A word about amateur polishing

[Brano]

20 hours ago, The Forest Ninja said:

But, I'm looking for the polisher that Kunitaro mentioned in that post and not some random polisher.

If you read carefully - Kunitaro-san tells the story of a master from the 60s.

The truth is that the art of traditional sashikomi is almost lost
There are several reasons
People do not have the skill to do this type of polish
Extreme lack of quality stones needed to achieve the desired result
People's unwillingness to pay for this type of polish because it is more time consuming
And also - for many it is visually unattractive.

 

When looking directly in the hand you may feel that the polish is not finished
HOWEVER - once you look at the blade at an angle with the reflection of light - my subjective opinion is that it is the best possible.

The purity of the steel, the brilliance of both ji-nie and ha-nie

 

A few examples of a direct view of the blade and at an angle
Always the same blade polished with traditional sashikomi

[Brano]

[Brano]

[The Forest Ninja]

2 hours ago, Brano said:

If you read carefully - Kunitaro-san tells the story of a master from the 60s.

The truth is that the art of traditional sashikomi is almost lost
There are several reasons
People do not have the skill to do this type of polish
Extreme lack of quality stones needed to achieve the desired result
People's unwillingness to pay for this type of polish because it is more time consuming
And also - for many it is visually unattractive.

 

I know it's an older Polisher who is probably long gone. It was the mention of Tsushima Nagura

being used to darken the Ji during the Sashikomi nugui finishing step that caught my eye.

 

I will agree that quality JNat stones for traditional polishing are getting much harder to find these days.

Even in Japan, some polishers resort to synthetic stones early in the polishing process.

But it is sad to think the part of the polishing teniques could be lost someday.

 

Thanks 4 the replies people.

[ROKUJURO]

Forest Ninja,

it is required here on NMB to sign all posts at least with a first name plus an initial, so we can address you politely. I think that applies even to NINJA.....

Concerning polishing stones, there was always a big demand in the past, and this is actually the same. Many quarries had to be closed because they have been exhausted. We see that in WASHITA and ARKANSAS as well as in Belgium or Germany, and it has become increasingly difficult to get KOMA NAGURA-TO and good UCHIGUMORI as well.

On the other hand, synthetic stones are being developed and improved and one can good results with them. I say that as a knife-maker, I do not touch Japanese blades. 

[Mark S.]

6 hours ago, ROKUJURO said:

Concerning polishing stones, there was always a big demand in the past, and this is actually the same. Many quarries had to be closed because they have been exhausted. 
 

In an effort to learn, I’ll risk embarrassment and ask the uneducated question… did the quarries close because quality stones were no longer available, or because it no longer makes economical sense to search for, cut, and process what might be left?  
 

If artificial stones become the only alternative in the future, the collecting community may have to adjust their expectations of what a quality polish looks like and polishers may have to adjust their techniques to get the most out of ‘new technology’.

[ROKUJURO]

Mark,

the quarries of polishing stones are widely exhausted, so only small pieces of stones are found now. For most polishing needs, you have to have a certain minimum size, so there is a threshold what you can use from the remains. In some quarries, thin stone plates are glued to a base stone slab to be able to use it.

As a side remark, this happened also to other minerals/rocks. In Japan, ceramic cobalt decoration (called GOSU) was traditionally made with ground ISHIKAWA stones which were cut in quarries, but also found in rivers (as the name implies). When the quarries were exhausted and the rivers depleted of these stones, some potters stole old tombstones from the graveyards (which were traditionally made of this ISHIKAWA stone) to grind them down for GOSU making.

Concerning high quality natural Japanese polishing stones, these are especially sought after in old TOGISHI workshops which usually had a good stock of them, and of course on flea-markets. 
These natural stones are sedimentary and have special compositions in that they have a soft bond opposed to ceramic grinding stones which have a hard bond.
A lot of research has been invested to reproduce the properties of the natural stones, so artificial stones are being used on a wider scale by TOGISHI nowadays. I believe this trend will be the future. The results seem to be acceptable, so there should be no fear of a decreasing polish quality.

It is kind of a science based on experience; you have to find matching stones for each blade. This is one reason why an amateur with "a set of 12 original Japanese polishing stones" will probably not achieve the expected results.
 

[Lewis B]

I have a few high quality Jnat stones for polishing and sharpening kitchen knives. Before I graduated to Nihonto I collected mainly Japanese kitchen knives. Good quality stones are becoming increasingly difficult to find although if you know the right people the high quality ones, especially those used by the top togishi are still obtainable although the price can be into the 1000's of $. My top stones are from Nakayama, Shoubudani. Ohira and Okudo. The red dots is Renge and highly prized in a stone. And from each of those mines stones are extracted from multiple layers as they are sedimentary rocks. The tricky bit is getting clean stones that have a predictable grinding/polishing action as there are often 'toxic' lines caused by sand deposits extending through the rock that will mare and scratch the steel. And as they are sedimentary the polishing performance can change as the upper layers are removed. 

