Bargain Hunt Tsuba

[Kanenaga]

Good to keep in mind, though, that some artists used similar cut-outs in the nakago-ana, either for convenience or as a form of tagane-mei.

5th Jingo master

[Spartancrest]

53 minutes ago, Kanenaga said:

some artists used similar cut-outs in the nakago-ana, either for convenience or as a form of tagane-mei.

Good point, there are several schools that included cut-outs ready for Kuchi-beni - they are distinctive and I doubt they will get confused with the cast ones. [too many other giveaways]

 

[KUCHI BENI – literally “lipstick”, it refers to the copper plugs which may be seen at the top and bottom of the nakago-ana. Usually a distinctly "horse shoe" shape.]

I have one example, but the copper is in place so we can't see the cuts in the nakago-ana. 

[George KN]

It's been about five months since I last posted about my tsuba cleaning journey, and I've had some success, but also made more mistakes. Rather than hide them, I figure that I should at least share things so it can help  prevent a repeat of my worst errors in the future.

 

Since January I continued applying WD40, waiting for it to dry, and then cleaning with bone in numerous repeated cycles. This worked well for parts of the tsuba, but there were patches where the rust was just too thick, forming almost a second skin, and the bone was unable to get through this. There were also pits and awkward corners that were too small for the bone pieces I was using to get to.

 

I was nervous to try this, but to try and loosen the rust across all the tsuba at once, I boiling them in water for 20 minutes each, starting at first with the cast tsuba to see how it would react:

 

Surprisingly, this did actually work quite well, and I would consider it a success - a lot of the hidden rust turned much more orange, and it was possible to remove a lot more. It even worked with the tsuba that had shakudo and copper, with no ill effects to the black patina or copper colour. For the record I was using my tap water, which is straight from our well, so I can't rule out chlorinated water causing issues, but it worked for me this time.

This led to another round or so of WD40/dry/bone cleaning, but I still couldn't get through the toughest rust.

(more to follow)

 

[George KN]

To finally try and get through the worst rust, I then went further to the dark side, and bought myself some fiberglass pens.

 

These cut through the rust like butter - and had very fine nibs, so were perfect for getting into the crevices I wasn't able to with the bone.

However, this is where I cocked up quite badly. As I got more comfortable with using the pens, I got more complacent, and was cleaning at night instead of in a well lit room. I didn't realise until the next day, but I had badly scratched the patina of the tsuba I was working on:
 

 

The reason for the scratches mostly being on the leaves of the tsuba is I thought the carved lines were hiding under rust (since they were there on one side) - however it turned out that they weren't, they had simply completely worn away, and as you can see I ended up hitting bare metal.

Similarly, around the edge of the tsuba were quite a few uneven lumps which I had foolishly assumed were rust. However, these too hit bare metal - I believe these uneven parts are what would be called the tsuba's "bones", which I only learnt about after the fact...

I am very upset I ended up scratching it so badly!! Honestly you can't see the damage in low light levels, and it's really frustrating to think of how many decades, even centuries of patina I have simply destroyed in under half an hour. 

Fiberglass pens are dangerous.

To add salt to the wound, the shakudo had actually self-healed really well over the months, so my previous big mistake had already been almost erased. I heavily suspect the new scratches in the iron will take much longer than that to repatinate though...

[George KN]

After learning that harsh lesson, I have since used the pens much more sparingly on only very limited areas, to achieve what I consider to be a better level of cleanliness/rust-free-ness on the other two tsuba:






There are one or two small spots of rust I may do some very light cleaning again on - but I am now incredibly cautious about overcleaning. Better under cleaned than over.

