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Tagane-Ato, Sekigane, & Seppa


Ken-Hawaii

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I'm curious on how tsuba were originally fitted to tachi & katana blades. Were tagane-ato really necessary to fit the blade & nakago hitsu-ana together? Both tosho & tsubashi created extremely-polished products, so I wonder why large chunks would be needed to be chiseled out of an otherwise-pristine tsuba to get it to fit a blade. The only thing I can come up with is that tsuba were made up in batches that were bought separately, rather than as part of a sword "system." But that flies in the face of the rest of the koshirae, which would obviously have to be made to fit perfectly on each blade. Is there something about tosogu that has changed over the centuries? I can understand sekigane being needed as blades were cut down & repolished, & seppa for when there was some looseness between tsuba & blade when new tsuba were installed, but I have several tsuba with punch-marks that are extremely symmetrical on both edges of the ana, & look like they've been chiseled out primarily for visual appeal, rather than for any practical reason.

 

I'm also scratching my head on why tagane-ato are sometimes chiseled out of what is obviously the face of the tsuba, & other times on the reverse. Or is the face always determined by which side is chiseled?

 

Ken

 

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I had just written someone this morning about the same thing almost. In my post below yours, "unusual artifact", I took some close ups of a nakago hitsu-ana which shows both the yose-tagane and a series of of several elongated punches on the thinnest part of the nakago's circumference (visible on the left and bottom). I presume the yose-tagane  was done to create a thin enough rim of the nakago ana to punch, and thus tighten. I don't know why either side was chiseled (usually front I think) , but there is a very old style tsuba selling in less than a day which has both sides chiseled.

 

regards,  Johnnyi 

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I think that in general, during the warring periods (pre 1600) , most swords built were done so with a fairly well organised division of labour. We see this all over the world where large numbers of any type of artefact was produced. It is inefficient for skilled blade-smiths to be wasting energy and time making anything other than the blades. Similarly if a workman concentrates only on the guard he will inevitably be far more efficient in the use of his time, materials and fuel.

It's likely that there was only a little variation in the proportion of blades, uchigatana and then the katana proper, so that especially where it comes to the width of the blade at the machi a millimetre here or there wouldn't have seriously effected the size of the rest of the fittings. And it's all based off the habaki and the fuchi, which in turn determines the size of the tsuka. Assuming an average sized conscript with average hand size and we have a fair degree of conformity there too.

So we do sometimes see early examples of tosho and katchushi guards (neither made by sword-smiths or armour-makers imo) that evidently never had seki-gane fitted. This suggests that when first made they were made to fit a particular blade quite neatly. It certainly makes sense to do that in the first instance as it saves time compared to faffing about with copper bits, which cost more money too. And on a brand new blade, possibly unsigned too, there was no need to protect the nakago with copper inserts either.

So when we see guards long after their original manufacture, when they were probably made in a co-operative workshop/factory situation, and they now have had a fair degree of additional adjustment and fiddling done around the nakago I think it safe to simply regard that as evidence of numerous re-mounts on many different blades.

On a guard made of non-ferrous metal it isn't absolutely necessary to fit copper seki-gane as the metal is already softer than the steel sword blade and it can easily be punched around the ha-machi and mune machi to displace metal and effectively shrink the nakago opening. Then a new, tight fit can be re-filed. Of course, later on in time, if yet another blade was to be fitted and there wasn't enough metal left to adequately push around then copper seki-gane would be fitted.

Where we see extensive hollowing out within the seppa-dai area, towards the nakago-ana itself, I think this is simply the same process being carried out to close up the long sides of the nakago where previously there was much thicker blade fitted. In fact this is not confined to non-ferrous guards only. A quick flip though Sasano's Gold book will provides a very clear visual 'evolution' of the ways in which the metal around the nakago-ana was manipulated to adjust fitting, from the slightest bumps at top and bottom, a couple of thumps along the sides, to serious hollowed out dished seppa-dai spaces.

In essence, what I'm trying to explain, is that the evidence of working around the nakago-ana is almost always merely the consequence of mechanical deformation done to effect a better fit of the guard on to a tang and done sometime after the guard was first made.

As with all things Japanese sword there are exceptions. Higo province guards are notable for the use of decorative punch marks around the nakago. Variations in these punch mark patterns or arrangements are supposedly indicative of particular masters. A proposition I regard as something of a minefield as punch marks like this are quite probably the easiest thing to copy on a tsuba. :-?

And of course by the 17th century it became custom to fit copper seki-gane to new guards that would go on both old or new blades. Some schools made a real aesthetic feature of these copper additions. The Suruga group fitted a very distinctive shape of seki-gane when their tsuba were first made and by the mid 19th century the Tanaka school had gone all disco on their seki-gane. :laughing:

 

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