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Tiaan Burger

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    https://www.etsy.com/shop/TiaanBurgerArt

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    Pretoria, South Africa
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    Traditional metal working techniques

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    Tiaan Burger

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  1. A note of caution: A welding flaw in a folded / layered tsuba will make it sound "dead". Do the tapping on different areas, if it rings in spots, and not in others, then it might be a welding flaw in the metal. I recently made a tsuba blank, using six layers of wrought iron. One side showed a welding flaw, and it does not ring when tapped there, but it rings clearly when tapped in other places. Tiaan
  2. A throughly enjoyable thread, and I managed to learn a couple of things as well. Thank you!
  3. Gentlemen, I thank you all! I did a Google search for "Taizan Motozane" and now have a lot of reading and looking at pictures ahead of me. Tiaan
  4. I downloaded this photo of a tsuba about two years ago and incorporated the tiger design in a knife I am working on. ( https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/+Tia ... 601?sort=1 ) Unfortunately I can't find any information on it, and made the embarrassing mistake of not making any notes when I downloaded the image. Any information about this tsuba, its maker, school and period will be welcome. Thanks Tiaan
  5. About two weeks ago I visited a nihonto collector and had the opportunity to get up close and personal with some of his tsuba. One piqued my interest as craftsman as it reminded me of a technique I used to apply when I was still doing a lot of blacksmithing. It was an iron tsuba, heavily textured, with brass highlights. It looked like the iron was heated to red heat and the brass allowed to melt or solder on to the surface. I do not know if this was a common technique in Japan, or even if I "read" the tsuba correctly. Maybe some of the guys on here can shed more light on the topic? I decided to give it a try and the result was quite pleasing. I used a wrought iron blank with raised rim which I had made as an exercise in raising rims, if it did not work then at least I would not have spoiled a good tsuba blank. Questions and comments welcome! Tiaan
  6. A pain in my workshop might just help with the patina problem. I work on our porch, on the side of a hill, the city spread out below. An afternoon's carving would be dull the next morning, copper and brass turn brown, shibuichi turns grey. Even wrought iron turns dark. At first I thought it was air pollution. Eventually I realised that the rubber mats on my workbench tops is the cause. I found that out after leaving a polished copper disk on the rubber. The bottom was dark brown, with the pattern of the rubber showing. It is getting better now, the sulphur in the rubber has mostly evaporated. Get some rubber matting from a hardware store, new rubber ,that still has that distinctive "new tyre" smell. Put the tsuba in a lidded bowl with some strips of new rubber, without the rubber touching the tsuba. You might want to try it with a scrap piece of brass first. Tiaan
  7. How the iron moves depends on four factors: the starting thickness, the shape of the forging tool, the shape of the hole in the plate and the final shape the smith is aiming for. A thicker plate (4mm +) will "upset" when hammered on a rectangular hole in the plate (bulge inwards). This will cause cold shuts in the corners of the hole, which need to be corrected for and prevented. You can see these cold shuts starting to form in the corners on the first process photo. A rectangular hole in a round plate will shorten and widen if the plate is forged thinner and kept round. There is less material to move top and bottom, which means it has to be hammered more, pushing the iron towards towards the center and outwards more than is needed for the long sides. This results in the hole getting larger in the middle. A cross section of Ford's tsuba will probably reveal even thickness top to bottom, and a slight bulge on each side of the hole if cut side to side, image a flat 8. the center is thinner because it is forged to close up the hole again. Evidence on the photo, more forging on the sides of the hole than top and bottom.
  8. A very informative post! I have been trying to visualise the steps involved in making these, just couldn't figure it out. What is the thickness of the tsuba inside the rim and at the seppa dai? Tiaan
  9. Thomas, I read your reply early this morning and thought about during the day, spoke to fellow artist who knows my work and what makes me tick. I love working with tree themes, and remember reading about some revered trees inJapan in one of Pakenham's books. The feeling I always aim for in my work is peace and calm. Before I put my foot in and commit some cultural or linguistic cime I think you guys might be able to help me choose. Tree man 木 男 (ki otoko) Ancient tree 古代 木 (kodai ki) Old tree 古木 (furuki)
  10. I finally found this thread! Tiaan Burger, bladesmith, blacksmith, overqualified knifemaker, now exploring the fine art of tosogu. I speak Metal, Afrikaans and English, in that order, which means most of the writing on this forum makes head hurt. So, a great big thanks to all the guys who post photos! Well, pleased to meet you, looking forward to a long and happy stay. Tiaan
  11. Strong might work, as I do a lot of forging. Thanks! Tiaan
  12. I laughed until my belly hurt! Thanks for makng the effort. Tiaan
  13. Gabriel, thank you for the advice. I have done some reading since my first post and it seems I have entered a linguistic minefield. :? The alternative then seems to render my initials with a chisel and hope it does not spell "bad workmanship" :lol:
  14. Now I feel stupid! Chinese is pictograms, Japanese phonetic? Never too old to learn, thanks Brian. If it is phonetic then Tiaan Burger will do.
  15. A reverse challenge... I am working on tosogu for a wakizashi and tanto, and have a couple of tsuba in progress as well. These things need to be signed and I need some help. My first name is Carel, Dutch for "man" (Karl, Charles, Carlos are other variations of the same). My surname, Burger means " citizen". My second name, Sebastiaan, means "Blessed". I did the google translate and got this: マン man 市民 citizen Short enough to use on most of my work, but maybe too literal in translation? What do you think? Any advice will be welcome.
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