oil temper

[eugene walton]

how can you tell oil tempered swords that are in old or war time polish? I have a verry good sword(kanesada) no problem telling with this sword but the war swords are a nother matter

[Guest Simon Rowson]

Hi Eugene,

 

Do your photos show a single blade? I'm a little confused as the temper line near the habaki is straight whilst that near the point is a zig-zag.

 

Regarding oil tempering, a sure sign is a complete lack of nie, the larger martensite crystals that you only see in traditional water quenched blades. Also, most oil tempered blades show no hada, or grain, as they were mass produced from bars of steel.

 

Simon

[eugene walton]

sorry, 2- blades, first 2 picks are a lesser qual. blade, the second 2 picks is what I hope is a better blade- it is signed kaneyoshi the hada is verry fine and the blade is koshi-zori,

[roninjje]

but they are both oil tempered. The second has a showa stamp, no?

[eugene walton]

the showa stamp shows non tradational, that just means "modern" steel not tamahagane was used in the mfg., the stamps were put into efect because some of the swords made with modern steel could not be told from "tradational" swords made from tamahagane.................................. this is from the book modern Japanese swords and swordsmiths

[roninjje]

that's true, but almost every sword with a showa stamp that I have seen was oil tempered, and withouy hada.

 

Nice to see another Pittsburgher on the list

[eugene walton]

a lot of the better showa-to acquired false signatures, also the stamps were removed from maney better showa-to, and now have a verry diferent history than they should, I think the shape of a sword can tell part of the story, the truly massproduced swords seem to all have a standerd shape so the fitting could be made to the same standard, or.......... not

[eugene walton]

notice the difference in apper. in these two war time swords

[waynes]

I was wondering when did they start doing oil tempering as I have a blade that appears to have been done that way also.

[eugene walton]

murata-to were used in the 1890s useing oil temper,Murata Tsuneyoshi (1838-1921) started oil quenching, but it was ww2 that saw wide use of oil quenching,