wow. 3k + for a KOA ISSHIN MANTETSU on ebay

[drdata]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... NA:US:1123

 

I have heard they are good cutters, but wow, cheaper to get real nihonto at this rate.

 

Regards

[chrisf]

This is just the current lunacy;a few years ago it was the Asano Kanezane craze,I bought one and sat and studied it and kept thinking I was missing something when actually I wasn't it was just another Showa-to and it's the same with Koa Isshin which are well made and finished swords and have historical interest but are not true nihonto.

There's an element of kidology in this too where what appears to be ridiculous can become the norm because there are no price lists for antiques or collectables,the price is only limited by the buyer's/seller's perception of value.

[Amon]

Nothing else but stupidity!

Personally I don't even like the blade, Once again too much money on militaria these days.

[Bruno]

I have been told that some of them with inscriptions on the nakago removed, passed shinsa with success, I think in Japan.

 

However at that price I would prefer to have a RJT gendaito! :D

 

I have the same Mantetsu and consider it as an elegant sword (of course I did not buy it at that rate! )

[Surfson]

I suspect that it partly went for so much since the mounts are near mint and there is a surrender tag.

[gtstcactus]

This is just the current lunacy;a few years ago it was the Asano Kanezane craze,I bought one and sat and studied it and kept thinking I was missing something when actually I wasn't it was just another Showa-to and it's the same with Koa Isshin which are well made and finished swords and have historical interest but are not true nihonto.

There's an element of kidology in this too where what appears to be ridiculous can become the norm because there are no price lists for antiques or collectables,the price is only limited by the buyer's/seller's perception of value.

 

 

So these KOA ISSHIN MANTETSU swords aren't true nihonto.....

 

what about the swords made with wootz steel mixed with tamahagane?

 

I'm sure I've read somewhere of swords with tang stamped with something like made from "imported steel" not new swords either...

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cac ... sZ7pgO-hIA

[Rich S]

Just curious, does anyone know who the seller is? Candillaria 2007?

Has a website Owazamono.com. Checked it out but not updated since

2010 and no info on who owns or runs it.

 

Rich S

[drdata]

Jason, its not the stamp so much as the documented way in which they were made.

 

I believe mass-produced machine made from railway steel. Again, very nice swords that I understand were the preferred choice for martial arts cutting when real nihonto were too precious. Well made and historically well documented military usage.

 

http://www.h4.dion.ne.jp/~t-ohmura/gunto_114.htm

 

No info on the seller, other than list many items that seem real enough.

 

Regards

[Mark]

Rich

 

the seller is a member here (or was ), he has posted before.

[Stephen]

Just curious, does anyone know who the seller is? Candillaria 2007?

 

Eric Molinier, From france but been living in USA for some time

 

his email is EMolinier@aol.com

[gtstcactus]

fair call Harry....

[estcrh]

Kevin from Ryujin swords has a good explanation of these swords on his site along with the tang stamp into. http://ryujinswords.com/shostamp.htm

[chrisf]

Jason,I would echo that along with suggesting Dr Stein's website for a thorough explanation of Koa Isshin swords.

I wasn't trying to 'knock' Koa Isshin swords,I was delighted to own one as one of my first swords and as far as I was concerned it had everything I thought (then) that a Japanese sword should have,hamon,hada,decent sugata,well cut signature and yasurime plus good gunto mounts with pierced tsuba.When I subsequently learned that it wasn't a 'proper' Japanese sword(nihonto) it didn't spoil it for me,I still enjoyed it for what it was,a real sword made to carry in combat.

As for their cutting ability I tend to think that as with anything else that requires manual dexterity quite a lot depends on the upright bit holding the handle!

[Kevin]

I believe mass-produced machine made from railway steel.

 

Not quite. The Manchurian Railway Company came up with a method of making very pure iron specifically for making swords - nothing else. From this they then made high carbon steel and low carbon steel. The high carbon steel was made into a pipe, a low carbon steel rod fitted up the middle of the pipe, and the two forgewelded together and drawn down. Given that it has a hada, I presume that the metal for the pipe at least was folded.

 

Some machinery was incolved. OTOH, the company had swordsmiths over to teach the workforce swordsmithing techniques, so presumably traditional techniques were also used. Oh, and the cutting edge comes out at approx Rc 72.

