ROKUJURO

In my understanding, a good polisher can show everything the smith was able to incorporate in the blade, but he cannot produce effects not present in the steel. If there is no UTSURI, he cannot "make" one. A not so good polish is probably not showing all the features the smith intended.

Gentlemen, a very interesting young swordsmith, who I had the pleasure to meet in France in 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeb58Dv69S4 As far as I can judge, he is a bit different in comparison to many of his collegues as he is very open-minded towards the world outside of Japan but at the same time working in a strictly traditional way. He has a philosophical attitude and is searching for the values of the SAMURAI spirit and perfect craftsmanship. He lives in SEKI, GIFU-KEN. Interested members may mail me for his address: forge.collin@gmail.com.

DIY:

John, in YAKI-IRE, the steel in the YAKIBA forms into martensite, which has, as you may know, a higher volume than the surrounding steel. So, nothing really "shrinks" in a blade, but the YAKIBA expands, which has the same effect of an increased tension (read compressive stress) in this area.

MASAHIDE forged the blade when he was only two years old. He was a real talent!

I have seen signatures erased on FUCHI. It does not seem to be too difficult to push the soft material into the grooves, but the MEI did not disappear completely. It was just unreadable.

For the early swordsmiths, the available steel appeared as 'soft' or as 'hard', depending on the position of the bloomery iron in the furnace. They did not have an analysis, but could rely on their observation and testing. After experiencing that the first 'all-iron' sword blades were likely to bend and loose their sharpness easily, it was a logical step to combine the flexible (low carbon) steel with a hard (high carbon) one for the cutting edge. This technique was used already by the Iron-Age Celtic people in 200 B.C. in Europe. Photo shows a replicated SAN-MAI blade.

Darcy, 1) This depends on the fire. A small fire/temperature up to 900°C will only cause a physical change in the metal; the sword will loose its hardness. Very high temperatures will cause the metal to loose part of the carbon content; a chemical process. 2) The traditional steel does not lack anything. The problem is that modern iron/steel cannot be mass produced without alloying elements (except in a costly chemical process). This modern steel cannot be quenched in water. So what the smiths are really looking for is a very pure steel made in a TATARA (or bloomery furnace), and in former times this was the only way to produce iron/steel. Old nails, anchor chains a.s.o. are probably much cheaper than TATARA iron. 3) You cannot 'add' elements to sword steel produced in a TATARA. Alloys can only be produced with melted/liquified iron.

William, possibly, it would attract more buyers if you wrote correctly KATANA instead of katano in the Ebay ad.

Darcy, the WOOTZ damascus steel is a completely different thing. This material is a 'crystalline' damascus produced in crucibles, not on the anvil alone, and Vanadium (and other elements) are necessary to induce the crystals forming. In the first range, Damascus steel was produced as a means to homogenize the steel; the decorative effects were a later development. In later times, when smiths were able to produce 'better' steel, the difficult process was no longer necessary and became obsolete. This was also the case with the Viking swords. .

Bojan, the second KATANA MEI seems to read YOSHIHIRA.

Christopher, please sign all posts with your real first name plus an initial as requested by the forum administrator. There is one way to leave the newbie status behind: Read a lot, especially here in the forum about sword etiquette and care! Look at pictures of high quality Japanese swords and TOSOGU! And never touch the blade with your bare hands! Not much can be said about value unless an expert can evaluate the whole package in hand. Wrong signatures unfortunately don't add to the value, but you may have a nice sword nonetheless.

Christopher, the KOZUKA shows items of the tea ceremony, and the FUCHI is signed HARUAKI. The MENUKI look as if they were not original to the TSUKA. We would need more good close-up photos to see details. Have a good look into this forum and get some information of what is important on a Japanese sword and how to photograph it.

In my opinion, not a KO-TOSHO, but an EDO JIDAI TOSHO-style TSUBA. Design and execution of mushrooms are quite nice.

Perhaps SADAMOTO or SADAROKU?

......it ha a kokuin. It is a kind of seal. A photo would be nice.

Ken, I am not sure if you read my post carefully. About SATETSU I wrote: ....Black iron sand (SATETSU)......contains a number of other elements, e.g. titanium, silica, aluminium, calcium a.s.o. in considerable amounts..... Concerning alloys and impurities, please read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alloy. Colour of different steels: You can test that yourself. Alloys may have different colours, but steel made from TAMAHAGANE is a very low-alloyed material with almost nothing (except impurities) contained but carbon. Concerning different colours by polishing with KANAHADA NUGUI, you may ask any traditionally trained polisher or read about the different substances under http://www.ryujinswords.com/nugui.htm. We have a long-time discussion here in Europe among researchers about the qualities of the bloomery iron, its composition, and why accompanying elements from the iron ore (there are quite a lot of these) are not reduced and do not occur in the final product except as (unwanted, but not really disturbing) impurities. One source gives this TAMAHAGANE formula: Tamahagane Composition C: 1.00% to 1.42% P: 0.013% - 0.042% S: 0.006% -0.008% Mn: 0.006% - 0.11% V: 0.004% - 0.015% Al: 0.003% - 0.02% T: 0.003% - 0.0267% Mo: 0.04% Si: 0.018% - 0.02% An analysis of SATETSU can be found under: http://www.shibuiswords.com/tatsuoinoue.htm What I write about this subject here is not my invention and not my research result. But I feel that we are on the wrong way if we assume that differences between KOTO and SHINTO sword blades are to be found in the steel. Instead, I think there were differences in the processes and treatments. Of course, we have to think about NAMBAN TETSU which was a slightly different steel.

