estcrh

Keith, I think the experience you mention with practice type of weapons is the reason you do not see same' used on them. I was thinking more of a weapon that was worn and only used in an emergency. Here are another pair of rarely seen gloves made from some kind of cotton like cloth and a picture from the Return of the Samurai exhibit showing a pair of "Yugake" being worn.

Ron, I will heading to the local gun shop to get the necessary barrel cleaning equipment. I will also try cleaning the outside of the barrel using your method and will post pictures of the ( hopefully ) fully restored finish. The only parts I did not remove are the trigger and the trigger guard. Here are a couple of pictures of the lock plate assembly. Ron has identified it as a "flat lock", one of several types and from what I have read is the most common type also.

They are very rarely seen or even pictured, I do not think many survived in good shape due to wear. This goes for under armor garments in general, these items just got worn out due to friction.

Keith I am not jumping on anyone, I am also just making some personal observations and statements. ( which get jumped on quite often also :D ) Many jutte have same' on the tsuka, its not unusual at all. I have a jutte with a same' grip and a tanto also, its not that abrasive really and if it helps keep a weapon in your hand for the few minutes you would actually be using it then I suppose one could overlook any discomfort. One thing that is not seen when it comes to armor are the gloves. Soft leather gloves were available and worn, here is a picture of a pair of armor gloves. I once saw an antique kusarigama for sale in Japan that came with a pair of old heavy rough leather gloves.

Not the old ''export tourist item" explanation of objects that we just do not understand again.....If they were export items I guess they did not sell very well as they are rarely seen for sale outside of Japan, almost all the ones I see are coming from Japan. Plus many of them are worn or even extremely worn and rather plain. I think there are better explanations. Personal defense was as popular in Japan during the Edo period and as it is today in America, maybe were you live its different. Its not unusual at all were I live for people to carry collapsible batons, pepper spray, stun guns, real guns, knives, canes etc for personal defense. If you were going to sell something to a tourist wouldnt you dress it up a bit?

Are you talking about the iron sword like objects also or just the wood ones? The small wood ones I have seen have been described as either doctors swords or tea swords, I have never seen an iron one described that way.

Unfortunately there is not much research on these types of iron bar weapons which include tessen fans and hachiwari, there was a large variety of styles and shapes, from very basic to elaborate so it would seem that not just poor people used these. I do see these kinds of weapons being used in old prints from time to time and samurai police were known to use non lethal weapons to apprehend criminals but there does seem to be a lot of them. Maybe some here has additional information.

Morita San, thank you very much for the translation!!!

These 2 pictures show the various mekugi-ana that are used for pushing out the mekugi that hold the hammer and lock plate in place. The first picture shows the mekugi-ana underneath the stock used for pushing the hammer mekugi out, the next picture shows the 6 mekugi-ana on the side of the stock thats opposite the lock plate. From left to right: #1 the outer spring mekugi-ana for the T headed mekugi. #2 The mekugi-ana with a very large hole for the match cord. #3 The mekugi-ana for one of the round headed lock plate mekugi. #4 A small mekugi-ana that is used for pushing out the wood mekugi which holds the trigger in place. #5 The mekugi-ana that is used for pushing the lock plate assembly out of its cavity once all the mekugi and the stock ring are removed. #6 This mekugi-ana is used for the second round headed lock plate mekugi.

REMOVING THE LOCK PLATE:The lock plate has 2 other round headed brass mukugi, these were pushed out easily with a stiff piece of wire. Directly opposite the lock plate there is a mekugi-ana that is used to push the lock plate out, by inserting a piece of stiff wire into this mekugi-ana the lock plate was easily pushed out of the stock. The lock plate cavity was now exposed, I applied some lemon oil to the dry wood.

