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Very deep sori


Jon

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Like when a shinsa judge looks at a bad blade where they literally reach for the pink sheet after only a quick glance, nihonto students should do the same. If only as much time were spent studying excellent blades as folks spend time on studying bad blades. Yes, look for saiha when you see a sword with unusual deep sori. 

 

Regards

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12 hours ago, DoTanuki yokai said:

I don’t think the extraordinary Sori is related to saiha theory is true at all.

 

Are you saying this for this sword or in general or both? Regardless, it would be most unwise not to "look for" saiha on a sword with an unusual amount of sori. While I was not in attendance, myself, this information was shared by fellow RSG members following  a Florida sword show in which Mr. Tanobe spoke about saiha. The other somewhat of a surprise that came out of that session was the fact that there are many more saiha swords out there than one might expect. 

Edited by Franco D
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Franco is correct that there are probably many swords that are saiha that we are not aware of. After the process they would fulfill their purpose as weapons again. There are also some famous swords that have been reforged as fired caused damage in period Japan. However for more basic weaponry it would not be documented that well.

 

I have seen some great saiha blades, and I would not have the knowledge to tell they have been reforged. Nikkō Tōshōgū has had modern smiths reforge some of their burned blades and the end result looks very good. They had a rotation of 3 tachi per turn and all of the 3 that I saw this year and 3 that I saw last year were all reforged in 1980's.

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Not to hijack, but imagine my surprise… had a blade polished, only to have it judged saiha at Shinsa.  My guess is the blade has mizukage and that was a tell to the Shinsa team.  Polisher didn’t think so… 

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Mizukage can result from an original temper (quench) as my bargain basement gunto below indicates.  Sorry for the fuzzy old cell phone pics, but the mizukage is unmistakable, and the left pic shows a floating island of yubashiri for added effect, likely good for an additional ten dollars upon resale.  ;-)

 

image.png.c9d99c3eaa6677ceec7c150dbf3e9c94.png

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There can be clear signs like mizukage that starts at the hamachi on a suriage blade but from my own experience you can’t see saiha on an ubu blade. 
Maybe if the blade is poorly shaped when retempered the sori could become ugly but what would be the reason otherwise ? 

 

Some years ago they had this on the usagiya homepage 

IMG_7581.thumb.jpeg.2c4148b371b01b1a200766657dbab52e.jpeg

 

I have also done Saiha on one Tanto that I forged from Tamahagane five times and I couldn’t make out any signs of it. 

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On 8/28/2024 at 9:58 PM, Jon said:

Some more pictures, it does have an interesting set of koshirae to go with that insane Sori….

2C3DAEAB-4ECB-42B7-9721-2A0EC6529764.jpeg

DD5B82C7-C9F4-41B6-9372-D0161DB767D2.jpeg

5456247C-5DAE-47A8-B9D4-18F5837930A1.jpeg

F67EA466-D5B9-44D3-ACB0-8B8EAB1A5E2B.jpeg

5E2D0C80-D803-46AC-8CE0-7F6461C4B745.jpeg

9A7A26DD-5239-44AE-88AB-D91DAC142F57.jpeg

Jon I own this sword I think the blade pic is not correct here's what it looks like ,thanks Paul 

IMG_20240831_104156~2.jpg

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Hi Paul, that’s brilliant that you own this one..do you have any information on the school ect…I have never seen a blade like it anywhere before.

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Sorry Jon I have no information on it whatsoever.ive never spent so long researching something and got so little information.i quite like the temple offering idea there is a video on YouTube where a smith makes a blade for a Shinto temple and it's the same shape as the roof but I struggle with the idea of waki sized blades as temple offerings in the video it was a big blade tachi size.thanks paul.sorry for my confusion I didn't realise the first picture is also my sword and your picture's are correct 

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