Steve, trace elements/impurities and alloy elements are not the same. Please read about direct reduction in a bloomery furnace. For an alloy you need to reduce the other minerals besides iron to their metallic state before they can go into solution. This requires higher temperatures than that of the iron oxide reduction, which is about 1.250°C. Melting point of iron is 1.538.°C.

Ken, I am with the BIZEN KANEMITSU party. To read the tag, place it flat and make the best photos possible. Maybe our Japanese members want to give it a try

The photos of the NAKAGO already show that this blade was not made in Japan.

Have a look at both ends of the BOHI. That is not Japanese work; even very late WW II GUNTO have a better finish. The same applies to the NAKAGO.The 'grinding' of the blade, especially of the KISSAKI, the rounded SHINOGI, and the different positions of HA-MACHI and MUNE-MACHI let me believe this to be an attempt of a copy.

Ken, I did not write that SATETSU is pure, but TAMAHAGANE. SATETSU contains a lot of other elements, as you can read. Alloying iron/steel with other elements like manganese, chromium, nickel a.s.o. requires a liquid state of the matrix (iron), but in the TATARA as well as in the bloomery furnace, iron does not melt, except in some place where the blower tube goes into the furnace. In these places, even cast iron with the respective high carbon content can occur. Of course, there is also the risk of having small amounts of accompanying element in these lumps of iron, but as I heard they are discarded and re-used in an OROSHIGANE furnace to produce high carbon content steel. Analyses of blades I have seen state the pureness of the steel with the exception of very small amounts of impurities (plus of course the varying amount of carbon). In fact, we do not know (and most researchers do not believe) if these impurities cause different mechanical properties. Alloyed steel cannot be quenched in water; this would cause the metal to crack. This is the reason for the industrially made WW II GUNTO being quenched in oil. 'Pure' steel with a composition of mainly iron and carbon as encountered in traditionally forged blades has to be quenched in water to get a hard cutting edge. The colour of the finished blades is - as far as I know - caused by different polishing methods, especially with the use of KANAHADA: It is possible to create a darkish or a bluish tinge. It is not the colour of the steel itself.

This is an interesting topic. I have some experience in producing iron from iron ore in a bloomery furnace as it was used in the early iron age in Europe, The TATARA works in a similar way, and the material produced is quite close, as one can see in the research paper of TATSUO INOUE on the subject. So I may be able to offer some information about the characteristics and properties of TAMAHAGANE in general. Firstly, the iron (TAMAHAGANE) produced is very pure and contains almost no alloying element with the exception of carbon. All other elements contained are impurities with a percentage of less than 0,01%. However, TAMAHAGANE is not consistent in its composition, but the contents, especially in carbon, vary to an extent. This makes the selection of the raw metal so important. Black iron sand (SATETSU), the best of which is mined in the CHUGOKU mountains, contains a number of other elements, e.g. titanium, silica, aluminium, calcium a.s.o. in considerable amounts. But one has to know that by the bloomery method the iron oxide is reduced to metallic iron without passing the molten state. This prevents other elements being solved in the liquid iron. So there are no different iron alloys being produced by the TATARA process (wherever this took place) with the exception of very small amounts of impurities which we can consider as not having an impact on the mechanical properties of the steel produced, but perhaps could influence the inner crystalline system, resulting in different features on the finished blades. . This allows the assumption that differences between KOTO and SHINTO sword blades are mostly related to the ways the steel was forged and heat-treated by the respective smiths. P.S. By the way, iron sand is not only found in Japan, but it can equally be obtained from the shores of the Baltic Sea by the magnet method. There is no reason why it should not occur in other places as well.

Oliver, as by Sébastien already identified, the MEI is probably 正阿弥 (SHOAMI).

Donny, to me, the blade does not look genuine. There are not enough good photos of the blade itself to support my feeling, and the corrosion is quite bad, but I see a NAKAGO with a wrong shape - SHINOGI not clear and in an unusual position - and wrong YASURI ME. There are genuine GUNTO with a kind of erratic filework, but mostly not that bad. The MEI is not in a good position in relation to the MEKUGI-ANA. It would help to see clear photos of the naked NAKAGO with everything stripped, especially the HABAKI. If HA MACHI and MUNE MACHI are on a level, it might nonetheless be a Japanese war-time blade. KOSHIRAE-wise, everything seems genuine indeed.