dkirkpatrick

I am sure different people have a variety of opinions on this but I will share my method I have used for doing this. I have a rubber jawed hobby vise but any vise will do. I wrap the nakago in thick cloth (like a long athletic sock or something). Its important to make it VERY thick as the pressure from the jaws can transmit through a lot of material and damage the nakago. You have to make sure the jaws are tight as the blade will tend to rock with so much cloth in between. Before all of this I have dripped in oil around the habaki from underneath and above, anywhere you can get it to go. Don't be tempted to use WD40 or Liquid wrench as these may change the patina of the nakago. I then lightly tap the habaki on all sides but mostly from machi to machi with a small rubber mallet. Don't use anything hard like plastic or you will dent the foil. OK, back to the vise mounted blade I then take a wood clothes pin apart and using one of the halves. The blade being mounted vertically of course I place the narrow flat edge against the top edge of the shinogi part of the habaki and give a few light taps on the end while holding the pin against the habaki blade junction. If you dont make sure its properly seated or try to hit too hard it will hop out and drag down the side of the habaki and probably strip off the foil. Just a couple of light taps and then move to the other side and repeat except this time tapping the ha part of the habaki as tapping it on any one side too long will cause it to tilt and wedge tighter than it already is. Just go very slow, just a few taps at a time and most important...check the blade frequently to make sure it is still firm in the vise as you don't want it coming out the bottom for the obvious reasons. All of this of course presumes you are working on your average blade, if the piece has serious potential then I would of course recommend letting a professional polisher do this as they are the only ones truly qualified to do this. However this is what has worked for me after wrecking more than a few habaki over the years and if anybody has any other ideas I would be interested in hearing them too.

Thats a good start although it would be nice to see the rest of it. Will it be for sale at some date?

Well I think its pretty certain that it reads: SAGAMI KUNI JUNIN HIROMITSU the question is shoshin or gimei. I think it looks not to bad from some of the examples I've seen but their is so much variation in these old mei and I am sure much more experienced eyes than mine on this board will have some thoughts. The work of course is what's key. Now c'mon, ya can't drop a mei like that on us without some detailed sword pics! Cough 'em up! :D

Mike, Just my .02 cents, I looked in Fujishiro's and the Koza and did'nt think the mei looked quite right. In the Koza particularly there is an exact example of this mei on a naginata on pg. 53. There is also an example of Yukihide under the section at the end of this book discussing gimei as well as shoshin mei oshigata within the text of the book. Hope this helps.

Just thought I might put my two cents in. I think that this is a kindai gimei, as explained in vol. 5 of the Koza, of Masayuki who of course later went on to become Kiyomaro. I think gimei because it seems to incorporate enough of the spacing and kanji characteristics that I don't think are conicidence. I say kindai or around the 1930's because of these gimei I have seen they seem to almost deliberately make enough "mistakes" if you will that they strike me as the effort of someone who is trying to deceive, but guilt (or maybe lack of skill) is keeping them from taking the ruse too far. I have a gimei Hizen Tadayoshi very similar to this in that it shares the same kind of "christmas bulb" tagane mannerism on the ends and has the same weird rust; too much and too dark for Showa but not really mellow enough for even Meiji. That said, it's a nice looking gendaito and I suspect in polish this one would be the same. I know this seems a sacrilege but I use 1500 grit sandpaper followed by oil/uchiko on deeply pitted blades like this because your scratches are so far above what will have to be removed that as long as you work carefully and stay off the shinogi line I doubt you could do much damage. This will give you as previously stated a good idea if you really want to throw in for polish as well a humbling lesson as to why good polishers are worth every penny of their asking price. Sorry for the newbie rant and before anyone jumps me too bad I want to emphasize that I only use the sandpaper on intermediate blades with deep polishing needs.