 

Thinking of the Manchurian Railway Company as being purely a railway company and that the source of metal was therefore going to be railway tracks is well off the mark. They're probably best thought of as a quasi-governmental body. They built entire towns and model cities (including the infrastructure) that were in advance of anything in Japan, were into agriculture and agricultural research, mining, pottery, glass making, steelworks, chemical plants, flour mills, sugar plants, electrical generation and engineering of all sorts. They effectively ran Manchuria and contributed about 25% of Japan's tax income. Not too surprisingly, they also had major connections to the Tokyo government and the military. They were allowed to seize property and could easily stifle dissent.

 

Incidentally, their aim was to improve on the Japanese sword by making the construction (i.e. placement of core steel) more consistent and also avoiding the cold fractures that other swords, including traditionally made swords, suffered from in Manchurian winters.

 

Kevin

[chrisf]

Kevin,my understanding was that this was a way of making production line swords for combat use avoiding the use of swordsmiths that was time consuming and labour intensive.Is it not possible that the swordsmiths that were involved gave instruction in blade forming techniques rather than forging and that the hada that appears in Koa Isshin blades is an inherent grain in the steel brought out by tempering as opposed to a proper,forged hada?

[drdata]

Thanks Kevin, I have heard that some Swedish steel used for rails has an inherent hada as it was manufactured in a fashion similar to tamahagne (folded anyway).

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=c7YeN0 ... &q&f=false

[Kevin]

Kevin,my understanding was that this was a way of making production line swords for combat use avoiding the use of swordsmiths that was time consuming and labour intensive.Is it not possible that the swordsmiths that were involved gave instruction in blade forming techniques rather than forging and that the hada that appears in Koa Isshin blades is an inherent grain in the steel brought out by tempering as opposed to a proper,forged hada?

 

Umm! Probably not. The president of Mantetsu gave a speech on the subject announcing his company's intention to 'improve on the Japanese sword', i.e. to apply technology to the traditional way of making a sword in order to make a superior sword. It was a prestige project, if you like. Given the barrelloads of money that Mantetsu was making from all its other enterprises (25% of Japan’s tax revenues came from the company), it was one that they could indulge.

 

Now to tackle drdata's comment, Swedish steel railway tracks from the 19th century have a sort of hada because they were made from iron from a puddling furnace that was then turned into blister steel by heating with carbon for a week or more. This gave billets with a very inconsistent carbon content. These had to be folded umpteen times to get a consistent carbon content. It’s a bit like mixing dough. The resulting billets were then forged to shape. The Meiji railway system used tracks made by this process. It was good blade steel – a higher carbon content than most traditionally made blades plus manganese (makes the blade tougher). In fact Swedish steel was sought after for making blades in Europe – it has extremely low level of nasties such as sulphur.

 

However, puddling furnaces and blister steel were obsolete well before WW2. They were replaced first by the cheaper Bessemer process (1860’s onwards?), which makes steel, and then by open hearth furnaces. The open hearth furnace has in turn been replaced by basic oxygen and electric arc furnaces.

 

As a result, the modern steels that the Japanese were making in WW2 didn't need folding - the carbon content was already consistent when it came out of the furnace. There would therefore have been no need for Mantetsu to fold a modern steel. It would have served no purpose. In addition, modern steels don’t have a hada-like inherent grain. You can temper it however you like, including yaki-ire – you will not produce a hada, because that is produced by folding. 19th century Swedish railway tracks only have a sort of hada because they were folded, many times, during their manufacture.

 

Mantetsu could have turned the pure iron that they were making for swords into steel with a consistent carbon content with no need for any folding. Since there is a hada - and it is quite definitely a hada – it was achieved by intentionally folding the steel. Most likely this was done with power hammers rather than manually. However, you still needed smiths to teach the workers how to do this. This was in line with their idea of improving on the traditionally made sword.

 

Kevin

[Kevin]

BTW, if anyone is really interested in the various steelmaking processes, there are some good articles on Wikipedia. For blister steel see 'Cementation process'.

