Availability Of Raw Material

[Jamie]

steel color has to do with composition not just polishing. That hardly even makes sense. We know that swords from certain locations was different colors as has been said already. Northern steel is black. This must be due to local resources.

Local resources and knowledge are the factors. Utsuri was not able to be replicated for a very long time. Why?

Because the knowledge was lost. And we really don't know how many smiths there were in old times. I bet many more than we think.

[ROKUJURO]

Ken,

I am not sure if you read my post carefully.

About SATETSU I wrote: 

....Black iron sand (SATETSU)......contains a number of other elements, e.g. titanium, silica, aluminium, calcium a.s.o. in considerable amounts.....

Concerning alloys and impurities, please read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alloy.

Colour of different steels: You can test that yourself. Alloys may have different colours, but steel made from TAMAHAGANE is a very low-alloyed material with almost nothing (except impurities) contained but carbon. Concerning different colours by polishing with KANAHADA NUGUI, you may ask any traditionally trained polisher or read about the different substances under  http://www.ryujinswords.com/nugui.htm. 

 

...... I respectfully disagree with you that alloy elements cannot also be trace elements...I'll leave out the impurities part. If you think iron sand is 100.000% iron, you're wrong. .....

We have a long-time discussion here in Europe among researchers about the qualities of the bloomery iron, its composition, and why accompanying elements from the iron ore (there are quite a lot of these) are not reduced and do not occur in the final product except as (unwanted, but not really disturbing) impurities. 

One source gives this TAMAHAGANE formula:

Tamahagane Composition

C: 1.00% to 1.42%
P: 0.013% - 0.042%
S: 0.006% -0.008%
Mn: 0.006% - 0.11%
V: 0.004% - 0.015%
Al: 0.003% - 0.02%
T: 0.003% - 0.0267%
Mo: 0.04%
Si: 0.018% - 0.02%      

An analysis of SATETSU can be found under:  http://www.shibuiswords.com/tatsuoinoue.htm


What I write about this subject here is not my invention and not my research result. But I feel that we are on the wrong way if we assume that differences between KOTO and SHINTO sword blades are to be found in the steel. Instead, I think there were differences in the processes and treatments. Of course, we have to think about NAMBAN TETSU which was a slightly different steel.  

[Darcy]

Hello:

Isn't the conflation of hamon and better older materials some sort of contradiction? Where is it demonstrated that older material inputs were better? If we admit to Albert Yamanaka's claim that no smith "made or forged swords with the intention of turning out a great work of 'art' " (Nihonto News-Letter, Vol. II, No. 4 (April, 1969), p.31, wasn't the goal to make better functioning swords within the contexts of their times? Finally I suspect that technological change, local access as well as cheaper imports of inputs as time went on, all played a role in cost reduction, a universal reason to change one's ways.

Arnold F.

I think it's easy to misunderstand Yamanaka.

 

He is saying that form follows function. The older smiths wanted to create a great sword and the side effect of that was magnificent art. In the Shinto period they made swords that were putting style first. And in Shinshinto trying to clone old work. These are generalizations.

 

Yamanaka is not saying the old smiths did not create great art.

 

The Pantheon is a masterpiece first and foremost because it stands. Secondly because it is beautiful.

 

Shinto smiths just had access to the same generic steel as everyone else which is the root of the problem. I believe that Soshu smiths had some regional source of materials that failed before the technique ever did. Shintogo through to Sadamune the steel is similar to Awataguchi. Hiromitsu on down the steel is one grade lower. I don't think they would have forgotten how to do it in 5 years time. But if they were working with small local resources and proceeded to exhaust them starting with the best grades first it completely makes sense that the results would start falling off in quality.

 

That could be the right wood or the right ore or a combination of both... and when the materials changed the techniques may have drifted to try to compensate. Over 50 year periods then you have a slow decline. Lose the major customers and it increases the rate of decline.

 

Bizen was the only major tradition who was located on top of the resources instead of on top of a client base. It would seem then that they had major resources. Even so the drift say of the Ichimonji school from town to town can be explained by exhausting the best local materials and moving to a new source. Fukuoka did not give way to Yoshioka because yoshioka was better... but yoshioka maybe had untapped resources. And so on to katayama and iwato. As the resources dry up the school moves or disperses.

 

In the case of Yamato smiths when the clients dry up... there was the migration to Mino.

