Diamond sizes in tsukamaki

[jezah81]

Hi Guys,

 

Ive been thinking about this question for a while now. Over the years Ive seen various tsuka with different sized diamonds done with the tsukamaki. Is smaller better? Bigger diamonds better? Is any more traditional or does it depend on the width of the tsuka-ito being used?

 

Kind Regards,

 

Jeremy Hagop

[Guest Simon Rowson]

Hi Jeremy,

 

Totally down to the width of the tsuka ito being used and the taste of the owner.

 

All the best,

Simon

[Ken-Hawaii]

I don't think there's any correlation between diamond-size & quality, Jeremy. Take a look at http://www.montanairon.com/tsukamaki.html & you can see that there are many types of tsuka-maki, with the tsuka wrapped in accordance with how the sword will be used.

 

For even more detail, you might enjoy http://pages.prodigy.net/tlbuck/tsuka/tsuka.htm.

[WoodbridgeGaijin]

Take a look at this site, it has photos of 50 different styles of Tsukamaki.

http://home.planet.nl/%7Esebregts/index.html

As I understand it, the size of the "diamonds" is also dictated by the thickness and width of the Ito used, the height of the nodules on the Same can also affect the apparent size by raising the Ito off the Tsuka and casting a bit of shadow, and as you can see, there are great number of different styles that dictate different "diamond" sizes. And lastly to some degree, how tight the wrap is (shuddering) although a loose wrap is more likely to have widely varying sizes of "diamond" patterns.