OceanoNox

I really disagree: because WE cannot find immediate value in a pursuit, does not mean it is devoid of any value. Just like unpublished research about negative results or neutral results can lead people to do the whole thing again, when they could have build up on some preexisting results, or put their efforts towards something else. At the same time, the starting point (here believing that cast tsuba were commonly made) is not necessarily a bad thing IF honesty and integrity in the research is maintained: it should translate to "Were cast tsuba produced?" with a whole study on whether the casting technology was available. N.B.: I have been on the "objective" side of this in research, where researchers who had discovered a specific mechanisms were trying to fit all results into their own theory, disparaging other theories to the point of dishonesty, while I tried to find what mechanism best explained my own results. Otherwise I agree that we should look for primary sources as much as possible. Again, this is possibly a lifetime endeavor, as many documents are almost inaccessible (either destroyed, unreadable, or simply stored and forgotten somewhere).

If you can keep enough to do what you planned, and others would not be usable for new tsuba, I would welcome them.

Oh, that's really cool! I do not want to prevent you from doing your own project.

Those results are certainly impressive. I am a bit concerned about the citations, because so far I have not been able to find some of them via a quick Google search. Did ChatGPT provide actual links?

Are the points listed not ways to tell the difference? I don't think the software could tell the difference between pictures of antique sword and modern reproduction, but that was not what was asked.

Like Rokujuro said, sanmai is three layers or three plates, so your friend is wrong. Sanmai is usually two softer steel plates surrounding a hard steel plate. When it's finished, the hard steel plate should peek out and is the edge. What your friend described is called kobuse, where one steel wraps around another (a bit like a taco). I would say that a sanmai would look closer to suguha than what you have. Very rapid cooling (in water or oil) to harden the steel is "quenching". This forms the martensite that is wanted to have a very hard edge. The tempering is a low temperature heating to remove some of the brittleness of the as-quenched steel.

Thank you for the link. It worked fine. I had forgotten about this paper by Mr. Kawami. It might be the paper where he mentions tsuba made from recycled hoes. I need to study about fluorescent X-rays, but he mentions one limitation: penetration depth of the X-ray. I use Cu-Kα and we assume generally a penetration of about 20 μm. In this paper, it is not clear how deep the X-rays go. It is possible that only the patina layer is measured (according to 金工の着色技法, by Nagano and Io, 1998, https://www.amazon.co.jp/金工の着色技法-長野-裕/dp/4844585754), solutions used for rusting iron tsuba include some kind of clay, and can include copper sulphate, as well as many other elements (rokusho, etc.). Another point to be careful is the detection of carbon. This is very difficult, and even spark measurement of elements cannot detect interstitials readily (carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen), so dedicated devices are usually required: I have used Horiba machines that simply melt a few grams of sample and measure those few elements only. May I ask about those tsuba? Preparations for the measurements I am considering involve cutting, polishing, and etching, so there would be nothing salvageable.

Ah, I replied just after your post. Yes, I have read this paper. There are two others from an Italian team (led by Dr. Zoppi [1, 2]), using neutron diffraction for non-destructive analysis of tsuba. However, neither shows the diffraction profiles. Those are the only three scientific papers I know on material analysis of tsuba, I have not seen any other yet. While I do appreciate the good tsuba, I do not want to select data, and I am interested in getting as much data as possible, to see trends, if there are any. Analyzing the good high-grade tsuba would be invaluable, but we fall again in the issue of what is representative (and is it even possible or meaningful to aim for that). An advisor at work told me this would be the work of a lifetime, because it would also mean trying to dig up (and decipher) any primary source concerning tsuba use or manufacture. [1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00339-013-7832-y [2] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00216-009-3048-6

Thank you for the link! I have had a hard time finding, but it is mostly because of my poor choice of words while searching. As to what I want to analyze, I don't think I can access any dating measurements (and as far as I know, while carbon dating seems possible, it appeared unreliable). But I really would like to do the following: Chemical composition (especially carbon content), X-ray diffraction to identify various phases, and some polishing and etching to see the grain size(s) and the phase distribution (basic metal characterization).