 

Yamashiro smiths branched off I think probably because the local client base was static and usually dominated by one school in the market.

 

These are just my thoughts and not backed up by anything I've read except for the Shinto steel problems. Basically when the Edo period starts the majority of manufacturing is where the customers are and country wide trade networks turn steel into a commodity that you buy. It's cheaper to buy tgean to make. But then everyone has the same stuff to work with. 25 years ago you could buy a computer with a MIPS R6000 chip, a Motorola 68040, a SPARC, a DEC Alpha, IBM PowerPC and Intel x86. All of that is for the most part gone and whatever you buy in the marketplace unless it is very specialized is going to be x86 (intel and its clones). So the differentiation in laptops at the core comes down to branding and marketing. We have ARM still for low power devices but it is otherwise a CPU monoculture.

 

I think economic reasons always explain Nihonto quirks best. I think they end up on a steel monoculture and maybe the more pure it gets the less interesting it will be.

[Darcy]

Of course if you want to test all the steels you need to cut up some Masamune, Awataguchi etc. I'm not sure anyone has done that yet. No problem to cut up some Muromachi beaters. I don't think it's possible to know for sure what the smiths used because of the case where they seem to have used it all up.

 

This is similar to Paraiba Tourmaline gems whic were found only in Brazil in the 1980s and and when they were mined out it was over. They cost a fortune now to buy a legit one. There are Paraiba-like colours out there but none are the same as the archetypes. And Kashimir sapphires ... the type of blue was only found here and mined out I think in the late 1800s.

 

My feeling is that the magic is spread over the steel and the technique both. Yasutsugu had to pull his hair out over it.

[Darcy]

A couple other thoughts this morning... steel colour can be deceptive because polishers can adjust it.

 

But back to material the thing that is always in the back of my mind is the similar problem of understanding features of true Damascus steel. This like with the koto blades was made for a while, peaked and then vanished. Nobody really understands why. Features like Jacob's Ladder are seen in the patterns in the best works... I am no expert but I did photograph a great blade once (below).

 

Scientific American did an article on this and in the authors opinion Swordmakers in the Islamic world were using Indian wootz steel. The source he thinks had traces of vanadium in it which were responsible for these effects. When the source dried out so did the blades vanish.

 

This is why I say above that maybe the more pure the less interesting.

 

High res is here: http://nihonto.ca/shamshir-l.jpg

 

[Kronos]

I guess if there's any top level kamakura swords about with fatal flaws like hagiri, extremely tired etc so as to make them much less valuable that may be a source that could be used to test mineral content. What i believe to be the most difficult aspect for modern smiths to replicate is that it's partly technique and partly material so that exponentially increases the difficulty of replicating earlier work.

[ROKUJURO]

Darcy,

the WOOTZ damascus steel is a completely different thing. This material is a 'crystalline' damascus produced in crucibles, not on the anvil alone, and Vanadium (and other elements) are necessary to induce the crystals forming. 

In the first range, Damascus steel was produced as a means to homogenize the steel; the decorative effects were a later development. In later times, when smiths were able to produce 'better' steel, the difficult process was no longer necessary and became obsolete. This was also the case with the Viking swords. . 

[SAS]

I have seen examples of modern mono steel blades that have been thermally cycled in order to reduce quench warping; sometimes this has the effect of creating alloy banding which is indistinguishable from the hada of some Koto masterpieces. Food for thought.

[seattle1]

Hello:

 Darcy, as usual your points are well taken, however I hope it goes without saying that the reference above to Yamanaka's saying that "...no smith 'made or forged swords with the intention of turning out a great work of 'art' " did not preclude the happy outcome of a very beautiful work of art. The point being made was that an outcome of a beautiful sword was coincidental and not intentional, and that such an outcome was often delivered, in spite of intention, and particularly in koto times, is an observation that all of us can surely agree to.

 Arnold F.

[Darcy]

I guess if there's any top level kamakura swords about with fatal flaws like hagiri, extremely tired etc so as to make them much less valuable that may be a source that could be used to test mineral content. What i believe to be the most difficult aspect for modern smiths to replicate is that it's partly technique and partly material so that exponentially increases the difficulty of replicating earlier work.

