Ken-Hawaii

Okay, I changed my mind on showing the current condition of my yari. Here are a couple of quick shots: http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/2405/jumonji1.jpg http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/1341/jumonji2.jpg http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/1181 ... xtents.jpg I'm not going to try & take photos of the shaft right now, but it's period-appropriate. By the way, does anyone happen to know anything about the period(s) & smiths who made Jumōnji yari? Ken

Geraint, I'll post photos after I get the blade polished - not exactly in pristine condition right now.... Grey, that's pretty much what I figured. But the wood sure looks dry in some areas! Thanks for the spelling correction, Jean! I've changed the subject title. Ken

My new yari arrived this afternoon. The mumei blade definitely needs to be polished, but I am wondering about the shaft. The wood is in decent shape, but looks like it could use a good oil soaking. The tachiuchi & tachi ba hiri are in good condition, but I'm not sure if I should ever attach the nakago in case the shaft might split. There are several dogane & kuchigane, & they & the gyakura all have surface rust, but feel sturdy. My question is whether I should be doing anything to the shaft & all its parts. This isn't like a Nihonto where I can carefully oil the blade & put it into a shirasaya, & because I live in a humid climate (I can throw a rock into the Pacific Ocean across the street!), I'd like some expert opinions on how to proceed. Thanks! Ken

Tobias, my wife & I recently visited the Bizen-Osafune Sword Village & saw dozens of modern tosho with horimono, including some being added as we watched. Take a look at my post http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=13101 which shows many photos of blades, all with a dragon theme. You can read the dates in most photos, & I'm guessing that half of them are Gendaito. Ken

Jean, a Kindle is an e-reader - a device that lets you read books & magazines just as if they were in your hand. Great devices! Ken

Well, the process of running a Magnaflux test isn't all that difficult. You brush on a dye penetrant, run it through the equipment, & then examine the blade closely with ultraviolet light. But getting the penetrant off/out of the blade isn't particularly easy, & then you're left with a highly-magnetized blade. And the process materials (penetrant & removant) aren't cheap, either. Not sure if a togishi would want to go through all that, Jim. I'd think the process would be more suitable for checking the structural integrity right after quenching, don't you? Ken

Well, it's been the better part of 40 years since I worked on reactors, Jim, so I'll assume that price has dropped at least a bit. A quick eBay search offers a Magnaflux testing machine for only $9000 (http://www.ebay.com/itm/Uresco-Magnaflux-testing-machine-just-out-of-a-tech-school-real-clean-md-3505-/300715635220?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item46040c7214), so maybe if you're testing a Rai or Kiyomaro blade, maybe this would be in your budget...? That's actually about 1% of what I remember them going for - such a deal! Ken

We used to use magnafluxing to test welds in nuclear reactors, Jim, but I've never seen it used on a blade of any sort. The equipment is expensive! Ken

Very nice layout, Uwe - thanks! Ken

Thanks, John (you really should sign your posts per Brian's rules). Didn't know about the micro-diamonds, & in fact have no idea how they could form in a massive iron meteor(ite). Where did you get that info? Dan, that's really valuable info in the other Dan's post. Interesting that he considers most iron meteorites to be "crumbly" - all the ones I have are as hard as, well, iron. I've never tried to melt or forge one, but cutting into them to make a Widmanstätten slab, even with a diamond blade, takes bloody forever. I was wondering whether a coarse Widmanstätten pattern would make any difference in the sword's hada or hamon; I guess we'll see. Ken

With Piers' able help, my wife & I took a quick trip from Hawaii to the Bizen-Osafune Sword Village last month. I've created a PDF presentation of what we saw, including a lot of photographs, & am posting it as http://www.militaria.co.za/articles/Bizen-Osafune_Sword_Museum.pdf. Please feel free to download & view the slides, & to comment on the great Nihonto we saw. Please note that I had special dispensation from the museum's director to take photos, as I am putting together a sword exhibition in September (which of course I will post) & needed to get ideas on lighting angles, draping katanakake, etc. There are large signs all over the museum forbidding photography, so please don't take my experience as typical! Ken

