Jifu?

[M Ubertini]

Hey all,

 

Would this be considered jifu on a nambokucho Naoe Shizu blade?  Haven’t studied this in a while. 

[atm]

I am far from an expert, but I don’t think it is jifu since the hada flows through it. My understanding of jifu is that it free of the hada. I could be totally wrong, though, as jifu seems to be hard to consistently define.

[Rayhan]

Is this an edo period blade?

[Gakusee]

11 hours ago, atm said:

I am far from an expert, but I don’t think it is jifu since the hada flows through it. My understanding of jifu is that it free of the hada. I could be totally wrong, though, as jifu seems to be hard to consistently define.

 

The above by MU is not jifu. 
 

Jifu is not free of hada. It is a type of utsuri and very simplistically speaking  as such is a top layer treatment/ element of the underlying metal. 

[CSM101]

Ohara Sanemori. and jifu utsuri 

[Rayhan]

Ok so no-one got my humor, can you show us the whole sword with some more pics so we can make a stable judgement?

[Rivkin]

Sigh... sword porn people showing jifu in public...

[oli]

intersting article about Jifu http://www.ksky.ne.jp./~sumie99/jinie.html#JIFU

[Brano]

On 4/16/2025 at 4:52 AM, atm said:

I am far from an expert, but I don’t think it is jifu since the hada flows through it. My understanding of jifu is that it free of the hada. I could be totally wrong, though, as jifu seems to be hard to consistently define.

Maybe you meant sumihada, which is typical of the AOE school

 

[nulldevice]

Just now, Brano said:

Maybe you meant sumihada, which is typical of the AOE school

 

I know looking at Sesko's definition of Jifu, he mentions that "it has more or less a clear border" and "it appears free from the jihada, the forging structure, and is not limited to follow the pattern of the grain". 

[Brano]

38 minutes ago, nulldevice said:

I know looking at Sesko's definition of Jifu, he mentions that "it has more or less a clear border" and "it appears free from the jihada, the forging structure, and is not limited to follow the pattern of the grain". 

 

Markus describes Jifu in his book as:

" Areas of dense ji-nie which appear as spots, splotches (fu, 斑) on the ji. It as a more or less clear border and deeper color than the surrounding jigane and it is a hardening effect. That means it appears free from the jihada, the forging structure, and is not limited to follow the pattern of the grain. "

 

 

 

[nulldevice]

20 minutes ago, Brano said:

 

Markus describes Jifu in his book as:

" Areas of dense ji-nie which appear as spots, splotches (fu, 斑) on the ji. It as a more or less clear border and deeper color than the surrounding jigane and it is a hardening effect. That means it appears free from the jihada, the forging structure, and is not limited to follow the pattern of the grain. "

 

 

 

So a question is, are these splotches of ji-nie tied to the underlying hada directly or is it a heat-treatment process in which certain spots are tempered in such a way that more nie forms in splotches resulting in jifu, and in the case of widespread jifu, jifu-utsuri?

 

Based on my understanding, nie formations such as chikei follow the hada directly and I have understood jifu to be sort of opposed to that as it is a localized spot of ji-nie with a defined border more tied to tempering rather than forging grain. 

[nulldevice]

To add a bit more, this has been my understanding. 

 

If a blade is heated roughly evenly across the entire blade before yaki-ire, there will be small differences between the layers (hada) and some of these will be more prone to martensite formation due to having variations in carbon content. This will result in formations such as chikei during tempering and quenching.

 

On the other hand, if there is a section of the blade that is quenched at a different rate than the surrounding areas due to clay application (thinner or thicker) or some other process, this area can form martensite formations more independently of the underlying layers of steel and the pattern resulting from this may be more tied to an area that was heated/quenched differently than the rest of the sword. In this case, these formations would be more free from the hada as Sesko describes and this is where jifu comes from. 

Edit: And then additionally, you get other hardening formations such as tobiyaki and yubashiri which are characterized by having distinct borders, looking like water droplets, etc. All nie formations that come from hardening, but with small differentiating characteristics. 

[Brano]

26 minutes ago, nulldevice said:

Based on my understanding, nie formations such as chikei follow the hada directly and I have understood jifu to be sort of opposed to that as it is a localized spot of ji-nie with a defined border more tied to tempering rather than forging grain. 

Chikei doesn't always follow hada
In places where chikei are not formed you can see the structure of the jigane, which has a much finer texture than it might seem when looking at the chikei

[nulldevice]

7 minutes ago, Brano said:

Chikei doesn't always follow hada
In places where chikei are not formed you can see the structure of the jigane, which has a much finer texture than it might seem when looking at the chikei

Very informative, thanks @Brano! I just looked up chikei in Sesko's book and he describes 2 types of chikei, one type that does follow the hada which is usually tied to soshu-den referring to the darker layers of steel and another type which is not bound to the hada like you show above.

[Brano]

29 minutes ago, nulldevice said:

Very informative, thanks @Brano! I just looked up chikei in Sesko's book and he describes 2 types of chikei, one type that does follow the hada which is usually tied to soshu-den referring to the darker layers of steel and another type which is not bound to the hada like you show above.

The first case you describe is actually the jigane itself (chikei is not made of a cluster of ji-nie)
The published photos are of a blade from a first-class Soshu swordsmith, however the chikei are made of martensite crystals that are woven through the layers of jigane
Chikei can take many forms and many times may not be visible at first glance
Here is an example of a Bitchu blade from the end of Kamakura, where the chikei are about the thickness of a human hair (for a better idea - the sakihaba is 16mm and the kissaki is 25mm)

[Brano]

Another example of an early Yamashiro blade with very fine ko-nie jigane and chikei, which are also very fine (you can see them better in places where the photo is a bit out of focus)

[Lewis B]

@Brano excellent examples of why taking carefully executed photos, under sympathetic lighting is so important. The finer details come alive and can be appreciated when in hand examination is not possible.