Alternative lighting for viewing

[DanC]

Has anyone ever had the chance to try using black light, or, even better, infrared imaging to look at nihonto to test if you can see details not clear in the visible uv spectrum?

[Ken-Hawaii]

Dan, you may be able to see some different reflections from UV lighting, but since the human eye can't perceive that part of the spectrum, I doubt any new, usable details would be seen.

 

Ken

[DanC]

I was thinking more of an infrared camera system. Basically if there was a way of making the differences in the metal properties more visible. Since folded steel is made using different types of metal, the different metals should respond differently to light. I suppose I'm trying to think of ways of better judging the quality of metal used in a blade. It seems the craftsmanship of forging high quality steel is less appreciated than the craftsmanship applied to the steel.

 

Though, maybe it is possible for someone to finely analyze the quality of steel simply by looking at it and I just sound like a lazy prick looking for a shortcut to the years of experience needed to lean to do so.

[Dave R]

Neutron scanning is turning up some interesting things!

[Anthony de Vos]

Hi!

 

I visited a nice presentation of neutron scanning, in Florens, earlier this year, as a part of "The Japanese Legacy" summit.

Many suprises showed up, some swords are not what we want to belive they are. Interesting differences between the schools of manufacturing. We saw complete new information regarding the construction of Saotomé kabuto, more elaborate and refined than what the eye can tell...

 

Some links to info, there are plenty more out there;

http://www.sonsfpricci.org/wp-content/u ... lo_CH1.pdf

 

https://indico.psi.ch/contributionDispl ... onfId=1431

 

http://download.springer.com/static/pdf ... c&ext=.pdf

 

Regards,

 

Anthony

[cabowen]

The second paper looks quite interesting....too bad the link only contains the abstract....

 

This was an interesting comment from the first link in light of the recent thread on utsuri:

 

"sample no. 3 and no. 4 represent a good example of how Japanese armourers were able to control and reproduce the manufacturing process, obtaining almost an exact copy of the same object."

[DanC]

Definitely interesting, here are a couple links to other articles I found on the topic.

 

 

http://ac.els-cdn.com/S1875389213000576/1-s2.0-S1875389213000576-main.pdf?_tid=b67062dc-2a5c-11e4-844d-00000aab0f6c&acdnat=1408754021_18f40b9c891ba9f06e2107fc6d085b7f

 

http://www.gruppofrattura.it/ors/index.php/aim/article/download/292/260

[cabowen]

Thanks for the links!