REMOVING THE LOCK PLATE:The next part to be removed was the outside spring mekugi. The outside spring was held tight with a brass mekugi with a T shaped head. Pushing a stiff piece of wire through the mekugi-ana opposite the outside spring mekugi pushed it out easily. Once the T shaped mekugi was removed the thick brass stock ring could be removed. the stock ring is attached to the stock by the hammer mekugi. Removing the T shaped outer spring mekugi loosened the outer spring enough to wiggle the stock ring forward, this is necessary in order to remove the lock plate as the stock ring covers the front edge of the lock plate holding it in place.

REMOVING THE LOCK PLATE:The mekugi-ana method is used on all the removable parts, for every brass or wood mekugi there is a corresponding mekugi-ana directly opposite. To push out the mekugi a small round instrument of some type needs to be inserted into the mekugi-ana at the opposite end in order to push out the desired mekugi. The first piece to be removed was the hammer, 1 brass mekugi directly on top of the barrel goes through a shaft connected to the hammer, pushing a stiff piece of wire through the mekugi-ana opposite the brass mekugi pushed it out easily and the hammer pulled right out. The hammer mekugi goes through the large brass barrel ring holding the barrel ring in place.

REMOVING THE LOCK PLATE:The next step was to remove the lock plate, here is a couple of pictures showing the cleaned and oiled barrel channel, no wood was harmed in the process of removing the barrel despite 1 crack in the stock. You can see were the bizen (barrel bolt) rested in the stock and the place in the stock were the mekugi pass throught the mekugi-ana of the barrel.

The bizen on this one tightens to the right also. Here is a picture of the muzzle diameter, can the caliber be determined from this? Piers, here is a picture of the mei and a link to more mei pics, if these are not sufficient let me know. http://s831.photobucket.com/albums/zz23 ... ima%20mei/

Thanks Ron, hopefully this will help anyone else who is thinking of owning a Tanegashima. Now that the barrel is free the bizen bolt at the end of the barrel can be seen as well as the mei, in this case it was not hard to unscrew the bizen. Hopefully I can get the mei translated. I will take the barrel to a local gun shop to find the appropriate cleaning brush and supplies for cleaning the inside of the barrel.

Some more examples. A small tetsubo, a tanbo, tekkan and a iron bar with some file marks on the tsuka.

Lorenzo, the lemon oil cleaned the stock sufficiently, there is a rust removal plan in place for the barrel....involving a lot of rubbing on my part it seems, I will post pictures if it works.

At a weight of about 830g. it would be a deadly weapon in the right hands. Quite possibly at one time it may have had a leather or ray skin covering on the handle. These "uchimono" while very common are understudied.

Barry, thanks for the info on that book, there are not many books in English on the subject. REMOVING THE BARREL: I used a piece of wire to see if any of the mekugi-ana still had mekugi in them, the wire went through all the way on all 4 mekugi-ana. Once I knew all the mekugi-ana were clear the next step was freeing the barrel from the stock. Holding the stock with one hand and pulling on the barrel did not get any results, so on to plan B, wrapping the end of the barrel with a thick towel and tapping gently with a wood stick while holding the stock with one hand. This got some movement, re oiling and tapping slowly separated the barrel from the stock.

Keith, the tekkan is listed on yahoo Japan and its around $100 right now>> http://page5.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/e108362050 Speaking of chato, here are a couple with kurikata.

In a recent thread the subject of the possible reasons for a sword like object having a kurikata came up, I can not shed any light on the topic except to show that this was not that uncommon. Here is a picture of a tekkan that just came up for sale in Japan, you can clearly see that it has a kurikata even though it is just a solid iron truncheon type weapon.

