double hamon

[drjoe]

here is an interesting piece by a mukansa smith with what appears to be a double hamon, with a coarse line of nie running through the thicker choji hamon. i'm assuming this isn't a case of a double temper, but then i've never seen this effect so prominently on a blade before and i'm baffled at how it would be created.

 

http://aoi-art.com/sword/katana/12001-2.jpg

[paulb]

Hi

I dont think I have ever seen such activity within a hamon appearing so prominently. How the smith did it (assuming it was intentional and not chance) could occupy a lot of word space. My shorterned first guess would be it is the result of differential hardenning on different qualities of iron within the jigane, i.e. some of the material forms nie more readily than others and therefore the martensite grows larger more quickly.

Personal view is that this would be regarded as activity within the hamon rather than a double hamon (Nijuba) where you typically see a second seperated line of nioi or nie above the original. As with all definitions in this area others interpretations may be different.

It is an intersting piece.

Regards

Paul

[Brian]

http://www.aoi-art.com/sword/katana/12001.html

 

Unusual. Copy of Kiyomaro?

 

Brian

[markturner]

That's a very nice sword....if only I was more wealthy.....!!!

 

Rgds, Mark

[kusunokimasahige]

Very nice indeed !

 

I am wondering though if this is not yubashiri or sunagashi polished out to look like double hamon.

It does not look like kinsuji.

 

KM

[paulb]

There are always grey areas in definitions and when certain features transform in to something else. basically all of them (with some exceptions) are created by the same material (martensite) in varying forms. One could argue that this feature is a strange form of sunagashi although I tend to expect to see this formed in several layers and over shorter lengths. Yubashiri are formed by grouped patches of nie within the jigane and appear above the hamon in the Jihada.As you move the blade though a single light source they become dark giving rise to the name which I understand translates as "footprints in snow". Inazuma and kinsuji are seen as thin bright sol;id lines within the hamon or running from just outlside into it. This just appears to be a continueous line of nie and is probably best described as such.

It is an interesting thought that the clarity of this may be the result of polishing effect below the line of nie, creating an opaque border with the rest of the hamon.

[Eric H]

So Tsutomu is an approved Mukansa-tosho and is well known for his high quality utsushi of Kiyomaro and Sukehiro.

 

On the added pic, part of the hamon of another Kiyomaro utsushi 74.8 cm, which displays an abundance of sunagashi and kinsuji... these hataraki are made on intention, whereas the hamon in question... who knows?

 

Pic Sukehiro utsushi, 74.2 cm, and said to be the best Sukehiro utsushi by So Tsutomu.

 

Eric

[kusunokimasahige]

Gorgeous images Eric !!

 

Paulb, thank you for the analysis, learned something new again today

 

KM

[drjoe]

so it isn't just me. my post should have read "double hamon?" since i wasn't sure what was going on here. naturally, we all expect such a precipitation of nie to occur closer to the habuchi, and i usually don't expect such coarseness of the nie within a choji hamon at all.

 

note that the description of the blade (which i left off in the original post) calls the activity sunagashi and kinsuji as suggested, but in the boshi it's described as a "double hamon."

 

i actually don't really care for it, and i wonder whether this feature was present in the original kiyomaro.

 

looking at the pictures below, you can see how dramatically the line of nie disrupts the "other" hamon. my uninformed guess is that this was a deliberate effect, but one formed by purposefully creating two habuchi through the application of distinctly different thicknesses of clay. in this sense a true double hamon, but not from re-tempering?

 

http://aoi-art.com/sword/katana/12001-4.jpg

[Lee Bray]

http://www.aoi-art.com/sword/katana/12001.html

 

Unusual. Copy of Kiyomaro?

 

Brian

 

Tsuruta-san states at the bottom of the blurb, "This sword was made a copy of Kiyomaro."

 

Regarding the 'double hamon' - are we looking at honsanmai construction using a higher carbon steel on the side(kawagane) than normal?

High enough carbon that hardens during heat treatment as opposed to a low carbon steel on the side that would stay soft.

The nie seems to follow the internal 'hamon' line, so this is the hard edge steel(hagane). A low carbon kawagane would not harden and the border where the two steels meet blends into the hada(or can be seen as a faint colour change in the steel in some swords that use honsanmai). A higher carbon kawagane would harden, especially with the higher heat treat temperatures used to create nie(if my thinking is correct) and that is what we're seeing here. Slightly lower carbon kawagane than hagane and you'd get nie in the hagane and none in the kawagane if your heat treat control was precise.

[cabowen]

The line seen running through the hamon in the op's link is the boundary between steel inserted for the edge and that used for the kawagane on the side of the blade. It is thought that Kiyomaro used this same construction and most smiths attempting faithful copies do the same.

 

Personally, I do not think this is well done as the line is too distinct. I have seen many So copies and some of them are really good, some just, pardon the pun, so-so......

[jeremy]

My Okamoto Kazumune katana is also made in sanmai construction but doesnt have any obvious lines demarcating the kawagane and core steel. it does have niju-ha in the monouchi though. Should all sanmai blades have some sort of obvious line like So's blade in the link?

 

Kind regards.