 

 

Fatal flaw is just a sword guy thing. If a Rai Kunitoshi has a hagire and you owned it would you just scrap it? Nope. Most people wouldn't. That it cannot be used for cutting anymore due to the hagire is no big deal in a world where nobody would use it for cutting anyway if it didn't have a hagire. 

 

Fatal flaw is a relative thing as well, no-boshi is a condition that can get a Heian blade through Juyo but not a Shinto sword through any paper. So how fatal is this fatal flaw really? It's important that we don't run with this phrase "fatal flaw". Fatal in terms of utility as a sword so don't trust your life to the hagire Rai Kunitoshi during the zombie apocalypse, this is what you will have the gendai Nagamitsu for anyway.

[Darcy]

Arnold, I may have misunderstood your point so I'll address point by point:

 

> Isn't the conflation of hamon and better older materials some sort of contradiction?

 

No I don't see that. If you think so, then explain your logic? If you don't think so why is it a question? Better older materials generated better hamon, both artistically and from a material point of view. We can understand as well that old swords were subject to the kind of testing that new swords were not.

 

If Osafune could not make a good sword they would be gone but they lasted 300 years. Kotetsu though all he had to do was send his swords out to his buddy to make one cut through a couple of dead bodies and he became famous through the centuries. A Bizen sword had to see war for a century to be retired most likely. Kotetsu, one cut. Finished. Put it in gold. Famous. 

 

Osafune made more beautiful work than Kotetsu and more functional work than Kotetsu. So, I am failing to see the contradiction between good hamon and good older materials. 

 

> Where is it demonstrated that older material inputs were better?

 

The whole is the sum of its parts plus magic. If koto blades are better than shinto blades (and there is exhaustive history and opinion that indicates this) then part of this is the material they are using as well as the technique. That the schools moved around as I mentioned above seems to indicate a need to change location for exhausting raw materials as Bizen did not relocate to the source of customers like with Kyoto (Yamashiro) and Soshu (Kamakura) and Yamato (temple) smiths. 

 

If we knew what they were using we could put it to the test, but all we can do is infer from all of the above plus the work of Yasutsugu where we see a "modern" hamon put on older work. By comparing what he did on the retempers and on his own, we chiefly see the difference in the steel as given to the koto masters and as given to him, plus their forging. Sadamune, Masamune, Awataguchi Yoshimitsu, all of these and more were retempered by Yasutsugu and the remarks are that they rank better than his own but inferior to the originals. That makes sense if a sword went through a fire because that is going to chemically change the sword. 

 

You refer to Yamanaka below and Yamanaka makes the point that the reason that Yasutsugu could put a first class hamon on a Yoshimitsu is because Yoshimitsu's steel is better than his. And that steel is a combination of source material and technique. Yasutsugu being able to put a first class hamon on Yoshimitsu shows he has the capability, the technique to do first class hamon. It would seem that what he can do with his hands and his brain is all fully capable. He could clone the sugatas perfectly. But the magic of the hamon only appeared on the old steel and not on his. Though he had the hamon skill, though he could replicate the shapes, and one can then assume he was good with the hammer, the missing component is some secret in the material itself. 

 

All books refer to regional differences in steel as well, and only in the 2000s do we believe that anything different is completely equivalent. Everyone gets a trophy. Prior to this for 35,000 years we believed that if two things were different there was probably one thing better and another inferior and maybe with some overlap. 

 

There are also the anecdotes of smiths trying to find any old iron, nails, what have you, to use in their modern works to try to give it some flavor that is missing. 

 

The smiths themselves are expressing that the material is lacking something basic at its core when they do this kind of thing. And they try to toss in some random elements to achieve something different from generic. 

 

> If we admit to Albert Yamanaka's claim that no smith "made or forged swords with the intention of turning out a great work of 'art' " (Nihonto News-Letter, Vol. II, No. 4 (April, 1969), p.31, wasn't the goal to make better functioning swords within the contexts of their times?

 

Maybe it would have been better to write these out as statements rather than as all questions.

 

I'd repeat my point made above that the koto works are the great works by far and these by far are concentrated with Bizen, Yamashiro and Soshu. Form follows function and it's believed that a beautiful sword is an indicator of a well made sword, and a well made sword begins with the best materials. (silk purse / sow's ear). Yasutsugu again if he could make a Yoshimitsu or Sadamune perfectly he would but he couldn't. Gassan Sadayoshi if he could make a Norishige he would but he couldn't. They could copy the shape, the one thing they could do by eye and by pure skill. This indicates they had the skill. They just did not know the secret formula. 

