Recycled Steel?

[Adrian S]

G'day to all,

 

It has occured to me that it may have been far more smiths than Kotetsu who recycling older steel articles including swords. Since he actually had a reputation for doing so along with a reputation for excellence in swords, it may well be that many of the better Shinto smiths also practices this method. Has anyone seen any reference to steel recycling?

 

cheers,

[george trotter]

Hi Adrian,

If I understand what you mean by recycling, I would say that just about every smith in Shinto down to modern times did/does it. Looking through Gendai Toko Meikan for example, just about every smith uses, among other materials, "Ko-tetsu" (old iron/steel)...this consists of old nails, hinges etc, etc. In fact, it might throw up some problems for your testing as some of the results from shinto/shinshinto will be the same as for Taisho/Showa/Heisei. I wonder if a modern utsushi of an earlier shinto/shinshinto blade might present with the same construction and materials if made from tamahagane and ko-tetsu?

 

regards

[CurtisR]

I saw a program (the narrator was British as I recall) - possibly on PBS or perhaps even Paul Martin's YouTube channel which showed a smith collecting iron nails and selecting them from a Shinto shrine that was torn down for inclusion in a sword he forged. The smith forged the sword with Tamahagane and iron from selected nails, and presented it as a dedication it to the newly built shrine. The sword turned out beautifully, BTW.

 

Sorry I can't remember the name of the program but it was within the last year. Perhaps someone else here can remember the show's name --- I will keep searching and post a link if I can locate it.

 

Curt R.

[IanB]

Adrian, Sakakibara Kozan in Chukokatchu Seisakuben, when talking about steel / iron combination for armour plates, states 'Disused hoes and spades afford the best inner iron for for plates. Any steel remaining at the edge of the implement is stripped off and the part that remains, being very flexible, must be folded and forged for its new purpose.' In the same text is a reference to old saws being used for shikoro of helmets. There is also reference to Namban hyotan hagane imported by the Dutch as well as hin tetsu, jo tetsu and kei tetsu - all being good for swords but not native to Japan.

Finally, when talking about the steel facing for plates he states that the steel from the yakiba of swords is mixed with the spade iron in the ratio of 1:2. he also comments that Nara swords are never cut down (?) but then are not of a quality fit for making into armour.

Ian Bottomley

[cabowen]

I know from my visits to many smiths over the years that they all kept large stocks of scrap materials- old nails, implements, hardware from buildings, etc.

 

On one occasion I happened by an old kura (storehouse) that was being torn down. There were some old iron rods used for door tracks laying near the curb. I asked if I could have them to give to the local swordsmith. They were delighted to give them to me, as was the smith when I gave them to him.

 

When I left Japan, I was given a sword made by Isobe Mitsuhiro from an old steel rod taken from my polisher's family shrine's kura when it was torn down, by my polisher.

 

When I was in Japan just after the latest earthquake tragedy, I took a bike ride every afternoon with my son on a seat on the back. I came across an old kura being torn down due to earthquake damage. I hung around for a few hours watching and taking photographs. Knowing the efforts from building my own home, it was a sad sight to see the crane tear apart the massive beams and earth plaster walls. When most of it was on the ground, I managed to talk the site supervisor into letting me have a few of the giant, old forged spikes that had been part of the structure. They will make a nice tanto someday for my son as a memento of his first trip to Japan....

[drbvac]

Has at any time a smith broken a badly damaged blade and re-forged it or would the tempering and previous working make this impossible ??

[cabowen]

There is no reason an old blade can not be cut up and recycled into a new blade. Before cutting into pieces the smith would probably anneal the blade to take the hardness out of the edge. The steel would have to be worked to correct the carbon content one way or the other, depending on which part of the new sword it would be used for...

[Adrian S]

G'day to all,

 

Yes, the great thing about this board is that is a mirror of currently accepted theories and facts. Excuse me if I sounded ignorant as my intent was to guage a reaction to the acceptance of this fact before making a supposition based on it. I think it is acceptable to speculate that nearly every smith knows the value of old steel and that is it kept as a valued and prized commodity for use on special swords or, for example edge steel to improve the asthetics. Now I have been asked by a friend to make it clear when I'm speaking in the hypothetical as this can confuse the facts.

 

CAUTION: THE FOLLOWING IS HYPOTHETICAL AND HYPNOTICAL

 

I think recycling was always a big part of swordmaking culture, particulary going rignt back to Heian. Not just old spades or hinges etc. but of outdated and damaged swords. At this point I would like to refrain from using the word tamehagane as this word is a considerably recent made up word and really only refers to kera-oshi tatara steel. With your permission I will refer to iron and steel used for swords with a more generic term tetsu.

 

George you are right, the chemical analysis project shows that recycled tetsu could be a spanner in the works. For example, the generally accepted fact that Hideyoshi's sword hunt resulted in thousands of swords being sold to Ming China needs to be examined. The Japanese were selling swords to China 100 years before Hideyoshi. Did all Hideyoshi's swords eventually become recycled into Shinto swords? (of course he kept the good ones) What about captured weapons from Korea? For that matter, what about captured weapons from the Mongols , or before that from the Ainu? OK, that gets me to my point. Sorry it's been labourious to get there.

 

Recently I visited the Sano Museum and while I was there purchased the Japanese video about "The Roots of Sori". To cut to the chase, it shows in quite some detail a polished warabite-to. I was amazed! The sword showed strong itame hada, plentiful and large chikei, gorgeuos sunagashi, inazuma in fact it looked like a Soshu sword! Historically the Hojo Shikken moved their capital to Kamakura pushing the Ainu further north, but it also pushed them away from their iron smelters in the Kanto region. Strategically very smart to deprive the enermy of their main source of tetsu for weapons.

