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Dumb Human Tsuba Tricks


Daso

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Hello All,  So far I have bee the restrained buyer of pieces with good guidance from you all, but on a night time online auction house stupid move bought this likely Hunk of Junk for a few dollars and was curious if anyone could see from the pictures whether it's a poorly cast paperweight or at the very least try to recoup a few $$ on Ebay and it's just a real piece of rusty junk an if so, do I just say Tosho Tsuba? If it's cast junk, Ill just use it as a fishing weight for Fluke ;-) .  I am prepared to be slightly ridiculed, but I took a chance for $50 (not on ebay).  Didn't look nearly this rusty on website either. Pardon the waste of space on the website too.

 

 

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Modern amateur work, imo. Made from badly corroded mild steel sheet...done something like this myself  many years ago.

 

Kozuka hitsu is not a convincing shape and the other side is utterly inappropriate in terms of awareness that at some point a further piercing may be required. Genuine period pieces tend to exhibit an recognition of function that is lacking here.

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Modern amateur work, imo. Made from badly corroded mild steel sheet...done something like this myself many years ago.

Kozuka hitsu is not a convincing shape and the other side is utterly inappropriate in terms of awareness that at some point a further piercing may be required. Genuine period pieces tend to exhibit an recognition of function that is lacking here.


Ford, thanks. Last time I do something like that Thank god I listened to everyones advice on my bigger purchases. Small and low cost lapse of judgement. I'll use it as a counterweight for my Fluke fishing rig It took me a few minutes to understand what you meant by other piercings as well. I never thought about that and it makes complete sense. Was it common to make piercings after the fact?
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Assuming you can't return the 'tsuba' and as it has no merit you could get it ground down

File out the kozuka hitsu to the correct shape

File all other edges to sharpen then up

Heat it up and drop it in oil to give a bluish colour

You then have a modern but better made tsuba that may not hurt your eyes!

 

About a month ago I bought a tachi three piece tsuba that looked OK in the images - a nice colour etc

When it arrived it was crap but I kept it as in my opinion it was my fault

After a couple of weeks I thought I'd ask the seller if I could return it as I believed the images were enhanced

The seller agreed straight away to accept the return and also refund my shipping

A lucky result

 

 

Grev UK

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Grev,

heating up a piece of iron and cooling/quenching it in oil will end up with a black TSUBA. Grinding/polishing it to a metallically clean surface and heating it up to ca. 280°C will result in a dark blue blue. I would not want neither of it for one of my TSUBA..

The item in question may not be great, but if the (not so proud) owner is patient enough, he may just brush the active rust away and let time and frequent handling do the rest for something like a patina. This process can be enhanced by exposing the TSUBA to the climate (but not to rain) and wiping it regularly with a dry cotton textile. At least this is my experience. 

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Thank you all, Auction credited me 50% of purchase back so I will hang it on my terrace as a windchime (without the chiming part)  or find some odd thing to do with it.  Grev,  I like your idea, but it might be a dangerous endeavor in a Manhattan apartment with a 6 year old wondering what I'm doing and wanting to get in on the hot oil and metal experiment ;-).  Ilearned my mni lesson and got a bit back, so I'm ok. No more unknown online auction house Tsuba for me (for a bit at least)

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