 

If you tried to make cookies your whole life having tasted chocolate chip cookies but did not know what chocolate was or where it came from but some magic was in there making it taste good you'd never get it right either. 

 

> Finally I suspect that technological change, local access as well as cheaper imports of inputs as time went on, all played a role in cost reduction, a universal reason to change one's ways.

 

I agree, I did say I felt economics explained a lot of sword changes and needs over time. Once you lost a need to really fight you lost the need to make the best sword. You needed to sell it though so you needed it to look like the best sword. Maybe a cutting test to ensure the marketing is done. 

 

A car that looks fast and a car that is truly fast are two different things.

 

I don't honesty believe Kotetsu's swords cut all that better than anyone else's. From study it seems that his swords have the most cutting tests on them. What that does is distribute far and wide the story of their cutting ability. Shinkai seems to have done it once so nobody would be talking about all of his cutting tests. Kotetsu I think was just a smart guy and marketed himself very well. The marketing was so good that it entered into myth and legend today. 

 

Koto swords that cut well didn't need cutting tests. The fact that the school continued to exist over a long time is what proves they cut well. And didn't break. Because if they did not have the secret, they would vanish.

 

Who came before Kotetsu and who came after Kotetsu? It is very murky. The magic cutting arrived out of nowhere and returned to nowhere after he died. 

 

And the best explanation for that to me is snake oil. The best explanation for 300-500 years of unbroken production is that you are making a truly legendary product. 

[ROKUJURO]

...... That makes sense if a sword went through a fire because that is going to chemically change the sword. .....

 

 

.....There are also the anecdotes of smiths trying to find any old iron, nails, what have you, to use in their modern works to try to give it some flavor that is missing. .....

 

.....The smiths themselves are expressing that the material is lacking something basic at its core when they do this kind of thing. And they try to toss in some random elements to achieve something different from generic. .....

Darcy,

 

1) This depends on the fire. A small fire/temperature up to 900°C will only cause a physical change in the metal; the sword will loose its hardness. Very high temperatures will cause the metal to loose part of the carbon content; a chemical process.

 

2) The traditional steel does not lack anything. The problem is that modern iron/steel cannot be mass produced without alloying elements (except in a costly chemical process). This modern steel cannot be quenched in water. So what the smiths are really looking for is a very pure steel made in a TATARA (or bloomery furnace), and in former times this was the only way to produce iron/steel. Old nails, anchor chains a.s.o. are probably much cheaper than TATARA iron.    

 

3) You cannot 'add' elements to sword steel produced in a TATARA. Alloys can only be produced with melted/liquified iron.  

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

as one can see in the research paper of TATSUO INOUE on the subject.

edit to delete an already posted link.

[Dave R]

 If you look at Ohmura San's site, he has his own take on Koto v Shinto. That the difference was they made lots of swords and went for a technique where the different grades of steel were mixed "kneaded" rather than separated into laminations or panels....  http://ohmura-study.net/994.html   you will find it under the heading titled "the outline of a Japanese sword". A bit like the pattern welded swords of the late iron-early medieval period in Europe.

[SAS]

Thanks Dave, great article. Very enlightening and dispels some old conventional "wisdom".

[seattle1]

Hello:

 Well Darcy your posting in the above has gone far beyond the "questions" asked - and by the way since when are "questions" an inappropriate rhetorical device? - with regard to Ken's post on Nov. 6. I do not see the link to your quotation: "The hamon that Yasutsugu was able to put on those old blades (saiba we presume) was generally better than the hamon he was able to put on his blades. This is an indication that he did not have access to the material that the old Yamashiro and Soshu smiths had." For the sake of argument, lets say he did not, but again, to ask a question, what do you mean by "better"? If you mean better in an aesthetic sense, well tastes are in the eye of the beholder; if on the other hand you mean the connection between blade utility and one sort of a hamon, perhaps through breakage reduction, edge holding, bend resisting, impact dispersement etc., well that is something different. If older style hamon, including all that putting on a hamon implies, improved those qualities in a blade, and if that was the point initially made, wonderful. In any event it has to be demonstrated and not alleged. I await hearing what makes only materials qua material "better".

