Banner With Changes In Shape Over Time

[b.hennick]

Markus Sesko used a chart showing the changes in the shape of blades over time in a presentation. I asked him if he knew the dimensions of the blades and if I could use his file to make a banner. He agreed to let me use the file and provided the length of cutting edge of one of the blades.With the help of my son-in-law, we arrived at a printable, life-size banner 4' X 8'. I ordered one for our sword club's use from Vistaprint and received it today. Two of my club members have also ordered a banner. The banner is printed on vinyl for indoor use. When I purchased mine they offered a 25% discount, when ordering for club members we were able to get a 40% discount. The list price in Canada is $96. The one for the club cost about $75 delivered. The ones the club members cost about $57. They currently offer 25% off with CATCH THEIR EYE discount code.

 

Here are the links:

 

link to jpg file 

 

https://mega.nz/#!tWIziaIL!GFstrj7tSiOT0IQin7qdDVdzmP4SfIcmXVkWMHYY2ow

 

link to PDF

 

https://mega.nz/#!cH411bIJ!hwEdHs_VFGKbfkEggiVwo4L0PB1ypw6B5mnxyBEXknQ

[Gabriel L]

Ah, I wish I had known you were doing this — this image has always struck me as simultaneously very useful but also easily improved. For a presentation I actually re-did it with the following changes:

• Swords are now rotated so that the tips of their kissaki and nakago are now aligned vertically. This feels more harmonious and consistent, making it easier to compare curvatures in an apples-to-apples way and to identify where the focus of curvature is more easily. I also considered making the machi and kissaki line up vertically, I think it ended up looking weird though.
• Swords are now aligned vertically so that their machi line up. This was done to make it more obvious how the blade lengths compared, as well as how their nakago compare, again in a consistent and apples-to-apples way. It's a better fit for how a sword is actually handled as well — one's grasp on the tsuka is usually the same distance below the machi (give or take a little) from sword to sword.
• Swords now progress chronologically from left to right, following the western bias, rather than the Japanese bias. This is a wholly subjective thing since I was doing a presentation for a western audience.

Anyway, I think the idea of a life-size banner is a great one. Cheers, —GLL

 

[b.hennick]

Interesting approach. Left to right is a good change. To me, the important thing is that when printed you have the actual size of all blades. Being able to take a sword up to the banner and compare shape and size with the samples provided is what I was looking for. I notice that yours does not have the identifying label to indicate the period of manufacture. I would miss that. 

A friend did a chart where he lined up the original mekugi ana of all the blades in his chart. All were signed and dated examples. Of course, he did not cover the who range of dates but it was interesting none the less.

[Gabriel L]

When I do signature comparison charts for a single smith or generations within a school, I line up by mekugi-ana — it's one thing that is absolutely impossible to change about a sword. It can often reveal an obvious deviation in the placement of the mei vis-à-vis the mekugi-ana that can be overlooked if using a different (or no) alignment.

For this chart, machi felt a bit better because it let you simultaneously compare nakago with nakago and blade with blade; lining up by mekugi-ana would give misleading results since the placement of the ana in the tsuka changed over time.

I'd be happy to put the labels back in if I were going to use this image in a book / poster / banner whatever. This was for a Pecha Kucha presentation — 20 slides, 20 seconds each (on an automatic timer), text discouraged. I barely had enough breath to say "…collectors can use the shape, dimensions, proportions, curvature, and other geometric aspects of a blade to appraise it to a given time period. Here are blades from the last 1000 years, going left to right…" before the next slide popped in. 

[Gabriel L]

PS — example comparisons lined up by mekugi-ana:
 

• http://i.imgur.com/vLb5JoH.jpg
• http://i.imgur.com/Xv5ldOk.jpg

[Jean]

I am not good enough at doing this but it would be nice to have the nakago presented vertically. It is spectacular how the sori then appear

[Gabriel L]

Jean, I've seen it that way before (especially in old auction catalogs), but I find it actually much harder to then adequately compare overall sori, and even length (because of how the blades tilt in various directions). Instead it just shows how much koshi-zori the blade has (or doesn't have), and exaggerates the differences in some blades based more on how much curvature happens through the nakago. An interesting approach that maybe accentuates different information, but I prefer almost any other approach myself.   

[Brian]

Gabriel,
If you wouldn't mind doing one with the labels, I would love to add it as a download somewhere on the site, perhaps along with Barry's version.