Ian, I shared your concern about the 3 in 1 oil but in this case at least initially it was probably the only oil that was fluid enough to get between the extremely tight tolerances were the wood from the stock met the barrel. After the barrel was removed I could clearly see that while the 3 in 1 did penetrate the stock edge it did not get very far except a couple of pooled areas and the channel of the stock was bone dry, I used lemon oil as Ron suggested on the rest of the stock interior. After a few good coats I stopped even though the stock would have probably absorbed the entire bottle of lemon oil, I was worried about over absorption as you mentioned. When the barrel was removed I could see that while the top of the barrel was smooth, the underneath area which was in contact with the wood had the texture of sand paper, I believe this roughness was the cause of the initial difficulty i had in removing the barrel. REMOVING THE BARREL: The next step was to remove the barrel, for anyone who (like me) was unaware of how the barrel is secured to the stock its the same mekugi-ana method as with a Japanese sword, the stock has mekugi-ana like the tsuka of a sword and the barrel has small iron loops (mekugi-ana at the bottom of the barrel, small wooden mekugi are inserted through the stock holes and through the barrel loops. When the barrel sits in the stock the mekugi-ana of the stock line up with the mekugi-ana of the barrel. On this Tanegashima there were 4 mekugi-ana, I do not know if that is a standard number, some one here should know that information. The mekugi-ana on the stock are covered with decorative brass? plates with the image of a rabbit on each plate. Here are some pictures of the mekugi-ana on the stock and barrel.

Ian, I really have to give all the credit to Ron, I just put up the money! The barrel has no decorations, but like you noted the wood has a lot of highlights and is in excellent shape with just one slight crack near the back of the barrel, and there are quite a bit of brass? decorations on the stock, a lot of little rabbits all over the stock. Ron sent me step by step instructions on removing the barrel, unfortunately after so many years of being stored the wood had drawn tight around the barrel so as per Ron's instructions I purchased some 3 in 1 oil and started oiling any area were the stock touched the barrel, trying to get the dried out stock to absorb the oil and loosen up. I did this several times a day for several days.

Having read all the posts about Tanegashima on the forum (Thanks to Ron, Piers, Ian among others!!) I bought all the 3 books in English and 1 in Japanese on the subject that seemed to have relevant information. The Japanese book was purchased from forum member Craig Harris (Bridge of Dreams) I do not know the name of it since I do not read Japanese but it has a large number of photos and drawings of different aspects of Tanegashima and other Japanese firearms. The other 3 books are: "THE Japanese MATCHLOCK" Shigeo Sugawa, in English, color printing, 60 pages: $100- A lot of good pictures, I got a signed copy direct from the author. http://www.japaneseweapons.net/sonota/hon/english.htm "Tanegashima"-The Arrival of Europe in Japan [Paperback] Olof G. Lidin, I found a used paperback copy of this book for around $30 used. No pictures, just a lot of detailed history on the arrival of firearms in Japan. "Giving Up the Gun: Japan's Reversion to the Sword, 1543-1879" [Paperback] Noel Perrin, Which you can buy for around $10 Thus armed I decided it was time to see if I could find a likely candidate for purchase. I checked out sites in Japan first but between the lack of communication and the difficulty of returning such an expensive item if there was a problem with it I decided to look closer to home. I eventually found a Tanegashima for sale in England and I sent forum member Ron Watson a link to the one for sale and asked him if he could recommend it for purchase. Ron has many years of experience in the field of antique firearms among other things and he kindly took a look and while he did not find any major faults he recommended that I wait and he would let me know if he found a better deal. I took Ron's advice and while waiting I found and purchased a few Tanegashima related items.....well many months went by and one day I received an email from Ron with a link to a Tanegashima for sale at auction starting at very low price, it had a few faults but at the time it was only several hundred dollars and was located in the U.S. While watching the auction I received another email from Ron, this time he found an even better Tanegashima on....of all places...EBAY!! Somehow this gun slipped through the ebay censors ( I am fairly certain that ebay does not allow fully functioning firearms of any type to be sold) The seller stated that it used to belong to his father and that it was brought to the U.S. from Japan in the 1950s. It had just been listed and it had a buy it now price with an option to make an offer. Ron suggested a (what seemed to me) a very low price as an offer, one third of the asking price, but I submitted an offer and the offer was accepted in a short time. Here is a picture of the Tanegashima I purchased, Ron identified it as a "Choshu" Tanegashima.

Cory, if you are interested, there are forum members who will take your blade to shinsa for you if you can not attend. I also have a sword or two that I would like to take.