Obtaining damaged tsuba

[OceanoNox]

Following a video of Ford Hallam where he showed a very crumbly tsuba, I have been wondering if there are places where one could find damaged tsuba. By this I mean damaged beyond repair.

I really would like to conduct destructive analysis if possible, but I cannot morally endorse destroying perfectly good artifacts. If they were deeply damaged, however...

Even if there is no sure way of getting such items, I welcome your thoughts on this idea: destructive analysis on heavily damaged tsuba: yes or no?

[ROKUJURO]

Arnaud,

interesting project!

I am researching the feature of TEKKOTSU and have been looking for damaged TSUBA myself to submit them to damaging tests, but this proved to be very difficult. Most damages on TSUBA (apart from KIRIKOMI) seem to be heavy corrosion; I have not seen broken ones in more than 40 years.

Recently I got a few corroded TSUBA from a friendly collector, but they seem to be late (probably 19th century) and show no TEKKOTSU. After some basic metallurgical testing, I can report that the iron has high purity and contains no carbon. The metal has very good toughness and will bend considerably without breaking. 

As you are Japan and at the "source" of TSUBA, I would assume that you might be able to find TSUBA you can use for testing. In your case I would ask at a museum. These are sometimes gifted whole collections of swords and KODOGU, and maybe they would let a damaged TSUBA go for scientific purposes in case they cannot display the item.

Just an idea....

[Spartancrest]

There is no shortage of damaged beyond repair tsuba - it depends what you hope to achieve? The makeup of the metal or when it was made?

https://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/g1092674700  or https://www.jauce.com/auction/g1092674700

[Steves87]

They do pop up quite a lot on ebay, mostly heavily corroded examples. But like Dale has shown, there are a lot of broken ones, too.

Jean's idea about a museum is a good one, however, I would suspect most modern museum's won't take a lot of donor acquisitions these days due to space and policy reasons (like 90%). If they did take these examples, then 'weeding' or de-selecton policies would make it difficult to let them go. Donor material is especially hard as they can have certain conditions put on them at the point of acquisition... like having to be returned to the donor. 

If you are in Japan, are there not such examples at their antiquities markets? The last time I was in Japan, I found it hard to buy decent quality at the markets (maybe just the markets I stumbled across?)

 

As for your yes or no question? My opinion is yes, but be cautious with which ones, maybe consult with at least two to three other collectors for agreeable suitable sacrificial candidates. And! ensure you share the knowledgeable results with the community.

Edited May 23, 2023 by Steves87

[Spartancrest]

More of the same - but not worth the effort to dissect, these are cast or copies - and as such way over priced.   https://www.jauce.com/auction/b1088119592

 

I guess my point is we are not going to learn much from the discarded or badly damaged - when we want to know the composition and age of the good ones.

 

Have you come across this PDF? http://www.islamicmanuscripts.info/reference/articles/Ars-Orientalis/Ars-Orientalis-11-1979.pdf

"The Techniques of the Japanese Tsuba-Maker"  Author(s): Elaine I. Savage and Cyril Stanley Smith Source: Ars Orientalis, Vol. 11 (1979)

This was metallurgical work carried out on deliberately damaged tsuba reclaimed from gold thieves - with microscopic images and cross sections supplied.

 

[PS Stephen that pdf is in that book I sent you, pages 26 > 62 ]  

[OceanoNox]

3 hours ago, Spartancrest said:

There is no shortage of damaged beyond repair tsuba - it depends what you hope to achieve? The makeup of the metal or when it was made?

Thank you for the link! I have had a hard time finding, but it is mostly because of my poor choice of words while searching.

As to what I want to analyze, I don't think I can access any dating measurements (and as far as I know, while carbon dating seems possible, it appeared unreliable). But I really would like to do the following:

Chemical composition (especially carbon content), X-ray diffraction to identify various phases, and some polishing and etching to see the grain size(s) and the phase distribution (basic metal characterization).

 

[OceanoNox]

32 minutes ago, Spartancrest said:

This was metallurgical work carried out on deliberately damaged tsuba reclaimed from gold thieves - with microscopic images and cross sections supplied.

Ah, I replied just after your post.

Yes, I have read this paper. There are two others from an Italian team (led by Dr. Zoppi [1, 2]), using neutron diffraction for non-destructive analysis of tsuba. However, neither shows the diffraction profiles. Those are the only three scientific papers I know on material analysis of tsuba, I have not seen any other yet.

While I do appreciate the good tsuba, I do not want to select data, and I am interested in getting as much data as possible, to see trends, if there are any. Analyzing the good high-grade tsuba would be invaluable, but we fall again in the issue of what is representative (and is it even possible or meaningful to aim for that). An advisor at work told me this would be the work of a lifetime, because it would also mean trying to dig up (and decipher) any primary source concerning tsuba use or manufacture.