Following a video of Ford Hallam where he showed a very crumbly tsuba, I have been wondering if there are places where one could find damaged tsuba. By this I mean damaged beyond repair. I really would like to conduct destructive analysis if possible, but I cannot morally endorse destroying perfectly good artifacts. If they were deeply damaged, however... Even if there is no sure way of getting such items, I welcome your thoughts on this idea: destructive analysis on heavily damaged tsuba: yes or no?

Thank you! It reminds me of the nozarashi theme.

What I seem to read is (top to bottom, right to left): 生者必誠 (living - person - certainty - sincerity) but I am not sure of the last two.

It feels like a plant to me, too. It also reminds me of the coiled insect repellent incense sold in Japan (katorisenkou), but that would be anachronistic.

Those look like the sharingan from Naruto, an early manga aficionado?

Thank you for posting the link to the document. I will read it when time allows. Do you know why the design involves both this implement and the crab? It seems like an unlikely association.

It is called 五徳 (gotoku), with the circle in the ash, and the "claws" supporting the kettle.

Very nice drawing! It always amazes me, when looking at craftsmen, how little equipment they sometimes have. A youtube video showed a top habaki maker in his late years, and his workshop was basically a small office with a few fire bricks, a mini anvil, and tree stumps to make the whole thing. I did not know they used tree stumps as workbench. Apparently, in the early 20th century at least, they also used thick wood staves with an octogonal shape to hold with the knee against the workbench.

The unpublished catalog by Albert James Koop is available online, at the following link: http://jameelcentre.ashmolean.org/collection/7/10237 May I ask, were you allowed to measure the tsuba directly, was it easy to gain access to the collection?

One traditional representation of clouds is horizontal bars with rounded edges, interconnected with each other. This may be what is hinted at here, but then I am not sure why the bars would be vertical. One possible answer is that the sukashi in old tsuba is positioned to not weaken the structure (I may have read it in Helen C. Guansaulus, Japanese sword-mounts in the collections of Field Museum, 1923).

Which ones? I've read the Asahi one, and I don't see what makes no sense. It talks about handling broken namban tsuba (specifically iron), then goes on showing a tsuba that may be cast (picture (B) may show traces of a spout), but again wishes for a more informed opinion. Then there is a paragraph on the dating of said tsuba. The last but one paragraph states that he heard of old tousougu made by casting, and follows with wondering why there are not more cast items, which could be explained by recycling. About kakenhi, I initially put the links to show what kind of actual funded research there is (and there was not much more that I could find). The kakenhi project report by Mr. Murase states that 43% of the menuki from two different cultural centers (Nara and Kyoto) were cast. The material was not specified, but I would say something with copper. There is also this report (https://sitereports.nabunken.go.jp/en/36011), that shows molds for cast tsuba and apparently menuki (it looks like both were made of brass). For what it's worth, I haven't seen shinsakuto with fitted tsuba for iai. As far as I know, the tsuba are held by pressure alone (and it is then easy to know if you have loose fittings, because they rattle). Fair enough. If we continue, iron tsuba that have been analyzed have very low carbon content, lower than the steel presented in the same article, which has a very different attenuation rate than the cast iron. I agree that the denomination "forged cast iron" is dubious, and I cannot understand why, unless it's a mistake as two separate sets of cast irons were compared. In the paper, it seems all samples were the same size, so I would maintain that iron, cast iron, and steel have different acoustic properties, but I agree that it might just be impossible to evaluate by acoustics alone a tsuba, simply because of the complex shapes.