 As for the hamon Yasutsugu did on his blades in contrast to those he did on retempering of older blades, are we sure that he was trying to do the same thing in each? Might not his own hamon be reflections of the fashions of his times, and those done on older blades being attempts to replicate their visual characteristic as known to him or that he was directed to replicate?

 Finally, I think there is no disagreement on Yamanaka. Incidental beauty is after all still beauty. I find it interesting, for example, that in discussion of Ko Bizen, a model or type most of us have a very high regard for, that the commentaries of various sensei on Ko Bizen hamon will regularly mention the uncontrived and natural characteristcs of their hamon in contrast to some ideal type attempting to be replicated.

 Arnold F. 

[Ken-Hawaii]

Arnold, yes, we've progressed beyond my question, but I think this all ties together the reasons that I asked my question, so let's let the discussion progress. It gets more inteesting by the day!

 

Ken

 

[Kronos]

 If you look at Ohmura San's site, he has his own take on Koto v Shinto. That the difference was they made lots of swords and went for a technique where the different grades of steel were mixed "kneaded" rather than separated into laminations or panels....  http://ohmura-study.net/994.html   you will find it under the heading titled "the outline of a Japanese sword". A bit like the pattern welded swords of the late iron-early medieval period in Europe.

 

 

I'm not quite sure I buy the theory Ohmura put's forward in that if the best koto works weren't two piece construction, why then do they show shintetsu when tired?

 

Much of what he says is quite thought provoking...

[Ken-Hawaii]

An excellent paper that I proofread for Carlo Tacchini quite a few years ago showed that kobuse actually started between 700 & 800 AD. He even provided photographic evidence of two-piece construction.

 

But I'm not sure exactly what Ohmura is saying on "Knead together hard steel and soft steel."

 

Ken

[Kronos]

I think what he means is instead of a uniform hardness being sought out to make the skin steel (as you see from modern smiths choosing which chunks they form together from the tatara to make a block) they mixed all different steels that averaged out at the desired hardness or at least something along those lines.

 

This was previously discussed in this thread:

 

http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/1761-when-is-a-sword-blade-tired/

[Kronos]

Just to add I do not necessarily agree with Ohmura and Jacques having seen earlier blades with much shintetsu unless there are other reasons for the appearance of something reminiscent of shintetsu.

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

An excellent paper that I proofread for Carlo Tacchini quite a few years ago showed that kobuse actually started between 700 & 800 AD. He even provided photographic evidence of two-piece construction.

 

But I'm not sure exactly what Ohmura is saying on "Knead together hard steel and soft steel."

 

Ken

 

Hi Ken.  Ohmura should be taken with a grain of salt, IMHO. Of course might be some of the best Koto haven't inner soft core but evidences tell us that blades already forgedin Japan (not imported) had the shingane as their chinese counterparts. Blade pic courtesy of Boris Markasin :

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

The following is an image of part of the Mune and all the Nakago of a long straight Tachi and that is dating to ca. 600 AD. Nagasa is 85.5 cm with a 17 cm tsuka, and a 1cm Kasane (Fig 09). A radiograph has been taken with a commercial technology called Gamma Radiography (Sr 92 source) used to detect structural defects in metals. The result of the radiograph has been ad-justed in saturation to obtain the picture hereunder.

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

This was previously discussed in this thread: http://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/topic/1761-when-is-a-sword-blade-tired/

 

The idea that all the different constructions started in 1450 is at least debatable (to be fair). The origins of all the construction method used in fully developed Nihonto (as we surely consider all Koto) were already present in early blades forged in Japan following the chinese technology (we should always remember where Japanese took their technology to later improve it...). I can't post the whole process Suenaga discuss in his work however you can read it at pages 16/17 of my essay. Anyway first row ancient chokuto forged in Japan, second row "modern" construction methods.

[ROKUJURO]

For the early swordsmiths, the available steel appeared as 'soft' or as 'hard', depending on the position of the bloomery iron in the furnace. They did not have an analysis, but could rely on their observation and testing. After experiencing that the first 'all-iron' sword blades were likely to bend and loose their sharpness easily, it was a logical step to combine the flexible (low carbon) steel with a hard (high carbon) one for the cutting edge.

This technique was used already by the Iron-Age Celtic people in 200 B.C. in Europe.

Photo shows a replicated SAN-MAI blade.