 

A number of the early processes have interesting oriental antecedents. The Chinese had puddling furnaces (chao lu, if I remember the name right) and blast furnaces by the Han Dynasty (202 BC-220 AD), plus a version of the cementation process. The Chinese were also making Wootz steel, having picked up the technology from India. There's some reading here, though it isn't exhaustive:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... y_in_China

 

I'm surprised that the Japanese didn't adopt the puddling furnace at least - tamahagane would have made very good feedstock for producing exceptionally pure iron. The cementation process would have then produced carbon steel with a controllable amount of carbon. However, there's no evidence that the Japanese operated anything but bloomeries, which is what the method of producing tamahagane is.

 

Kevin

[chrisf]

That Koa Isshin blades are formed from folded steel can only be supposition unless there is documentary evidence to support it and whilst they appear to have a 'hada' it is quite unlike the hada seen in contemporary gendaito or other traditionally made swords and while that may be explained by the use of their own particular steel it is not enough to convince that their kawagane is forged and folded.

Two trained swordsmiths were invited to the facility and my suggestion was that they possibly taught blade forming and shaping and that the blade making was more of a production line process which seems possible given the production number of 400 swords a month in 1939.

[cabowen]

See here for details on Koa Isshin blades:

 

http://www.h4.dion.ne.jp/~t-ohmura/gunto_114.htm

 

Electrolytic iron was placed in a steel pipe and welded together. Doubtful that the pipe was made of forged steel. The apparent hada is most likely the grain stretching from the drawing of the pipe.....

[Kevin]

The apparent hada is most likely the grain stretching from the drawing of the pipe.....

 

Hmm! I've done a lot of forging over the years (I started learning when I was 13), including drawing down and blademaking. I've never seen anything like a hada formed as a result of drawing down. Can't think why any form of stretching would give ko-itame - machine-stretched stuff just has lots of straight lines from the rollers, and that's nothing like a hada. They are surface structures rather than part of the steel and as such don't survive polishing.

 

Now way I understand it is that they put a low carbon steel rod (the 'malleable iron' mentioned in Ohmura's article) in a high carbon steel pipe and forge-welded the two together ('performed mechanical junction'). The composite structure was then drawn down. The method was reinvented by American smiths, who refer to it as 'pipe welding'.

 

Now firstly, it doesn't say that the special iron they made was only used for the core. The iron made by the electrolytic process was used for making swords, which implies the whole sword. So they started off with iron and used it to make steel with various carbon contents. How that was achieved isn't mentioned.

 

Secondly, I don't see any reason why they shouldn't have used folding to make the pipe. American smiths do, usually because they are deliberately fusing different types of steel to make the pipe in order to produce a blade with specific properties. In the case of the Koa Isshin, this was quite probably part of the method of avoiding cold fractures in the extreme Manchurian winter, which after all was part of the design remit. A straight carbon steel blade (e.g. showato) would be likely to suffer from cold fractures, as the Japanese Army found out. Come to that, it was a problem with some traditionally made swords as well. Hell, cold fractures posed a problem for the North Atlantic convoys. It seems to have been a factor in the sinking of the Titanic as well.

 

Again, given that Mantetsu went to a lot of trouble to design a very high performance sword as pretty much a prestige project, I can't see them skimping. Hell, to judge from Ohmura's remarks they seem to have modelled aspects of the design on the second gen Muramasa.

 

Kevin

[cabowen]

If you read the Japanese text, it explains that they made electrolytic iron, which is quite pure. They then took a high carbon steel rod, heated it, drilled a hole in it, inserted a rod of electrolytic iron, machine welded it and forged it to shape, then heated it in an electric furnace prior to quenching. They do not say if the kawagane was folded and forged or not. I have read accounts by smiths that claim apparent hada in these swords is not the result of folding and forging but an artifact of the steel production and processing. I would wonder why, if the steel was so pure, why they would have a need to fold and forge it? In any case, I would agree with the above post that the hada of a Mantetsu blade is not like that seen in a traditionally made blade. It has been said to be a nashiji in one source and masame in another....

 

Here is a link with pictures of the manufacturing process:

 

http://www.k3.dion.ne.jp/~j-gunto/gunto_060.htm

[Kevin]

Just checked the metallurgical info.

 

Cold fracture in steel does not predate the widespread adoption of the Bessemer and open hearth furnaces. It didn't happen in steel produced by the cementation process i.e. baking pure iron with carbon for a week. This process necessitated extensive folding. Folding would stop the propagation of the brittle fracture cracks that lead to the failure of the whole structure. This information would have been known to the Japanese metallurgists of the time.

