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Bugyotsuji

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Everything posted by Bugyotsuji

  1. ............................................... and 吉日 (Kitchi-jitsu, an auspicious day)
  2. Alex, thank you for the ideas. I was not planning to post a pic, but seeing your post above just now, here is sneak preview on how it's going! Photo will appear magically Here... No? Well then, here:
  3. Silence is Golden! Day by day the cheese matures. No rushing this process.
  4. Actually I didn't say a loose fit of the tsuka itself. I meant people generally like tight onto the fixed tsuka. Then I said "the seppa and tsuba were deliberately kept somewhat loose"... which is what I heard. The tsuka can and should be a solid fit, of course, but the informer was talking about the width of the tsuba and seppa assembly, and how energy was somehow lost/relieved through their looseness. OK, I should not just pass on stuff without questioning it further! Thank you.
  5. Richard, many thanks for this 'brown wax' usage. I will ask around and keep an eye out for it from now on. As to Jean's question above, this is hard to quantify. Once someone told me that people today often try to stiffen up the tsuka and linkages to make the whole package feel 'solid' in the hands, but that back in the day the seppa and tsuba were deliberately kept somewhat loose in order to absorb some of the blow to your forearms when striking an object with your blade. Now if as you say, elements of dust, sand, dirt, water, corrosion were to find their way into the interstitial spaces, then that could/might contribute to the gentle seppa-shaped indentations often found on iron tsuba, and correspondingly to many of the fainter Mei that we see. (?) Just throwing out ideas here...
  6. Bugyotsuji

    Tsuba help

    Peter, when you say 'at this period' do you mean a specific time, or generally within the Edo Period, for example?
  7. On Wednesday a friend was saying that he was stopped trying to board a Japanese domestic flight from Tokyo because the metal objects in his carry-on bag were questioned. When he explained, the staff asked "Tsuba? What is a tsuba?" He began to explain... At that point they threw up their hands, saying "No, sorry, nothing weapons-related is allowed on our flights." My imagination had fun with that one! Shuriken for a Ninja???
  8. The iron of Adam's tsuba above looks ok in that shot to me too. If a Mei has been under a slightly moving/rubbing seppa for many long years, it would certainly lose some of its sharpness like that.
  9. Bugyotsuji