 

Jeremy

[drjoe]

The line seen running through the hamon in the op's link is the boundary between steel inserted for the edge and that used for the kawagane on the side of the blade. It is thought that Kiyomaro used this same construction and most smiths attempting faithful copies do the same.

 

Personally, I do not think this is well done as the line is too distinct. I have seen many So copies and some of them are really good, some just, pardon the pun, so-so......

 

i suppose that would explain why there's no kaeri in first line of nie in the boshi.

[edzo]

Might this characteristic been the result of a re-tempering? Dear Eric, If you can see your way clear, how was your example photographed? Ed F

[runagmc]

No, it's not a result of yaki-naoshi. Go back and read Lee and Chris' post... it is a result of the core steel/edge steel being of a different quality or carbon content from the skin steel/jigane. Here's a link to info on different construction methods, http://www.ksky.ne.jp./~sumie99/construction.html

[Lee Bray]

Might this characteristic been the result of a re-tempering? F

 

If you're thinking that the higher hamon is a 'ghost' of the former hamon prior to re-tempering, that's not the case.

A sword would be annealed prior to yaki-naoshi and any former hamon would disappear as a result.

Even if it wasn't annealed, the temperature reached in yaki-naoshi would wipe out the former hamon.

If that's not what you're thinking...my apologies.

[edzo]

Dear Adam, Thanks for that, I'm on my way. Ef F

[edzo]

Dear Lee, thanks for the clarification, thats exactly what I was thinking but understand now how that could not be the case, thanks for that invaluable (to me and hopefully others), input, Ed F

[drjoe]

No, it's not a result of yaki-naoshi. Go back and read Lee and Chris' post... it is a result of the core steel/edge steel being of a different quality or carbon content from the skin steel/jigane. Here's a link to info on different construction methods, http://www.ksky.ne.jp./~sumie99/construction.html

 

yup. even the kiyomaro example on that page shows very much the same effect if not in exactly the same position relative to the habuchi...

 

http://www.ksky.ne.jp./~sumie99/Kiyomaro1.html

 

mystery solved.

[runagmc]

yup. even the kiyomaro example on that page shows very much the same effect if not in exactly the same position relative to the habuchi...

 

http://www.ksky.ne.jp./~sumie99/Kiyomaro1.html

Just so people aren't confused, the tanto on the post above isn't Kiyomaru, (they say it's like a Kiyomaro, refering to the sanmai construction) but it is a very good example for comparison to the swords this post was originally about.

[kusunokimasahige]

Definitely not a Kiyomaru..................

 

Since his name was Kiyomaro... :D

 

KM

[Brian]

Actually...his name was Japanese, so it can be pronounced either way. We are talking about Western translation here, no absolutes.

 

Brian

[runagmc]

Yeah, definitely noy a Kiyomaru Believe it or not this isn't the first time I've made that mistake.

 

Anyway, here's an example of the same effect (but more subtle) on a Masao, who was Kiyomaro's student. Actually the san mai construction makes more of a kinsuji effect on this one,

[kusunokimasahige]

Sorry Brian, but I have to disagree with you here.

 

The mei discussed is Kiyo きよ: 清 Maro まろ:麿

 

Not Maru.

 

It has nothing to do with a Western pronunciation of a Japanese name.

 

It has everything to do with the Japanese pronunciation and difference between ro : ろ and ru :る

 

http://www.saiga-jp.com/cgi-bin/dic.cgi ... 7831_22758

 

KM

 

The sword image you posted runagmc is a very good example, if i would not have known about this type of hamon before I might have seen it as a crack. Thank you !!

 

 

.

[Eric H]

The Masao pic provided by Adam L. is a rare example. I have checked in my library the images of Kiyomaro (few), Saneo, Masao, Suzuki Masao, Kiyondo, Nobuhide...and did not find a single example similar to the So Tsutomu Katana hamon.

 

It is perhaps worth mentioning that Saito Kiyondo changed his mei from 1872 to 1874 to Kiyomaru.

 

Tanto Kiyomaru ( Kiyondo) 27.3 cm

 

Eric

[Jacques]

Hi,

 

The Masao pic provided by Adam L. is a rare example

 

There are some good examples in the Kotetsu/Kiyomaro book, Under the name of Kiyomaro but also under Masayuki.

 

Ditto for Iida Shinshinto taikan.

[Eric H]

There are some good examples in the Kotetsu/Kiyomaro book, Under the name of Kiyomaro but also under Masayuki.

 

Ditto for Iida Shinshinto taikan.

 

Well I don‘t have those books, but are those examples by Masayuki / Kiyomaro illustrating a hamon equal to that of this So Tsutomu and is that „thin line“, as alike seen on the Masao pic, running thru the whole length of the blade...or is it interrupted?

 

some pics perhaps?

 

Question: is this kind of hataraki in the hamon, example So Tsutomu, considered to add to the beauty of a blade, or rather not?

 

Eric

[Lee Bray]

 

Some examples from the book Jacques mentioned. Sorry for the quality.

[Jacques]

Hi,

 

Some oshigata (often better than pictures)

 

 

[cabowen]

When done well, the demarcation between the steels is rather indistinct....When done poorly, it is clearly evident and apparent as a boundary.