Restauration project

[azizaedelam]

Hello Forum,

 

I bought this as a restauration project for myself, polishing and mounting a blade with a cracked tip

and some bad surface condition, but overall nothing serious. and i have started the restauration of the tip and polishing and indeed, it seems very well possible to restore to good (not perhaps top) condition.

I send you the pictures in the state bought it, and if your interested i can upload pictures on how the restauration

progress.

I'm specially interested to know about the mei and age, think the mei says someting like Minamoto no nagamoto...?

[John A Stuart]

A little work needed there, eh? A Minamoto Nagamoto blade, shinto period. John

[loiner1965]

be interested in seeing your progress in this restoration...keep us updated please

[azizaedelam]

Ok, will post some pictures tomorrow, but no way close to finish :?

[azizaedelam]

Here is some new pics, after some initial polishing, the hamon starts to appear.

I'm not shure, but it seems there can also be some boshi left for the new tip,

but still need some more polishing at the tip...

[azizaedelam]

some more

[azizaedelam]

The last ones for this time...

But much work left...

[John A Stuart]

Looking a lot better. What method are you using? John

[Mark Green]

Mikiel,

Great job. It is GREAT that you were able to save the boshi!!!

Do you plan to remove those two big chips? It looks as though you have a bunch of hamon to work with.

You did well, to keep as close to the original shape as you have. Keep up the good work. Mark G

[loiner1965]

Mikiel,

Great job. It is GREAT that you were able to save the boshi!!!

Do you plan to remove those two big chips? It looks as though you have a bunch of hamon to work with.

You did well, to keep as close to the original shape as you have. Keep up the good work. Mark G

ditto..... i really appreciate it what you are doing as to me you are saving a bit of history which otherwise would have gone in the skip

[azizaedelam]

Hello, sorry for not checking the replies, didnt know i got any :-)

I use a method of perpendicular strokes of wet sand paper in finer and finer

quality (sorry for not being fully traditional, but i dont have any traditional material).

 

Much work remains, i first planned to remove also the chips on the front edge, but now

im not shure, it will need a lot more work. The hamon on most of the blade seems to

accept that, but i must check the boshi also, its not fully visible yet, hope i havent lost it.

 

Yes, im glad if i can preserve a historic piece like this, i will post more pictures when i continue,

thank you for comments.

 

Regards /Mikael

[AndreasU]

Hello Mikael,

 

if you don't have any stones, it will be a bit difficult to get a much better result. The ideal situation would be to have at least some of the coarse, medium and fine stones.

 

Howerver, I ones owned a Wakizashi were the Kissaki was bend at transport. As I also had no original stones I went to an Japanese supermarket here in Düsseldorf. As they are selling Japanese kittchen knifes they also have some of the syntetic grinding stones to sharpen these blades. You will need a 1.000, 2.000, 5.000 and if possible a 15.000 stone and at least some of the finger stones. These you can easy get at ebay. Most of the time very bad quality but as you anyway will need only small pieces you normally can make some good pieces out of them. Avoid to use the parts where you can see fine discoloration (black or yellow lines) as these normally are much harder (as it is waste) and will scratch your polish.

 

Sometimes you can get them also already finished glued on paper.

 

I bought 5 stones as described above and had to spent around € 250,- in total but these stones are of real good quality and will last some years.

 

Alternative 2 is to order here: http://www.namikawa-ltd.co.jp/english/

 

They are offering a complete set of original polishing stones. Most of the time the quality isn't top class but as your blade also isn't the result will be anyway much better than using sanding paper!!

[Brian]

Just a caution here folks.

This forum avoids promoting self and amateur polishing at all costs. I don't want discussion here about how to polish swords yourself.

Mikael, I am sure we can all agree that this one was almost lost, and looks a lot better now. Perhaps the boshi will be intact and it will be saved completely. However we don't have control over that other guy that has a Tadayoshi at home with a chip that he thinks he can easily fix....or the guy with a nice blade that just has a stain that he wants to remove..

And so we can't discuss methods of self restoration here. I don't want serious and advanced collectors to see this forum as promoting anything less than the correct and traditional methods.

 

I am sure we would all love to see the progress, but please, let's stay away from discussing methods and how-to's. There is a reason that togishi train for 6-10 years. What we think is ok on a $50 junk blade, someone might think is ok on their $2000 slightly rusted katana.

 

Regards,

Brian

[loiner1965]

fully understand your concern brian but surely only a fool would atempt an amateur polish on his valuable nihonto etc.....but as always they will always be one who atempts it

[Brian]

Steve,

It's not about who will or won't..merely what the forum is seen as promoting or not

We have fun, but will always strive to be a serious forum that promotes the right way to do things.

As mentioned, I do think this is a decent job and Mikael seem to know the limits. But that doesn't go for everyone out there..and there are an awful lot of people out there that can't afford professional polishes, and could be tempted to try something silly.

 

Brian

[azizaedelam]

I understand your concerns. I only wanted to restore a relatively cheap blade i saw the potential in,

getting some clues on how to finalize the work from other members. I dont recommend any one else to try these methods as it might ruin a precious blade if performed incorrectly. For a nice blade, a traditioanlly trained sword polisher should of course be used, but for the other blades, otherwise clasified as junk is another situation, is my oppionion.

[Ted Tenold]

Mikeal,

 

Please understand that I mean only to be constructive when I ask you; If this sword were mumei, would you be able to truely distinquish the difference between junk, mediocre, precious, and treasure?

 

Many people cannot, but rather see a sword that doesn't appear stunning in any way and would proceed without hesitation thinking that it is nothing special. "It's just a suguha hamon" or "It's retempered anyway" or "I'm just removing the chips" all are very poor rationalizations that lead to actions that have serious and irreversible consequences. I can relay at least three personal incidents of swords several people thought were "nothing special" that ended up being Juyo level swords. They had been looked at by a whole lot of people and thought to be of no consequence, one so damaged that it was thought not only to be of no qualitative consequence, but also unrestorable because of the damage inflicted to it. Both thoughts were completely wrong.

 

This is the fear of all that appreciate Nihonto. So Brian makes a good point about not encouraging conversations about "do it yourself" projects. The enthusiasm to restore something often leads to folks using completely wrong approaches and materials. Sandpaper is not an acceptable wholesale replacement. While it removes metal, it does not restore the blade correctly regardless of the quality of the blade. Is this really making it better? Or just creating a new form of detriment?

 

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

[azizaedelam]

Ted common,

 

Everybody can see that the blade has improved, and its far from finished, if i use non-traditional methods i understand that puritans react, but i think that wasnt the main issue here, its was the thing of thinking you can do it yourself, like hybris. I'm not doing anything foolish, i bought this blade cheap and it needed some work, saw the point of the tip?

 

I have got some suggestions on how to end the work, and that will be with traditional methods, the closer the finish, the important the method. But, i can assure you, i wil not write anything more in this subject.