No problem, Eric. Brian, anything made of iron will rust, but depending on what you alloy it with, that can be minimized. Basic oxidation of iron usually forms red-brown rust (http://corrosion-doctors.org/Experiments/iron-products.htm), but obviously meteorites have some other type of oxidation. I have some large (50-pound) specimens that have been with me for almost 50 years - 10 years in New Orleans & 21 years here in Hawaii - & there is no sign of rust of any type, so there's some type of surface coating that keeps them looking black & shiny. My guess is that the extreme heating as the meteor passed through the atmosphere created a fusion coat that isn't very susceptible to rusting. I've also read that chlorine in air & water are the main reasons that meteorites rust (http://www7.pair.com/arthur/meteor/archive/archive5/July98/msg00284.html) Okay, I'm packaging up my Campo de Cielo meteorite to ship off to Piers tomorrow morning, & I thought you might be interested to see what it looks like before it gets converted into a Gendaito: http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/2373/meteoriteforgendaito.jpg. It weighs just over 1300 grams (45+ ounces), & is very solid with no sign of rust. So we'll have a 4.5 billion-year-old chunk of nickel-iron that will be turned into a blade that may last for a thousand years...hmmm. As the average Gendaito katana weighs in at about 38 ounces, I'm now wondering just how much of this meteorite Ando-san is going to use. Piers, could you please check with him to see if he knows how much (what percent versus tamahagane) he used on his katana? I think this may be the very first time that we can measure how much material other than tamahagane will go into a blade, unless someone has info on how smiths mixed in Namban tetsu after 1600. An NMB post a couple of years ago referenced http://www.tokensugita.com/NT.htm, but I don't see any indication of how much of what was used. I can just hope that the hamon & jihada on the meteorite blades come out as nicely as the wakizashi in that article! Ken

George, PM sent. Thanks! He is just looking for a specific article, not to buy. Ken

One of my board members is looking for several Token Bijutsu issues published in 1986. Does anyone have these? Aloha, Ken

I vote for the coffee, George. Actually, it is a good question. But I have to assume that an experienced Bizen smith would know if his blades wouldn't be considered as Nihonto, & probably wouldn't waste his time & effort. Piers & I heard from several people at & near the Village that smiths just aren't selling enough blades to make a living, & that there might next be a next-generation of them, so making an unsellable tosho doesn't sound like a logical thing. Ken

Not expensive, Chris, as I explained, but certainly a lot different in composition from tamahagane. What do you mean by gaudy-looking hada? I'm expecting some photos from Ando-san (actually, probably from Piers) as his blade gets polished, & I'll of course post them. Ken

I'm resurrecting this thread because of some interesting new information. First, meteorites aren't all that expensive, Brian. I just bought a 1300-gram Campo de Cielo iron meteorite for $200, & I will be sending it via Piers to a Bizen swordsmith to be turned into a modern tosho. I also have a few other large specimens, ranging from 8 to 25 kg, none of which broke my budget. For a bit of background, my wife & I traveled to Okayama last month (as detailed in another thread) & toured the Bizen-Osafune Sword Village, with Piers as our "tour guide." We met Ando-san, a Bizen smith who was in the final process of creating a katana from a meteorite - it was almost ready to go to polishing when we saw it. As I've been interested in blades like his, I offered to send him another iron meteorite for his next blade, & he accepted. As Ando-san has no idea about the type or composition of his first meteorite, there's no way to determine whether the second blade will look like the first one, but I'm hoping to get some idea of the jigane, jihada, & hamon, as I'm hoping to buy the second blade. The first photo I shot of the katana is at http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/2337/meteoritekatana3.jpg, & a shot of Ando-san with his blade is at http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/7010/smithmeteoritekatana.jpg. The exact composition of the meteorite I'm sending to him is well known, so I'll be able to report based on known composition. I'll post more on this as info is available. Ken

Hi, Dan: Would you care to share exactly how you went about digitizing your blades? I've done a couple using AutoCAD, but have never been really pleased with the results. Thanks! Ken

You realize, of course, that Jeff has also asked what a "reasonable price" would be for this blade.... Ken

Hoanh, gold will not cause anything to corrode. Galvanic action only occurs when there is a different electrical potential between/among metals. Take a quick look at http://www.engineersedge.com/galvanic_capatability.htm, & you will see that gold's anodic index is zero, which means there just isn't any dissimilarity between it & iron. They will happily coexist forever. I'm not sure why the saya would be lined with gold leaf, at least from an engineer's standpoint.... Ken

How does one tell, Ron? Are there specific features to look for? Ken

Interesting, Ron! My wife & I have been given three of these Hagoita, but never were quite sure what we had gotten: http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/2484/img2158tf.jpg Thanks for the info! Ken

Why not add a few photos, Ron, so the rest of us can see what the blade looks like? Ken

Tobias, Keith is correct that rust only builds to a certain point/depth/extent before the underlying iron is no longer "visible" to atmospheric oxygen. The term for this is natural passivation. So unless the rust was continuously removed, I can't see how the nakago could erode to the point where it would be a failure point. Ken

Josh, I'm rather curious why you chose this particular school to study & invest in. Ken