Here are a few of my stones.

The righthand image is a Nakayama Tomae. The lines are not 'toxic' but all 4 illustrate the difficulty in extracting very clear stones from the different layers. I believe for final nihonto polishing the togishi uses Uchigumori and these are becoming harder to find in the size and quality demanded by the top polishers. The cost of these range from $500 -1K. For the top examples you can expect to pay $2-3K

[Mark S.]

I do appreciate the detailed explanation… thank you!

[Kiita]

Not every mine (that seems to be the accepted term for many of these sites, as they were often extracted via tunnels or shafts rather than pit quarries) currently out of operation was shut due to exhaustion, many were simply encroached out of existence by expanding suburbs during the Showa era, as they were located quite close to Kyoto proper. Theoretically the stone could still be extracted, but it's not practical. On the other hand, a younger member of an old stone cutting family has recently begun mining Nakayama stones for the first time since the 1960s (if I remember correctly), so it's not all bad news.

 

[SteveM]

14 hours ago, ROKUJURO said:

These natural stones are sedimentary and have special compositions in that they have a soft bond opposed to ceramic grinding stones which have a hard bond.
A lot of research has been invested to reproduce the properties of the natural stones, so artificial stones are being used on a wider scale by TOGISHI nowadays. I believe this trend will be the future. The results seem to be acceptable, so there should be no fear of a decreasing polish quality.

 

This is what I have heard as well. My understanding is that artificial stones are consistent in composition, and they give the polisher a much more predictable (hence, desirable) outcome, without any of the unexpected impurities of natural stones. 

[Lewis B]

Synthetic stones are great for certain jobs early in the process, but I think it's generally accepted they don't perform as well as the natural stones at least for finishing in the final stages of the polish. Synthetics are better at abrading metal, but naturals produce a naturalistic finish, hence the use of fingerstones. (One might compare to digital vs analog Audiovisual technology. I've always found watching CRT images more pleasing than digital. Same for vinyl). One advantage of the natural sourced material is that the particles change form as they're being worked on the metal surface generating an increasingly finer polish. Synthetic particles stay uniform. 

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[Robert S]

The one issue I have with a lot of this thread is that it seems to imply that polishing is a black art, which tends to dissuade people from even trying to learn it.  I think we all need to be thinking carefully about how we encourage people to learn it responsibly and at least reasonably within the togishi tradition, given that we already have a shortage of polishers, and it's only likely to get worse.  For myself, I am ordering in polishing stones and supplies, and I am going to start experimenting, following all the information I can gather from books, videos, etc. ... but don't worry, not on nihonto.  As an occasional knifesmith, I have old blades lying around that weren't my favourites, and which have collected some rust or discolouration over the years.  I'm going to see what results I can get using traditional togishi methods as best I understand them, and then move on to traditional Japanese kitchen knives, etc.  Someday, years from now, if I'm getting consistently repeatable and high quality results with those, then yes, I will work on a cheap nihonto as a trial.  Given that I can't afford a 5 to 10 year apprenticeship in Japan, that seems to be the only path, and even if I never venture to work on a nihonto, I will have learned a great deal about traditional Japanese steel, polishing, etc., which can only benefit my understanding of nihonto.

 

I'll also meticulously document my journey, which may help someone else down the line.  Finding outside the box methods to encourage the development of new generations of polishers is probably necessary if we really care about the preservation of nihonto.

[Robert S]

Oh yes, and on the subject of stones, I'm also going to experiment with alternative options for very expensive/unavailable stones.  As a knife maker, I'm very familiar with how natural stones work, and I 100% agree that substituting, for instance, ceramic artificial stones creates a very different process and result.  However, I am curious whether combining industrial micro abrasives with other softer powdered materials, plus modifying the hardness of the substrate, can imitate the kind of abrasive paste which develops on a natural stones as you work it, and which is, in my opinion, key to the results that togishi achieve.

[ROKUJURO]

Robert,

you probably forgot a tiny detail: Japanese swords are not forged from steel that could be compared with your knives or even most Japanese kitchen knives. They have a composite structure, and the material behaves very differently. 

The soft bond of Japanese stones has a completely different effect on these blades as it takes away the steel matrix but let the martensite particles (NIE, NIOI and their many formations) stand out. I doubt that acceptable results will be possible without learning in a traditional environment as polishing is only a part of the necessary knowledge. 

Violins are expensive, but would you "try to learn" to build your own without being taught? 

The so-called 'secrets of the craft' are nothing but guided experience on the subject, but we (as individuals) will not live long enough to make all possible mistakes ourselves AND learn from them.