zanilu

Hi all. Thanks for the tips (except for the sand blasting of Stephen ). Since I have to go abroad for a business trip I will put the project on hold for the some time. To avoid problems I was thinking to put some Renaissance wax on the tsuba to protect it temporarily until I resume the project. To remove the wax I was thinking to first boil it and then brush it with a tooth brush and some isoproplyl alcool. Then I will try with the fiberglass pen suggest by Grey. Any suggestion?

Hi Grey Thank you for the suggestion. I will try it. I have been working on the rust for some time now, first soaking the tsuba in wd40 as suggested by Elliot Long and then scraped it with cattle bone splinters. The rust is pretty hard, after more than 6 hours of total scraping time I have obtained few results so far. How frustrating... Regards Luca

Brian, James Thanks for the your indications. James, I am working on the red rust with a lot of patience and ox bone... Regards Luca

Dear All First of all I am a complete beginner in study tosogu so all your comments are welcome. I have bought a few years ago a tsuba with a dragon in clouds as waves depicted on it (see attached pictures). The tsuna is mumei with dimensions of 72 mm x 67 mm, 3 mm thick at the mimi. The material is iron. I have recently found a similar tsuba discussed in: http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/10748-1st-tsuba-purchase-info-on-tomokiyo-kao/ The design is quite similar both in subject ad realization. My tsuba is in definitely whores conditions with some traces of corrosion, or at least so it seems to me. Or they could be traces of casting. Casting could explain also the fact that the clouds, dragon and waves seems to be no as well defined as in the similar tsuba I was referring above. What is your opinion? Could this tsuba be considered just a low quality cast copy or it could be considered a legit Choshu tsuba even though of lower quality compared to the above? I have tried to remove as much rust as possible using cattle bone shims and rubbing it with rough cotton cloths following the advises I have found on this forum. The red rust seems to be quite stable and not active so far. Thank you in advance for all your suggestions Luca

Hi Geraint Thanks for you answer. Obviously the tsuba you pointed out are of finer quality compared to the one I posted, those are among the tsuba I have seen (in picture) that lead me to guess Nara. As for the wear you mention I have that chance to look at the tsuba in Aoi Art offices in Tokyo back in May of this year and the surface of the whole tsuba looked uniform and shiny without any blemish (migaki ji i guess is the right term). Your remark is too cryptic for me, sorry. Can you be more explicit. Do you mean that the quality of the work is poor and I have to look at it in closer or the opposite? As I said I am a beginner and quite dumb I was able to get more information about the size: 69.5 mm x 64.5 mm x 4.0 mm thickness. Regards Luca

Dear all First of all I am a complete beginner in study tosogu so all your comments are welcome. I have found the pictures of this tsuba on the web and I was trying to figure out to which school it belongs. From the comparison of other tsuba I would guess Nara school mainly because of the passing through sukashi on the side and the rendering of the tree in an almost 3D fashion and of the way it seems to be modeled from soft wax rather than metal. Of this tsuba I have to admit that I like the way patination is used as a sort of paint on the metal surface. To better understand how will use classify this work in term of quality of the execution? Thank you for all your comments Luca