[Ken-Hawaii]

Great job, Barry! Let's do the one we talked about some day soon.

 

I like yours too, Gabriel.

 

Ken

 

[Gabriel L]

Brian, I'll see if I still have the original text still in the PSD file (and if not, I can easily just re-create it).

I was also wondering where this image originally came from. I got the high res from someone else, perhaps Paul Martin (if I recall correctly), who used it in his Nyusatsu Kantei handbook. However, I remember seeing it before that book came out.

[Guido]

The original one is a .jpg from the NBTHK; here it is:

 

[PhoenixDude]

Throwing my hat into the ring...

 

http://www.phoenixnethosting.com/Downloads/Shape_Changes_Over_Time.png

[Stephen]

too big Jay!!!

[Stephen]

soooo you dont reduce??? i have fast laptop ten twenty sec its still a line ...please reduce

[PhoenixDude]

[Stephen]

Thank you

[Ken-Hawaii]

That's an excellent resolution (& file size) for that much data, Jay - thanks!

 

Ken

 

[Michaelr]

Barry, I love the idea of the life size poster. How would I go about ordering one for myself? Thank you.

Mike

[Andi B.]

...I saved Jays monster png file (436 MB) as jpg (5 MB / compression 10 but same resolution). Maybe that's a bit easier to download...

[Ken-Hawaii]

That PNG file is fine - unless you're looking for details.... If you zoom in very far, you can see that the scan came from a magazine, & the printing pixels show up before you can see things like hada or hamon.

 

Ken

 

[PhoenixDude]

lol go lossless or go home
​compression is for chumps!

[Andi B.]

lol go lossless or go home

​compression is for chumps!

 

What happened to my 5MB image while uploading to the forum?

It seems to be there is an additional automatic compression of the uploaded image... (4,9 MB to 80KB).

...but Ken is right: as long as the blade images are coarse, high res is for chumps too..

Shape_Changes_Over_Time_c10.zip

[b.hennick]

I would point out that the original image that I posted is life size when printed on 4'X8' The newer files are wider than 4 ft and so either needs a larger 6'X8' banner or smaller images that will no longer be life size.  There is little detail of the hamon in my image but the point is shape, not hamon. 

[Ken-Hawaii]

Shape is, of course, very important, & the reason the image was created originally. But as you & I have discussed, we really need to create a similar, but updated, image using typical blades from each era/period, with enough detail to show not only shape & actual size, but also hamon, hada, & other details. Printing on banner-size media is really an off-the-shelf process these days, that can be done at any Kinko's.

 

Darcy, would you like to provide the really high-resolution images for this project? You're the only person I know who might have all of what we need, including the photographic skills, to do this right. As a former Adobe dealer & instructor, I'd be happy to create both an uncompressed Photoshop PSD & a full-resolution PDF for NMB member use, & copyrighted to NMB.

 

Ken

 

[Guido]

Bummer - after reading the previous posts, I realized that the original chart (that I got from the NBTHK directly) was reduced to 100 KB from the original 14.8 MB! I'll move it to my dropbox and post a link when I get back from my business trip on the weekend.

[Brian]

Happy to allow 14 meg uploads...if someone wants to send me the $100 a month that I need for the hosting :laughing:
There has to be forum size limits or we would be flooded with 10 meg pics and 5000 pixel wide images.
Email me large files..I can host them and provide the link, they just can't be directly uploaded.

[Gabriel L]

I sent an email to Darcy since I figured he might not have seen the thread. I didn't specifically ask if it was ok to share his precise comments here, but I cannot imagine that he would object to my summarizing his reply as "amenable." I'm making something for our own club here in NY and will keep everyone updated. Cheers, —G.

[PhoenixDude]

Happy to allow 14 meg uploads...if someone wants to send me the $100 a month that I need for the hosting :laughing:

There has to be forum size limits or we would be flooded with 10 meg pics and 5000 pixel wide images.

Email me large files..I can host them and provide the link, they just can't be directly uploaded.

 

Brian, I run a webserver on a business line, I might be able to help you out with some of the hosting duties if you need it.

[Brian]

Goal is decent VPS hosting on a reliable server, but has to be fully managed. I can't do the technical stuff. And must take PP payment, and offer over 60 Gigs storage. I wanted to do it locally so I could phone someone or visit them if there were issues, but local hosting is expensive. And moving about 300,000 files is also proving challenging.

[Darcy]

I am amenable.