cabowen

pretty certain this is a WWII era blade.....

Guys, no chastising meant......I was offering up an explanation as to why I said only Yamato originally....nothing wrong with offering opinions beyond that if you are so inclined.....the additional info may help the owner of the sword with it in hand....

the proportions look off....the shinogi-ji is too wide.....I doubt this was made by a professional Japanese smith....the mizukage says it has an ersatz heat treatment....

Which is why saying anything more than yamato, especially without actually having the sword in hand, is shooting in the dark.....

and a never ending source for wordplay....Here's one example: after eating men will sometimes say "uma katta" which is the past tense of umai, meaning it was tasty, delicious, etc.... I heard someone say instead "ushi maketa" which means the cow lost....if the cow lost, the inference is the horse won....horse is uma and won is katta.....

Wasn't this sword discussed here previously? Do a search and I think you will find what people thought about it....

based on the flowing masame shown in your photo I think Yamato is a very good bet. Nice looking sword.... http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/download ... p?id=24257

It is a complex metallurgical phenomenon that only occurs when several variables, both process and material, all "line up" within a narrow range of values. It can happen by accident, though some smiths have been able to produce it consistently and thus show great control and consistency in their heat treating. Being able to produce it consistently is thus an indicator of a high level of skill. It also has come to be appreciated for the beauty it adds....I should add that in an off itself it does not make a blade "better" than one without, unless perhaps the smith is known to produce it consistently and it is lacking when it should not be....

generally, the later the blade, the lower and less complex the utsuri.....

your criteria are too broad. why don't you post a picture of the blade?

funbari is seen mostly in early koto. You will not see it as a standard trait in shinto and shinshinto......

is it signed with a maker's name?

Maegawa Masatsugu 前川政継

Koshirae fit for a daimyo....stunning!

I have seen both new and old blades get re-tempered....You can not correct flaws in a finished blade by hammering on it, but the blade is subject to minimal hammering to change the sori, as I have said. Regardless, you can not pound on the surface of the blade and create masame hada, you can only deform whatever pattern is already present and deforming itame into masame is just not possible.... The above post explains what masame hada is- it is the billet on edge, just like quartersawn wood. Itame is the face of the billet, just like plainsawn wood. Pounding on the face will not rotate the edges of the billet outward or straighten curved weld lines. And the above poster is correct as well about the skill needed to draw out a blade with masame hada due to the fact that you in effect hammering the welds apart, not together, as with itame hada. A flawless masame hada blade is indeed a testament to fantastic skill. It helps to first explain how these patterns are made....When the billet is forged, the hammer compresses the steel. As these are folded, the layers get very thin, so thin that the hammer can actually upset layers, that is, the deformations it makes pierce layers. When folded and hammered, these "piercings" form the swirls and eyes seen in itame when polishing "plain saws" the blade. Also, when the smith is forge welding the billet, sometimes they will spot a blister in the steel from an incomplete weld or an impurity. They will drill this out before folding the billet again. This also creates swirls and eyes via the same mechanism as the hammer upsetting the layers...As an aside, ayasugi hada is a contrivance that exploits this phenomenon by drilling holes into the billet at regular intervals to artificially create a regular pattern of "upsets"... The drawing out of the billet, as Ford has noted, stretches the steel and inevitably, there will be areas with rather straight grain around the eyes and swirls, thus Itame hada is a mix of straight and swirled sections and will always have straight sections. A ware follows a weld as the weld will give before the steel itself will crack, therefore there can be tate-ware in blades done in itame....

You are saying that by drawing out the blade there is a natural tendency for the "pattern" to be elongated....I agree. But there is no new welding so whatever was in the billet is what you end up with. If there is only mokume, you are not creating masame, only deformed mokume. A circle becomes an oval, etc.... Stress is relieved during the normalization that is done before yaki-ire. It is the yaki-ire process that creates new stresses, much of which is then relieved again during tempering (yaki-naoshi). That would be my guess as well.....

There is, as I said, some minimal hammering to straighten the blade but it is not going to change the grain structure from one form to another......

Huh???? And if these are not for sale, why are you posting in the for sale forum???

My point exactly. Forge welding creates a pattern in the steel very much like that in wood. It goes "through" the skin of the sword- there is no different "underlying linear alignment of the steel, whatever it's finer surface pattern". Sanding wood is analogous to polishing a sword. Hammering would actually create upsets/deformities that when polished would actually look like itame or mokume. It could also possibly open a weld Now, if the claim was that yaki-naoshi tended to cause areas of masame grain inherent in the blade to open, I think that would be quite likely given the stresses imposed on the blade. But physically changing the welding pattern in the blade? Sorry, but my metallurgical education as an engineer and practical experience with swordsmiths won't allow me to accept that on blind faith even from the likes of Dr. Sato. Perhaps something was lost in the original translation....

Is it just me or does this design look extremely unsuitable from a practical standpoint?

I will have to take your word on that but I think as a woodworker you know enough to know the answer to my question.....

Grey- Thanks for the source...I would beg to differ.... I have seen, from start to finish, the complete yaki-naoshi process performed at least a dozen times and never did I see much, if any, hammering on the blade. Maybe different smiths handle it differently, but.... If you think about it, how would hammering on the blade change itame or mokume into masame in the first place? The hada pattern depends on how the billet is folded and which face is used for the kawagane. By simply upsetting the hada you can in no way somehow straighten out curved weld lines. Can you sand a flatsawn board into a quartersawn one?

That is what I meant by "not old"....

I wonder if something was lost in the translation as as far as I know there is no physical force possible created reheating a blade that is going to reconfigure the forged in welding pattern....

In my case, as someone who was an ebay member, I was simply following the rules which at one time stated that it was forbidden to influence auctions. By publicly commenting on active auctions, I found I was doing exactly that, so I stopped. Another reason I do not do it is I do not want to have it come back and bite me should someone buy something on my advice or positive comments, then find that the item was not as advertised, and blame me. There have been a few times when someone has asked about an item that I actually was planning to bid on. Obviously the only thing to do is to stay silent. I understand completely about wanting to out bad sellers and bad items and I have done this many times, but privately, not on a public board. These days, with 99.9% of the items on Ebay crap, it would take a team working full time to out all the junk... I think my willingness to help the less experienced is well reflected in the record, but I don't advocate ebay as the place for beginners to stock their collection and therefore, at least publicly, don't feel any obligation to help out with active auctions...thus my "if you have to ask, you shouldn't be bidding" comment. Everyone has their own take on this and I appreciate Brian's open policy. There is no absolute right way to deal with this- one chooses his priorities and goes from there....