Need Metalurgist's Help Please

[johnnyi]

Can anyone identify the crystals (melt?) shown here?  Edit   picture didn't go through  admin. please remove     Thanks, john

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[johnnyi]

Hello. hopefully these will show.  What you see as little whitish-silver areas similar to wear are actually crystals or maybe melted silica? Martensite  maybe?  Thanks in advance.

 

Kind regards, John

[Ford Hallam]

Looks like oxidised wax to my eyes. That and perhaps some bits of magnetite, black rust and geothite, an active brown rust. It's highly unlikely that we'd find martensite in ferrous tsuba as they are not generally heat treated nor do they contain sufficient carbon.

[johnnyi]

Thank you Ford. I've learned "geothite" now.  One thing that threw me was the metalic surface over, not under some of the white, as shown here:

 

John

 

 

 

 

 

[christianmalterre]

indeed not a metallurgical thing here.

 

i rather guess it is a solvent or a kind of wax.

 

equally this would be very untypical ( as i never have seen such jet) on kind of decarbonised iron or sandiron used...( shoreiron we do call it in German-  i do not know it´s expression in English language as it is a Medieval German term)

 

if taken by the shore or sea iron sands it´s colouration would go ( after decarbonisation) to blackish blue to greenish-yellow colouration...

 

this is not the fact here as i rather do see it like a "wax" silverish colouration....

 

maybe a adhesive used either before ( so remnants) or afterwards ( much more possible!) after a zogan on its usual former surface....?

 

actually your´s Tsuba´s surface does look burned either by strong -(seawater?)(fire?)(artificially modern acid treatment?) -corrosion.

 

no natural patina due age and wear here very certainly!

 

i am very very sceptic in fact!

 

Christian

[johnnyi]

Thanks Christian!  Good to see you, even when bearing bad news  

 

Regards,  John

[christianmalterre]

not forcefully bad news! (least for a YKB-school piece i´d personally dare to range it into its propper shelf    - as it is )

 

just not authentic- actually.

 

depending on what your´s personal preferences are heading-

 

either ultrasonic ( cheap and harmless if done correctly)

or

heat   ( not that good in an estate you do not know)

 

each will immediately tell you the answer but.

 

me