 

Anyway, my hypothetical is "Soshu tetsu and sword production techniques developed from the Ainu. A cause and effect lead by interesting results from studying and recycling Ainu warabite-to. Soshuden is created by assimulating Ainu tetsu production techniques and by using the same source material" Historically we see the Ainu style of iron smelter design being of the vertically oriented half buried type going back to the 9th century in this area. Has anybody heard a similar theory? I have more to add but want to get some feedback from the others. Just a little thinking outside the box.

 

cheers,

[David Flynn]

Adrian, glad to hear you listened.

[cabowen]

\

 

Anyway, my hypothetical is "Soshu tetsu and sword production techniques developed from the Ainu.

 

I don't believe that the warabite are considered to be made by ainu. I don't believe the ainu, at least in the period in which we see soshu blades evolving, were anywhere near Kamakura.

 

I have seen only a handful of genuine Ainu blades and none of them would ever be considered anything other than very crude....

 

Perhaps Peter Bleed, our resident archeologist and Ainu fan can comment....

[Mark Green]

Adrian and All,

It is very easy to recycle old swords (whatever), into new steel for making new swords. Many people in the world today, and in the very distant past, have done, and do it all the time.

The steel from this recycling can be very nice, and very difficult to tell if it was not original Tamahagane. The process of recycling usually adds a fair amount of carbon back into the steel, if you do it the old way.

Here is how it is done at home. making very nice blade steel, once it is folded out.

 

http://www.followingtheironbrush.org/vi ... f=9&t=2462

 

I have not seen any Japanese reference to it, but I'm sure it happened all the time. As blades often crack badly during quenching. So, as people do today, I'm more then sure, the smiths of old were doing the same recycling. Why wouldn't they!

 

Mark

[cabowen]

I have not seen any Japanese reference to it, but I'm sure it happened all the time. As blades often crack badly during quenching. So, as people do today, I'm more then sure, the smiths of old were doing the same recycling. Why wouldn't they!

 

Mark

 

Since sword steel was a valuable commodity, one can hardly expect it to be tossed away....Even today, tamahagane from the NiToHo tatara is not cheap and smiths would not simply discard a blade that failed to meet their expectations....

 

One thing to ponder though is the cultural side of things....many Japanese are superstitious and believe that spirits inhabit material objects (shintoism). Nothing is more personal than a sword, which we have always heard is the "soul" of the samurai. I can't help but wonder if it would have been considered bad mojo to break up old "souls" to make a new blade??? Most Japanese I have met put a great deal of import on cleanliness and purity. I can't help but think there might be something "impure" about recycling old swords....Just a thought....

[Mark Green]

That could be Chris.

Or maybe they could have looked at it, as the soul never made it into the sword that died in the quench. Or maybe just recycled into armor, or other utilities.

 

You would know better the I.

 

But now that I know how to recycle iron and steel, I keep every scrap. That 2800 deg fire sure cleans up some impurities

 

Mark

[cabowen]

I never really noticed smiths recycling old swords so I never really thought about it much....it would be a bit of a paradox so next time I am talking to a smith I will have to ask his thoughts....

 

Glad to hear your bag of tricks is gaining girth!

[Adrian S]

G'day Chris and all,

 

Up until I saw this blade I would agree with you Chris that Warabite-to are primitive. But this example on the Sano DVD shows skilled workmanship.

 

Tom Helm posted this on another site.

 

Mokusa Area was famous for legendary swordsmiths in the Heian Period (AD 794-1185). They are considered as the original producers of the Japanese swords known as "Warabite-to" (蕨手刀) which can date back to the sixth to eighth centuries. "Warabite-to" was its fame through the series of battles between Emishi people (蝦夷) and the Yamato-chotei government (大和朝廷) in the late eighth century. Using "Warabite-to," the small number of Emishi soldiers could resist against the numerous Yamato-chotei army over Thirty-Eight Years' War (三十八年戦争) (AD 770-811). The present site of Mokusa-jinja Shrine (舞草神社) is considered to be the site of Mokusa Swordsmith Remains (舞草鍛冶遺跡).

 

So maybe it's more correct to say Emishi rather than Ainu. The reason I make the correlation is that archeological evidence shows that most Warabite-to dug up (not all) are in the Northern areas of Honshu and Hokkaido. I remember seeing a Nat Geo special that traced through DNA the Ainu to the Amur Valley people and back to the Eastern Sythians. The Warabite-to design dosn't seem to come from China or Korea. Was it a Emishi design? Or maybe even Sythian? I would like to see any dug up in the Amur Vally or the Kiril Islands, haven't found one.

 

Would love to hear from Peter Bleed and Tom Helm.

 

cheers,

[cabowen]

I didn't mean to imply warabite are crude as I have seen examples that exhibit skilled forging and heat treatment. I was speaking to the examples of Ainu blades I have seen done in the style of later nihon-to.....

[John A Stuart]

"I never really noticed smiths recycling old swords so I never really thought about it much....it would be a bit of a paradox so next time I am talking to a smith I will have to ask his thoughts...."

Isn't there a big matsuri where old steel is collected and melted to billets for new forging. This includes knives, scissors, a little of everything and I think it includes faulty swords, broken etc. This is metal the smiths use subsequently. John

[cabowen]

Not familiar with it....do you have any references to it?

[John A Stuart]

Hi Chris, Somewhere on a few fora, but, here for sure it was linked to a Japan Times article a year or so ago, I think by Carlo. If I find it I will link it. John

[cabowen]

Thanks....I know they have a festival in Seki every year where they make steel in a mini tatara like process but I hadn't heard of anywhere collecting old steel to recycle...

[Mark Green]

They can send it all to me!