bluboxer

Beautiful gift! That pushes all my buttons.

Hi Chris o, that does look strange and would agree with Peter about removing it. There may also be room for some kanji beneath the folded over jacket portion. You might also see a better representation of the base metal once the habaki is gone.

Somewhat similar to the Swedish broad axe used for squaring timbers. They are commonly offset to protect the users knuckles. I vote for a tool.

The yasurime looks so uniform and perfect. Were they machined or by hand?

I agree with Dave R and think it is a gunto with homogeneous steel. If it were truly kobuse construction you might be able to see it in the mune. Just my opinion.

Thank you kind gentlemen for the insights and links. I have added an image of the other side and from the old shadow left from the missing menuki it appears to have been as all have suggested. ("enlightened" smiley here) Now I am searching for my missing ox. Very Zen like Stephen.Are we reminiscing of warmer days in the field? Cheers!

Okay, I can see that. I will have to contemplate why that did not occur to me.

Thanks Brian! What a great sticky. I have a sleeping swordsman(?) on a tanto that needs a mate. 22mm x 18mm.

If top craftsman were commissioned; perhaps "Utsushi" rather than just a reproduction.

Oh, the famous koshigiri (with fingerprints)

1) Kanbun shinto 2) Azuchi-momoyama 3) Nambokucho shortened 4) Shinshinto (copy of kamakura) This is a fun exercise, thanks Paul.

Good day everyone, I just wanted to bring up a couple of points regarding steel composition and hardening. I would prefer to describe tamahagane as a "simple" steel rather than "pure" in that the two significant elements are iron and carbon with some other elements as impurities existing in insignificant amounts (hopefully).Modern steels have a higher degree of purity in a sense. As we add alloying elements like manganese,molybdenum and chromium (just to name a few) the nose of the TTT moves further away in time so we can cool at a slower and safer rate while still obtaining sufficient martensite. With respect to the "hard spots" observed in gunto; I feel this is an artifact of the steel composition rather than the method of quenching. I also think that nie is not an indicator of the quenching medium but of how the steel was smelted,forged and heat treated. The reason that smiths chose fresh water as a quenchant was because it perfectly matched the time constraints with simple steels. If they used saltwater or seawater, as I'm sure many tried, the blade did not survive the thermal shock and if they used animal fat or vegetable oils the blades did not get hard. Now on top of all that you can through some clay on the blade to make the ridge and spine cool even slower so there is little chance of martensite forming elsewhere (differential hardening).I have heard it postulated that the thin layer of clay on the ha reduces the effect of the vapor barrier that is formed and increases the local cooling rate even further. Cheers

1,4,5,6,8,.9,10 are Showa-to (maybe!)

Thanks for that link Barry.Have one on the way. I thought the first book was immensely informative and took the mystery out of the process. Thanks for the heads up Clive.

These should make the "required reading" list. Thanks John.