.

In do not think that a bone button will ever work. In my experience it has to be something pointed, be that made from bamboo, antler, bone, ivory, or pure copper.

[Martin]

Jean is correct. You will need some sharp edges. Maybe you could break the button into 2 pieces and use the edges.

[PietroParis]

Thank you all for your comments!

 

I'll try breaking the button, although I would say that even the rounded edge has already removed quite a lot of rust. As for brushing the whitish area, unfortunately it has no effect. I suspect that the patina is really affected, and I am wondering if I've done something wrong or if it was an inevitable outcome.

 

Cheers, Pietro

 

[ROKUJURO]

In the end, patina is not going to build up in a week or a month.....I don't think you could have done something wrong. A whitish substance has nothing to do with iron or its oxides.

[Brian]

I have seen in the past where patina loss was covered by chemicals or polish or other added surface treatments, and when you clean the tsuba, those temporary treatments are removed and the patina loss shows through. Lots of dealers out there with "tricks" to make tsuba look better for sale. I suspect that's what happened here.

[PietroParis]

In that case it was a waste of the seller's time, as the tsuba sold for a mere 17$ on eBay (the price I had mentioned a few posts above included shipping).

 

Scratching with the broken edge of the button helped remove a bit more red rust, but not all of it. Anyway, I'll give it a rest now. It was a valuable experience to me, and I thank you all for comments and guidance.

 

Cheers, Pietro