Shintetsu. Good, bad or acceptable?

[Lewis B]

In the course of my continuing education in the field of nihonto something has me perplexed. Its Shintetsu or the appearance of Shingane through the jihada. I have seen multiple examples of juyo papered swords with extensive Shintetsu along the entire jihada. For some Den its actually a kantei feature eg for Aoe and Rai schools, with Markus Sesko giving a specific name ie sumigane-hada or namazu-hada, on account of their very thin Kawagane.

I have seen a couple of Tanobe sayagaki giving these same blades the superlative chinchin chocho seal of approval. There is even one report of a kantei session being so impressed with the quality of the exposed shingane on a blade that it was mistakingly attributed to Norishige on account of its Matsukawa-like 'jihada' pattern. My understanding is that the Shingane or Kawagane as in the case of 7 layer Soshu kitae style construction, was folded on early Koto swords and of a similar quality to the Kawagane or Hagane resulting in a clear chikei-like pattern being exposed when the outer layers were polished away.

If this feature is generally considered a negative and indicative of a 'tired' blade, then how are these blades getting such accolades. Is the attribution over riding such a 'defect'? To me it seems very subjective. Ultimately, the answer as to whether it is good, bad or acceptable is, it depends.

[ROKUJURO]

Not good, not bad on very old blades, but ugly in my opinion.

Of course it depends on the structure of the SHINGANE, and on many KOTO blades, it was probably more carefully forged than on later blades. But in the end, almost all longer Japanese blades are made as a sandwich construction, and if one side is gone or defective, they are no longer intact and functional. 

However, this may be acceptable on rare or very old blades.

Just my 2 YEN. 

[Alex A]

Its never desirable but acceptable for many. Especially folks that don't have deep pockets that like to collect old Koto by the more prominent smiths. We are talking some rare antiques that have survived 500 plus years and considered "artworks", hence such accolades, even if tired.

 

For folks that struggle to live with such issues, there's always later blades that have seen less polishing.

 

Saying that though, some folks cant live with shinshinto or later, just don't have the same appeal. 

 

Having seen the effect of many polishes, kind of struggle with some old blades.

 

Shintetsu don't seem so bad compared to other effects of over polishing, with regards the hamon for example. 

 

[Lewis B]

Here are a couple of examples I found online. The first one is a Naotsuna and the second a Ko Hoji Sadatsuna, both Juyo papered. I get the impression Tanobe is in the camp of letting it slide and does not degrade the quality of the blade much when they exhibit such Shintetsu features (circled in red). 

 

 

 

 

[Rivkin]

The influence of kizu on high level papers is always school specific. At TJ level, Sumigane or Rai shintetsu are not seen as strictly negative. Ware can be tolerated with ko Hoki or Sairen or Hiromitsu. Fukure with Masamune.

Bizen blades with almost any kizu generally can't get Juyo.

[Lewis B]

Does this look like Shintetsu?

 

 

[ROKUJURO]

I should add that SHINTETSU coming through is not necessarily a forging KIZU, but it has to do with the respective (polishing) history of a blade.

Blades like HIZEN TO who are known for a thin KAWAGANE are theoretically more likely to show SHINTETSU after a long life.

In some cases, when there is no or little structure in these spots, they may be UMEGANE. 

[Lewis B]

How would this construction appear as the outer Hagane (light blue) is worn away through repeated polishing exposing the Kawagane (mustard)? Would it look different to the core Shigane? Harder to distinguish especially if the jihada is mokume?

 

[Jacques]

Soshu kitae never existed. About shintetsu, it has only been used since the Muromachi period, so it shouldn't be used for everything.

[Franco]

1 hour ago, Jacques D. said:

About shintetsu, it has only been used since the Muromachi period,

 

Careful about making blanket statements, "only", Jacques, especially when it comes to nihonto. Something I try to remind myself of all of the time. While I'm working from memory here, I've had this conversation before on another forum. Guido Schiller's??? It appears that shintetsu was first used at least as early as the late Heian period. In fact, one polisher I spoke with told me there was core steel showing on a sword he polished from the 1100's.

 

Quote

 

paulb

 

My first reaction when seeing this is that it may be slightly later than the national treasure blade and the other one I have studied (although I am only talking about 10 or 15 years) and starts to show the transition in to the next generations style.