Eh, not that much. Speaking of metals, dislocations were inferred before they could be observed, and the observations confirmed the calculations. When dislocations were observed, there was a debate on their shape, and the microscope users (the dislocations are as we see them) were debating against the theoretical scientists (the dislocations are more complex than what is observed). The microscope users were wrong. I really don't understand the second part of this, sorry. Do you mean that only a tousougu artisan could be qualified to be an expert? Or anyone who has studied tousougu in a comprehensive manner? I would say that a historian could give a proper analysis of sources, especially if primary sources are to be found. Similarly, a metallurgist could give proper reasoning about what is and isn't feasible in terms of metals. I will go further and say that only the combined work of historians/archeologists and metallurgists will give definite answers (in the current matter), because their respective trainings should give them the tools to produce unbiased information and data. I wish him a solid recovery. For what it's worth: according to this paper, forged and cast "iron" (both with 3.50 mass% carbon) show a difference in acoustic attenuation (https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2538&context=icec). The other one I mentioned was a fractured tsuba that looked like zuku (pig iron), but without micrograph, it's hard to say if that was true indeed.

I agree that somehow this one word has been taken as a personal insult, when it was not, while ad hominem were directed very quickly without much restraint at others. While this may be cherry picking (and to respond to a message that may have been addressed to me, the Japanese websites I posted were never said to be authorities in the matter, and I was quite honest about it), the people at Asahi Touken have written a post specifically on cast tsuba. My Japanese is not that good, but this is the points I took out (more cherry picking): ① Nakahara Nobuo, who wrote the document, states that they handled broken namban tsuba and the fracture surfaces looked like "zuku". ② The fact that there are little cast iron tsuba around is not illogical, as most of the iron and steel was recycled. ③ This is conjecture, and the writer wishes for a scientific analysis for dating. https://asahitoken.jp/contents/03_forum/report/forum-B/forum-B-104.html ※Below is very much not on the topic of cast tsuba, but more about research in tousougu: As an aside (not about cast iron), there are a few researchers that are actively looking at topics regarding the Japanese sword: it is in Japanese, but there are publicly available research reports of the Kakenhi funds (government fund attributed to a limited number of researchers, after scrutiny of applications). There is specifically Dr. Naoko Naito, of the Osaka museum of history, who is publishing work on Japanese swords and fittings. Some examples of report for Kakenhi on tousougu: https://kaken.nii.ac.jp/ja/file/KAKENHI-PROJECT-19H00013/19H00013_2019_seika.pdf https://kaken.nii.ac.jp/ja/file/KAKENHI-PROJECT-24682001/24682001seika.pdf

Unless it's a thing made for tourists, it reminds me of tessen (iron fan). Just have it in the obi, not looking like a weapon, but ready to smash someone on the head, maybe? At any rate, I am not sure if the term kabuto wari fits the object.

Why though? According to my tea ceremony teacher, the techniques to make chagama with thin walls has been lost, and modern chagama are quite heavier than antiques. Even in Japan, some knowledge is being lost. In another vein, there are currently a few non-Japanese representatives of koryu. The highest authority in some Japanese arts are not Japanese. That being said, a quick look at google in Japanese under "鍔 鋳物", gives some websites (I haven't check their credibility). There, it is said that cast (iron) tsuba were not uncommon, but not suited to fighting, but rather made for large and cheap manufacture. They should be lighter than they appear, and make a dull noise when hit with a finger (as opposed to a clear ring for forged tsuba). https://www.touken-world.jp/tips/14767/ https://asahitoken.jp/contents/06_kokogaku/kokogaku-E.html PS: Nosyudo, the iaido equipment supplier, is selling "cast tsuba", although the material is not specified.

Oil quenches are more gentle on the metal, especially if the oil is heated up (depending on the steel, martensite can form as high as 200℃, so you can quench in 200℃ oil, and then slowly cool down to room temperature, and you will get a fully martensitic piece without risk of cracking). Oil quenching would probably give less sharp lines between the phases (but I have not seen any myself). The polish is what will tell you the difference. It is not clear how the blades looked like before, but a sax was polished by a Japanese polisher and it showed a hamon (https://www.archaeologie-online.de/artikel/2001/thema-alamannen/mado-wo-akeru-ein-fenster-oeffnen/).