 

[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00339-013-7832-y

[2] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00216-009-3048-6

Edited May 23, 2023 by OceanoNox
Added a sentence

[C0D]

Someone in Japan already did an analysis on many tsuba, also high grade ones
https://cdn.fbsbx.com/v/t59.2708-21/348839532_969136647835640_438820047155320693_n.pdf/tsuba-analysis.pdf?_nc_cat=106&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=0cab14&_nc_ohc=Cd6sQgNJyhUAX9Ne4U0&_nc_ht=cdn.fbsbx.com&oh=03_AdTZ77s5Y2Hvl_iXbq3So4biQd2yMT8y3ML-8nLOFoCRsQ&oe=646DDD59&dl=1

(tell me if link doesn't work)

That said i might have some tsuba that can be used for this purpose, i managed to save one, but others are beyond repair

[Steves87]

Link works, thanks for that!

I wish I could read it, and underatand it!

All I could gather was they are all made out of iron, with just traces of other elements? Except the Tanaka which had a high copper value?  Am I reading those results correctly?

[C0D]

13 minutes ago, Steves87 said:

Link works, thanks for that!

I wish I could read it, and underatand it!

All I could gather was they are all made out of iron, with just traces of other elements? Except the Tanaka which had a high copper value?  Am I reading those results correctly?

Yes you're reading correctly, other tsuba has just traces of other elements, only a couple of tsuba have some high content of extra elements

[OceanoNox]

2 hours ago, C0D said:

Someone in Japan already did an analysis on many tsuba, also high grade ones

Thank you for the link. It worked fine.

I had forgotten about this paper by Mr. Kawami. It might be the paper where he mentions tsuba made from recycled hoes.

I need to study about fluorescent X-rays, but he mentions one limitation: penetration depth of the X-ray. I use Cu-Kα and we assume generally a penetration of about 20 μm. In this paper, it is not clear how deep the X-rays go. It is possible that only the patina layer is measured (according to 金工の着色技法, by Nagano and Io, 1998, https://www.amazon.co.jp/金工の着色技法-長野-裕/dp/4844585754), solutions used for rusting iron tsuba include some kind of clay, and can include copper sulphate, as well as many other elements (rokusho, etc.). Another point to be careful is the detection of carbon. This is very difficult, and even spark measurement of elements cannot detect interstitials readily (carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen), so dedicated devices are usually required: I have used Horiba machines that simply melt a few grams of sample and measure those few elements only.

 

2 hours ago, C0D said:

That said i might have some tsuba that can be used for this purpose, i managed to save one, but others are beyond repair

May I ask about those tsuba? Preparations for the measurements I am considering involve cutting, polishing, and etching, so there would be nothing salvageable.

[C0D]

11 minutes ago, OceanoNox said:

Thank you for the link. It worked fine.

I had forgotten about this paper by Mr. Kawami. It might be the paper where he mentions tsuba made from recycled hoes.

I need to study about fluorescent X-rays, but he mentions one limitation: penetration depth of the X-ray. I use Cu-Kα and we assume generally a penetration of about 20 μm. In this paper, it is not clear how deep the X-rays go. It is possible that only the patina layer is measured (according to 金工の着色技法, by Nagano and Io, 1998, https://www.amazon.co.jp/金工の着色技法-長野-裕/dp/4844585754), solutions used for rusting iron tsuba include some kind of clay, and can include copper sulphate, as well as many other elements (rokusho, etc.). Another point to be careful is the detection of carbon. This is very difficult, and even spark measurement of elements cannot detect interstitials readily (carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen), so dedicated devices are usually required: I have used Horiba machines that simply melt a few grams of sample and measure those few elements only.

 

May I ask about those tsuba? Preparations for the measurements I am considering involve cutting, polishing, and etching, so there would be nothing salvageable.

Indeed the patina recipes usually use red clay, copper sulfate, saltpetre, sulphur. So maybe the traces of copper might be on the patina only

The tsuba come from a ship wreck, i managed to restore one, but the rest are too badly corroded. Tho despite the corrosion there's still enough "good iron" to make analysis. I was thinking to use them as blank to make new tsuba, but i can sacrifice them for your experiments.

[C0D]

This is pretty much what they look like, this one is the one i restored 

[OceanoNox]

22 hours ago, C0D said:

The tsuba come from a ship wreck, i managed to restore one, but the rest are too badly corroded. Tho despite the corrosion there's still enough "good iron" to make analysis. I was thinking to use them as blank to make new tsuba, but i can sacrifice them for your experiments.

Oh, that's really cool!

I do not want to prevent you from doing your own project.

[C0D]

It's ok I can just keep a couple that can have enough material on them and the rest give to you if you really wanna do these tests 

[ROKUJURO]

On 5/23/2023 at 4:57 AM, Spartancrest said:

More of the same - but not worth the effort to dissect, these are cast or copies - and as such way over priced.   ......we are not going to learn much from the discarded or badly damaged - when we want to know the composition and age of the good ones......

Dale,

that is exactly the point! When I wrote that I had not seen broken TSUBA in more than 40 years, I should have added "quality". Of course I have seen cast TSUBA that were broken, but they are not of interest to me. 

And the batch of corroded TSUBA which was so generously donated to interested NMB members by Okan was probably made in the 19th century and does not cover all types of traditional TSUBA. 

I shared my part of these TSUBA with Ford Hallam, so when he finds the time to work on them, we may get more precious information on the subject. 

[OceanoNox]

2 hours ago, C0D said:

It's ok I can just keep a couple that can have enough material on them and the rest give to you if you really wanna do these tests 

If you can keep enough to do what you planned, and others would not be usable for new tsuba, I would welcome them.