If it were not signed I am also inclined to think it would have papered to Awataguchi or possibly Kuniyasu. The fact that it is signed and by so rare and important smith as Norikuni makes it an extremely important reference work.

One final thing I noted was that Darcy mentions this blade showing core steel. Up until now I had believed, based on what I had seen before, that Awataguchi blades, certainly the early ones were, like Sanjo Munechika's work made in single piece construction. This proves that theory either wrong or again shows a transition to the incorporation of soft core for whatever reason. This subject has been debated at length recently but may confirm some of the ideas regarding scarcity of material mentioned there.

https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/28067-who-cares-about-kanteisho-level/#comment-283479

 

 

Fyi, another post that may be of interest here ... Keith Larman  https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/1695-how-many-polishes/#comment-13014

 

Regards

[Rivkin]

About 70% of pre Heian iron blades have two piece construction. Its universal to the early iron age - since steel was very hard to produce, its often was but a narrow strip around the edge. One of the reasons they can be hoso-suguha: heat treating pure iron is unsound. Also it seems to be one of the reasons asymmetric blades (cutting edge on one side) were popular - one basically inserts a steel element on one side to larger iron plate.

However, almost none of these early blades can have shintetsu - precise and careful wrapping of steel around iron is indeed a later technology (Heian).

[Jacques]

Franco

I would like to see a reliable  Japanese source. 

Shintetsu was used in conjunction with new forging methods during the Sengoku jidai (makuri kobuse). During the Heian and Kamakura periods, steel was produced by smiths in small quantities, which limited the variations in carbon content - we also know that Masamune mixed a less carbon-rich steel in the final stages of forging the ingot; the result is this very special hada .  I'd like to add that the use of shintetsu doesn't add anything in terms of functionality, it just has an economic purpose, as it allows  to use steel that was previously used to make tools, and therefore to be able to make more swords and satisfy the high demand during the civil war period.

[Lewis B]

I wasn't under the impression Shintetsu was a design feature of the swordsmith at all, in any era. Merely a product of excessive polishing with thinner Kawagane, commonly employed in the Muromachi period, exhibiting the effect after fewer polishing cycles. 

[Alex A]

What is SHINGANE? (ksky.ne.jp)

[sabiji]

@ Lewis B, regarding the high ratings (whether NBTHK or Tanobe-Sensei's Sayagaki) of obviously tired blades, I can only give one example:

 

At the beginning of my passion for nihonto, I was able to see a ko-mihara that had some kizu and was otherwise already very tired.
The owner assured me that some very well-known experts (who have unfortunately already passed away) had praised this blade very highly.
I didn't understand this and found the blade rather unattractive, even ugly, because of the Kizu.

 

This year, after more than 30 years, I saw the blade again and I was extremely impressed by the quality of the blade. The flaws, no doubt caused by age and many polishes, were completely insignificant to me! A wonderful textbook example of a Ko-Mihara, which can also show Namazu-Hada-like appearances due to the close influence of the Aoe school.

 

I have nothing more to say on the topic.

 

Alex A has included a good link to the Usagiya articles.

 

[Franco]

16 hours ago, Jacques D. said:

I would like to see a reliable  Japanese source. 

 

 

Jacques,

 

1.  I would love to cite the source placing the use of "core steel" in the late Heian period. However; A. the computer with that information is now gone, and, B. that, along with almost half of my nihonto library including the copy of the magazine article about the use of core steel in the Heian period is now gone as well after having retired from collecting and downsized. 

3. I can't recall the name of the sword forum where the conversation took place about when the use of core steel began other than remembering it had an affiliation with Guido Schiller, and the conversation was  with someone from Italy, perhaps with a Carlo T., if memory serves. 

If the website still exists perhaps the conversation could be tracked down. I can't even remember my sign in name any longer.

4. Regardless, we're not going to get a more reliable source than the Japanese polisher who told me he polished a sword from the 1100's that had what he termed as a ladder type construction showing when asked what the earliest sword was he had seen with core steel showing.

 

None the less, I will continue searching for answers. 

 

https://markussesko....i-2-jigane-jihada-1/

 

 

Regards

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 27, 2024 by Franco D