Ford Hallam

This is a link to the Ironbrush forum where I've posted a 75 image photo essay that details the stages in making a Sekibun inspired tiger tsuba. We don't know for sure how pieces like this were actually made in the past but perhaps these images will at least provide some idea of quite how labourious and exacting creating even an seemingly simplistic tsuba really is. This is the original in copper. and the version I created in old wrought iron.

I was just given the heads up by Greg Ivine (he of the V&A) that there's a new three part series starting tonight at 22:00 ( 12 June 2017) on BBC4 called Handmade in Japan. First episode is on the Sword and is 30 minutes long. The next one will be on the Kimono and then Mingei pottery. Here's a link for more details.

Piers, without seeing the moulds you're referring to I would suggest that they were part of the record taking process that John is referencing. It was common practice to take a record of finished work either as a way of creating a sample catalogue or simply a record of studio work. The finished piece is simply pressed into wet clay which is then allowed to dry out. Then hot matsuyani (pine rosin mixture) can be poured in to the clay mould (after the metal original was removed). Once cold the matsuyani is very hard to the touch, you can't really indent it with a finger nail, but easily cracks so can't be used to form thin gold sheet on. The real problem I have with the recurring notion that the casting of tosogu, including tsuba, was performed in the Edo period is that while there has yet been no evidence that this technology was used the mere suggestion that is was possible allows for a gray space in which modern faked items are given a pass.

I wouldn't buy them with your money They're not very good quality in terms of the actual carving and the design, especially the birds, is very poorly understood. In fact I don't think these are Japanese or very old.

Because the traditional technique for menuki manufacture is uchidashi. This is both quicker, requires less metal, less fuel and results in less unrecoverable metal waste. Many menuki are of copper which is notoriously difficult, to impossible, to cast. There is no evidence that lost wax casting was used in the Kinko traditions of Edo period Japan. Here's a link to a photo essay showing the steps in creating some gold menuki by the uchidashi method. My gold was somehow contaminated when I first melted it (the hazards of working iron and gold in the same space) which resulted in the ugly cracking you see. It took a little refining to clean out which is what green and red flux residues are about.

Hi Yves thanks for the additional images. I would think the black is some sort of paint and not urushi so it should come off quite easily with a regular paint rmover. This will not harm to iron patina. The patina is not in great condition really but once the paint is off you could try rubbing the surface with a damp cottonwool ball or cottonwool earbud and some bicarbonte of soda. This won't damage any real original patina but will gently wear away loose red rust. Rinse in warm water as you proceed and dry well when you stop.

About 15 years ago I bought, from Aoi-art, a shinsakuto for practice. It came with a fairly non descript brass copy of a namban tsuba. Amusingly the iron original was on their site too. Coincidence?

Yves could to take and post some images of the rim, please?

I would have to agree with George. That degree of similarity is very very unlikely. But cast copies of gold menuki have been floating around since the 70's and are very hard to detect if done well. Modern mould making and vacuum casting is very accurate. When I was an apprentice in the trade we were able to reproduce fingerprints in wax, and that was more than 30 years ago

Hi Brian XRF analysis is probably the most reasonable way to find out what it is. Having said that a good understanding of what sorts of elements are likely to be in Japanese alloys (and why and how they are there) is important to properly understand the numbers. An alloy of copper with only 20% silver can be treated to look like pure silver by leaching the copper from the surface. This is called depletion silvering and was very common in Edo Japan. Similarly a low carat gold alloy can be made to look like pure gold be leaching out the silver and copper from the surface, that'd be depletion gilding and was also common wherever gold was used. So the use of terms like solid gold and solid silver may be a bit deceptive. As an example (and this tsuba, if it is silver plated, would pose a similar problem) some analitical work carried out by an Italian team at the Museo Stibbert recently included a copper iroe tsuba. The results on an inlaid fish were interpreted as being shakudo as it apeared to be made of copper and traces of gold. What had been ignored was a trace of murcury also. So in fact what it was was a copper fish with a rubbed fire gilt (kin-keshi) effect on the scales. To be fair the tsuba was a bit tarnished and the colour of the inlays unclear but never the less it shows how by just having raw data it is still possible to get an innacurate result. There are many other issues that need to be taken into account when interpreting analysis results. If this tsuba is silver and supposed to be Edo period then it had better also contain about 0.3% gold. If not I would suspect a modern refined silver. If it's brass there are similar tell tale trace elements that will reveal it's age too. Touchstone and acid tests won't help with anything beyond the common precious metal alloys. Plating complicates things.

The whole density approach is unreliable is because pre-modern metals are never 100 percent one single metal. If this was a reasonablle analitical approach proper scientists would be using it in the real world. For an introduction to modern scientific investigation and analysis of ancient artefacts I would recommend; ' https://www.amazon.co.uk/Science-Past-Sheridan-Bowman/dp/0714120715/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1496353379&sr=8-4&keywords=science+and+the+past" In fact it's entirely feasable to devise an alloy with the same density as solid silver but with no silver being present at all. A number of bronze alloys might be easy candidates.

Copper can also exhibit paramagnetism so as far as the whole gamut of Japanese non ferrous alloys goes the magnet test is not helpful I'm afraid. As for the ice trick... The thermal conductivity of silver is slightly higher than copper, yes. Silver is 407 W/mK and copper is 386 W/mK. But unless you're comparing two pieces of metal of exactly the same mass (that being the heat sink) and can ensure exactly the same surface contact between the ice and metal (not to mention the same size of ice) this really can't be taken as any sort of reliable test either. For what it's worth the tsuba under discussion has a suface texture that makes me a bit suspicious. I would guess that it might be a cast brass copy with a layer of tarnished (deliberately) silver plating.