 

The only other ways to get lower the T5 temperature (the temperature at which steel undergoes brittle fracture) for a given carbon content is to either alloy it, or to reduce the size of the grains. Now the Koa Isshin blade isn't alloy steel - it's straight carbon and iron. Keeping the grain size small is down to good heat treatment, but they were limited with the technology then available. That leaves them with only one option if they were to fulfil the design remit of making a sword that didn't suffer from cold fractures in the Manchurian winters.

 

Fold the steel.

 

It’s basic metallurgy. Given the technology and the materials, there would be no other option open to achieve that aim.

 

It would be interesting to know is how they turned pure iron into steel. I don’t think it is recorded. Did they resurrect the cementation process? My gut feeling is that they may well have done. After all, they would have realised that the older process didn’t suffer from brittle fracture in extreme cold weather.

 

BTW folding and welding steel isn’t a particularly demanding process. Forge-welding is part of any blacksmith’s skill set. It’s just a question of getting the temperature right, excluding air, and banging it. You could do it with power hammers and a semi-skilled workforce. After all, that was part of the cementation process, which was done on an industrial scale. It only becomes complicated in making a nihonto because they make complex structures. OTOH, drawing down takes a large amount of skill. It isn’t just whopping the red-hot steel with a hammer – it’s having a feel for the steel as a living thing that changes with each blow. Most folks make an utter mess of it first time they try it.

 

Kevin

[John A Stuart]

Just a wee tweak. Carbon steel is an alloy of carbon and iron. John

[Kevin]

Hi John :-) Well, yes it is - but I was thinking of the more conventional use of the term which covers adding other metals such as vanadium or whatever. :-)

 

I wasn't, BTW, proposing that Koa Isshin used the complex process of folding seen in traditional nihonto making. That does not however mean that the steel wasn't folded. On the technical metallurgical papers that I've seen, folding plus very good heat treatment (in this case, yaki-ire) would have been the only option available at the time to avoid cold temperature brittle fracture in the severe Manchurian winters. This was, after all, one of their aims. Not surprisingly, given their connections to the Japanese Army in what was then Manchuoko.

 

I still have a strong suspicion that they resurrected the cementation process. Might be wrong though, but it would fit.

 

I suspect that the traditional swords that failed had a larger grain size than was optimal for sub-zero temperatures, despite being folded. No way of knowing though, but it would make sense. That's down to heat treatment.

 

Kevin

[cabowen]

Some more info from the above site:

 

The hardness of the mantetsu blades was considerably less than shinto and shinshinto blades tested and the same as a koto Muramasa. They claim this made them less brittle.

 

The chemical analysis is as follows:

 

 

carbon manganese silicon phosphorus sulfur

 

kawagane: .57 .05 .17 .018 .003

 

shingane: .23 .15 .21 .020 .008

 

 

There are some sectioned views as well that show how well the shingane stayed in the center of the blade as compared to a few old blade sections which illustrated how the shingane moved around a lot and was not centered. They make claims that this too made mantetsu blades stronger and more resistant to fracture....The pictures are not quite good enough to see if the kawagane was forged but in a few of the sections it appears that it may have been.

[kaigunair]

I just wanted to say that this is one great thread. All the various comments and responses, as well as forging info on mantetsu blades have been so enjoyable for someone with an interested in ww2 era blades like myself. Even though there were differening points of opinion, the forum always maintained a respectable level of lively debate.

 

As a reader who could not provide any additional info, just wanted to say "thanks" for such an indepth and informative thread.

 

[Stephen]

I always just thought them as railway steel by no great smiths if you fallow the bottom right links of the link Chris posted its vey intersting read, keep clicking on the bottom tabs, some even went to Finland officers, also did not to that the famed smith Toshiihide was part ot that operation.

 

http://www.k3.dion.ne.jp/~j-gunto/gunto_054.htm

[cabowen]

also did not to that the famed smith Toshiihide was part ot that operation.

 

 

He made one sword using their steel for a commemoration, so he can't hardly be called "part of that operation"....

[Stephen]

in the words of Steve Martian

 

 

WEEEELLLLL EXCCCCCUSE ME!!! LOL