So to update my learnings list:
 

1. Bone can scratch Shakudo

2. Bone will eventually scratch/wear through patina

3. Cleaning will reveal existing damage or flaws
4. Flaked rust or metal from the cleaning can get under the tsuba if you are cleaning on a table/hard surface, and as you continue to clean and apply pressure to the tsuba, scratch the Shakudo without you noticing 
5. Shakudo will after many months eventually return back to black (or has at least in my case)
6. Boiling iron tsuba did not seem to visibily damage my tsuba, even with Shakudo and copper on 
7. Fiberglass pens are harder than bone, but EASILY scratch patina completely off. I will now only use them in extreme cases of heavy rust, and only in targeted areas
8. ALWAYS work in a brightly lit room
9. Sometimes decoration is not being hidden by rust, it can actually be completely warn away (the same with mei)
10. Uneven bumps on otherwise smooth curves (especially around the rim) may not be due to rust, but due to the tsuba's bones

Edited June 16, 2024 by Ghoul
Reiterate that fiberglass pens are dangerous

[ROKUJURO]

George,

In am not surprized reading that your treatment caused damage in a few cases, but I cannot understand that you are promoting restoring methods that have been ruled out by the experts here.

Boiling TSUBA is not recommended as well as the use of chemicals (WD40) with unknown formula and effects on TSUBA. Even if WD40 seems not to attack metals in most cases, we don't know about its effects on URUSHI which is used to glue in the HITSU ANA inserts.

Glassfiber pens have expressively been ruled out as acceptable tools for restoration.

Trying to remove TEKKOTSU shows that you have still something basic to learn (as most of us, myself included).

Perhaps you feel comfortable to use these methods on cheap TSUBA, but I seriously recommend to have a bit of patience in the necessary work (which in some cases may take months or even years) and to use tried and tested materials and methods.

With my home-made bone and antler tips I can reach into the finest gaps and crevisses and remove corrosion. But we have to remember that rust is iron turned into another material. It is not a layer on top of the surface, so very often the loss of material is obvious and cannot be healed. The original surface is no longer there and the look of the TSUBA has changed - sometimes drastically. 

[George KN]

Thanks Jean - and to clarify beyond doubt, I am not trying to promote my methods - I have done considerable harm not once but twice to the tsuba.

 

Don't do what I've done... I am a novice collector, and clearly a very novice restorationist 😅

 

The problem is, there are very few resources online to do with tsuba, and even less about rust removal. What scraps I ran into online seem very divided.

 

Bone does work - but I had real problems getting into the tight corners of the chestnut tsuba. It also couldn't seem to touch patches of the heavy rust on two of the other ones.

 

In fact, if was because I was having to apply pressure when using bone that I ended up scratching the schakudo. 

 

Please don't mistake me, this is not trying to be an instruction guide! I've simply tried to solve the issue of the heavy corrosion by trying one method after the other, trying what I assumed would be the least risky one first and moving on to riskier methods after months of the bone picks.

 

I just felt that instead of hide my failures, I should the post them - there just aren't enough examples online of *why* things are a bad idea, and why some things are better than others.

[George KN]

You are also definitely right about material being permanently removed by the rust - I had thought by cleaning I would be able to restore the flat and original surface of the tsuba, but sadly this just doesn't seem possible as the rust has in parts eaten several layers down into the iron.

 

As to the Tekkotsu, even after learning what to look for it is actually really hard to distinguish between small nubs of rust and and genuine bones... I think my tsuba may have been rusting for quite some time, as on places I would remove the surface rust, and below that would look like patina - only for it to fall off at a later stage to reveal the smoother surface underneath.

 

And FYI If there ever is a next time I think I would skip the WD40 and just go straight to boiling (unless there is gold/silver nunome obviously) and bone picks. 

 

They are definitely hard and expensive lessons to learn...

 

I will say thought that's quite an impressive array of bone picks you have there, they do take a while to carve!

[ROKUJURO]

8 minutes ago, Ghoul said:

....I will say though that's quite an impressive array of bone picks you have there, they do take a while to carve!

No, I have a well equipped forge with a few tools, so it only takes minutes to make one. With a saw, a file and some sandpaper, it might be some minutes more, but it's really no witch-work

[George KN]

Point taken, I shall stop trying to whittle them with a knife 😅

 

Also, as to boiling the tsuba, these were my primary sources of information (just so people don't think I'm completely insane):

 

http://www.japaneses...m/tsuba/tsubacln.htm