Ken Not carbonates or acetates. It's copper and zinc carboxylates, which are indeed characterised as having a waxy sheen. The fact that yours occured overnight doesn't rule them out, lab trials have in fact managed to get this process to happen as quickly. If the corrosion was due to sulphides I'd expect it to be blue or grey/black. White spirit, mineral spirits, mineral turpentine, yes, all the same thing. Just make sure it's that and not some generic substitute called 'paint thinners' because the actual chemistry is important. Turpentine substities and the like won't work.

Jean, Ken The issue you both seem to be referring to is probably this. Most natural waxes and organic oils will in time break down into fatty acids. This process is in fact accelerated in the presence of copper as the copper acts like a catalyst. These fatty acids then act on the copper and any zinc in an alloy to form corrosion products called copper or zinc soaps. The copper soaps are green and the zinc is white. These are not sulphides but rather copper and zinc carboxylates. The safest way to treat these soaps, particularly where they may have developed due to oil breakdown, would be to use a solution of white spirit and ethanol, 90:10 ratio. I’d use a cotton bud/earbud, dab lightly to soak the encrustations and then gently work at it with a wooden toothpick. Wash in warm soapy water once the job’s done and dry well before re-waxing with Renaissance wax. I must credit, Francesca Leavey, who’s finishing up her graduate studies in metal conservation at West Dean College for the sciencey stuff here. Francesca recently did a 6 week internship with me which developed into a very exciting collaborative project that allowed us to investigate a number of such metalwork restoration and conservation issues that have a direct baring on tosogu. More on all of that in the near future. edit to add; zinc carboxylates don't pose a health risk but the copper may be toxic, depending on exposure. Fine corrosion product dust can cause lung and eye irritation. Also, as the solvents used are volatile they should be used in a well ventilated area. Rubber, latex or nitrile gloves and a suitable dust filter mask is probably advisable.

Toyokawa Mitsunaga II et al? :-)

Hi Curran Can you share the name of this artist, I may have some info that might be helpful. Also, do you have any images of his work you could scan in so we could see what he was making?

My friend, kumihimo maker, Michael made the following observations which I though added something more the what I was attempting to convey.

One of the points I often try to convey, as a craftsman, when we're discussing whether or not a piece might be modern or antique is the evidence of classical training. The reality is that all of the classical training that had developed over a few hundred years was by the mid 1920's pretty much extinct. There simply was no reason to sustain it. And by the time Japanese society began to recover after the second World War there was essentially no real living thread of that older tradition alive. What this means is that tosogu made after the 1920's frequently exhibit traits that reveal their maker's lack of classical training and intuitive understanding of the original approaches to carving standard forms. I'm using this date, 1920's, as it seems from my research this is when the last of the old school members are no longer active, this being over 50 years since the abolition of wearing swords in public and the dissolution of the warrior class. Things that would be everyday details in a composition, like waves, leaves, little faces and hands, the scales of fish or dragons...the list goes on. In any traditional or classical art-form for those details that become essentially part of the visual language they developed particular methods of creating these aspects efficiently and accurately. This was a very important aspect of classical training and is how continuity was maintained in those traditions. These were the basics any apprentice had to master before being allowed to put his name to metal or put work out under the school's approval. Even when, on the relatively rare occasions, a creative genius emerged they were inevitably initially well schooled in the essentials of their parent school before they went further to develop their own fresh expression...always built firmly on the past. I was watching this short piece of film this morning, of Buddhist statuary carvers, and thought that the almost kata-like approach they take in the way various elements are carved might help illustrate what I mean by the methodology of the classical approach to training and how you might recognise where it is absent. Here's a link to the film. There's an efficiency and clarity here that for those of us lacking classical training must be very mindful of. We know so very little about the actual workshop practice of the old masters, their works leave us clues of course and this is why utsushi study is so vital if we are to even begin to properly 'see' and fully appreciate the work they left to us. Have a good week-end, Ford

If you fancy a beautiful hand forged, by a genuine Japanese swordsmith no less, kitchen knife you had better hurry. I have a feeling this offering will not last long. Tara Asano is a good friend of mine and a pretty talented smith but like many contemporary smiths in Japan surviving solely on making Nihonto is getting increasingly difficult. Taro and his wife Rika are creratively pro-active though and seem continually to be evolving the business so that the fire in Taro's forge doesn't go out. Here's a link to Taro's facebook page.

sounds like a plan, Guido, thanks, I'll message you.

Thanks Guido, we did find a 1935 set on Amazon.jp but it's quite an outlay for 21 volumes if you only want a few pages :-)

Gentlemen, and Ladies...any here? A friend of mine, Michael Hattori, is a talented and classically trained kumihimo weaver (Domyo School) and is keen on learning more about sageo in their historical context. Apparently there is a good section on this subject in the Nihonto Koza. Michael writes; So I was wondering if anyone has a copy of this volume and might be able somehow make a copy for Michael. And if you're interested to see him at work making a sageo for a project I completed a little while ago here's a link to a short film. Thank you Ford Hallam

I think you can find similar examples in both the Nara and Hamano schools. That doesn't mean it was either of those schools though, merely that the maker may have been inspired by this style of work. I'd lean more towards Hamano influence.