    Tsuba help

    The first ‘mirror-image’ sanmai tsuba might be by a Kagami-shi. Oshidori are almost always shown in pairs as a symbol of marital fidelity. A loving married couple might be described as ‘oshidori fūfu’.
  10. PS I would have filled the bath but the drain is blocked…
  11. Next time I will go to a specialist shop, Jean, but I like your thinking! Today I followed the guy's advice and stripped it right back to bare wood, removing hundreds of years of patina, then sanded it to the proverbial finger-tip smoothness. The circular saw marks have gone. My hands and wrists are done for the day. Nearly halfway there, on one side! As you mentioned above, I then coated it in slightly-thinned suki urushi and filled the bath with hot water for a steamy atmosphere. (Ideally) This process I will repeat until it reaches the depth of Manuka honey colour that I want. Bowls of hot water…
  12. Well, it’s another day and the wife is planning to take the car and go somewhere. My fingers are feeling rested, and I’m going to attack this once more. As to the wood, naturally it should be Yew Red Oak 赤檮樫 赤樫 ‘Ichii-gashi’, but it’s mega hard to find, and even harder to carve. Yari poles, bokutō, matchlock stocks/butts. So I chose a large two-by-four of pine at the hardware store and had them cut the first block on their giant machine for ¥50 a cut. That accounts for the rotary cutter marks down one side!!! Sharp eyes, this guy! So today is Saturday, er… Sanderday. (By hand of course.)
  13. Hard to see, but that seems to be the Watanabe mon. The maedate is a shikami. Do you have a photo of the Mei, Tom?
  14. Jean, sadly there has been a setback. Having thought about the lacquering process, and wondering how to introduce a little redness into the lacquer finish, I remembered a friend here who has successfully relacquered some gun stocks. He did a pretty good job, better than I could ever do without guidance and practice. Today I knew that I was going to bump into him at the antiques market, so I took the block along and showed it to him. Now, I would never admit this in public, so please do not tell anyone, but he took one look at it and said, "What a terrible job! You've chosen the wrong wood, and the surface still shows circular saw marks. The best I can give you is 40%." The guy who was with him, another friend, said kindly, "Well, I think it's a damn good job, and I would give you at least 50%!" So............................................................................. it's back to the drawing board. Actually, he wants the surface to be uber smooth, absolutely no bumps or ridges to the touch. He says that I can have a try at the sanding and lacquering first, but he's willing to strip it back and do it again for me if my work is rubbish. He gave me a funny look. He told me that he senses that I want to do it, so he is not offering to do it for me. I said, no, I simply want to learn from him, regardless of who does the work. But I've seen him at work repairing ceramics and things. He is endlessly patient and takes weeks to finish a perfect job. I am glad I asked him for advice.
  15. Each Sode is attached by two strings to the wadakami. You need to shorten the front string on either shoulder.
  16. PS There’s a clip about Sadamune here, the end of the Kamakura period.
  17. 相州住人貞宗 Sō-Shū Jūnin Sadamune. On the other side of the Nakago “A day in February in the second year of…” (someone has obliterated the date name with mekugi holes. Might be possible to piece it together with a bit of circumstantial detective work.) Excellent shots. Wish everyone would be so helpful!!!
  18. Today I made steady progress and hope to be able to report very soon. Daimyō lords in the Edo Period were always looking for something different. A miniature cannon capable of being fired could be an instrument of amusement or even used for instruction. And now we face the most difficult part, the lacquering etc. Manyana! Getting prepared for the metal reinforcing band. Pinned on…
  19. Went to see this a couple of summers ago. Interesting follow-up though, Bryce! (There is a general tendency in the West to mix up the kazu/katsu pronunciations anyway! ) Many thanks. Subaru Impreza
  20. Thanks both of you. My wife has been quite cooperative, allowing me to use the kitchen/dining table and cover the place in shavings and sawdust. She knows that I’ll vacuum up afterwards. Today she tried to get me to admit I was enjoying the work. It’s kind of compulsive. Gradually the idea of what I have to do forms in my mind and then the body follows through and I lose interest for a few hours in food, the TV and the internet. Yes, I am enjoying it, despite the aching fingers. The photos and updates come naturally too. As to these miniature cannons, the very smallest ones were funky powder testers (火薬試しKayaku-Dameshi) apparently. See photo below. The one I am working with and the one I am copying from are larger and could fire a serious ball. In the West we’d probably call them signal cannons. To be honest I would be interested in finding some definitive material on their original purpose and use. Generally this style of wooden-base cannon is called 置き筒 Okizutsu,a ‘placement gun’ or 火矢筒 Hiyazutsu a ‘flaming bolt gun’.
  21. Step 3. Luckily the holes lined up through the block and the mekugi rings! (You only get one try at that.) Had some spare hours this afternoon, so with one saw and one very rough file I started to shape the outline. From here on, when I get some time, I will use finer files to re-shape, refine and smooth. After that, only the metalwork and the lacquering will remain. This is an exercise to create a decorative object, following in the footsteps of an Edo stock maker. I can even see the filemarks now of the artisan who made the original; they correspond closely to what I have been doing. Some of the angles have even been a constructive lesson! (Most of this I am doing by eye and by feel, although I should probably be more professional, measuring everything precisely.) Photos follow...
  22. That's great news, Arnaud! Many thanks. I saw a documentary about them developing this a couple of years back, but if it's available now as an app, I definitely need to check it out.
  23. Step 2. Fingers aching. Thumb bandaged. Enough for one day. Drilling the mekugi holes will be an all-or-nothing excitement.
  24. When you find a naked barrel. Tempted to either a) copy the real base of another cannon... or b) just make it like other simpler ones I've seen.(?) a) Preliminary no-brainer idea: b) One I made several years ago.
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