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Jigane is the essence of the sword


paulb

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During this period of enforced semi isolation I have been re-reading some of the books I first looked at 20+ years ago. One of these, The new generation of Japanese swordsmiths by Tamio Tsuchiko contains some fascinating material that I am sure I must have read originally and either forgotten or absorbed in to the subconscious. Some of the interesting points which came out of the interviews:

 

One of the recurring themes was the focus of these post war smiths in trying to re-create the quality of swords from the Kamakura and Nambokucho. most felt this was largely unachievable although some felt they were making progress.

Amata Akitsugu who perhaps came closest to recreating Kamakura quality work at the time said "many smiths say that Gendaito are as good as koto and it is true that in the perfection of their choji hamon and sugata some are as good or surpass some koto blades. Where they fail is in the Jigane." He spent many years smelting his own material as he tried to regain the qualities of earlier work.

Other points of interest:

Smiths working for the army making swords (albeit using traditional methods) were given a minimum quota of 10-12 swords per month. If you consider how long a smith would normally spend on a single sword I think it is not surprising that the quality of swords, even those made traditionally suffered under this pressure.

 

I also enjoyed reading the Honami Kozon quotation "Jigane is the essence of the sword" (I now know where Michael Hagenbusch's and my much quoted phrase "Jigane is key" may have originated)

 

There is a long interview with Nagayama (connoisseurs book of Japanese swords) describing his time with Honami Kozon which is a great insight in to one of the last of that great family.

 

For any who haven't read this I think it is a very worthwhile volume offering an insight in to the dedication and efforts made by post war smiths to bring new life in to this subject.

 

 

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I have that book too and most of the smiths seem to believe that koto-like hada comes from material. But in another thread I started, most people felt that It was all about technique. Some smiths and polishers believe that tamahagane from koto times have more impurities which creates more interesting hada and that iron sand sourced from different localities gave them unique characteristics.

 

If this is the case then perhaps the NBTHK should "dirty up" the tamahagane they make. Again, others insist that it is technique only and not material.

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Also in that book, Amata Akitsugu states that Shibata Ka researched jigane and succeeded in forging a jigane that was mistaken for that of the Kamakura Period and was not emulated by any of the Showa era Smiths. I have a sword by him and it does indeed have a very nice jigane.

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I have that book too and most of the smiths seem to believe that koto-like hada comes from material. But in another thread I started, most people felt that It was all about technique. Some smiths and polishers believe that tamahagane from koto times have more impurities which creates more interesting hada and that iron sand sourced from different localities gave them unique characteristics.

 

If this is the case then perhaps the NBTHK should "dirty up" the tamahagane they make. Again, others insist that it is technique only and not material.

 

Tamahagane does have an effect on steel. Check out the modern smiths Akamatsu Taro. They make their own steel and ive read a few times on Aoi arts sale site that the blades they have sold by these smiths have a darker colour than NBTHK tamahagane.

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In the book Nagayama Kokan said that contemporary smiths can make swords that are comparable with first class shinto blades but this was written 20 years ago. If he were still alive I wonder what he'd think about current shinsakuto with the progress made by the past 20 years.

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Honestly I don't know having no experience of current makers. However the market has not improved for them as far as I can see and based on recent reports there are fewer working smiths. there are no prominent names to the degree of Yoshindo Yoshihara who have enjoyed great success in recent decades. It is possible that the upsurge in interest in a younger and more diverse market may cause an increase in manufacture but of course this is no guarantee of innovation or improvement in quality.

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There are some I can think of who are as prominent as Yoshindo Yoshihara like Gassan Sadatoshi and Kawachi Kunihira though they may not be as well known outside of Japan, I'm not sure. Also it looks like Takami Kuniichi, the newest mukansa smith, is a prominent young smith with lots of potential. It's unfortunate that the sword and gun law puts such a restrictive production limit on smiths. Instead of making the limit 2 katanas *or* 3 wakizashis per month, I think changing it to 2 katanas *and* 3 wakizashis per month can really help make shinsakuto accessible to more people.

 

Even though there's more interest among young people especially from girls due to Touken Ranbu, few of them would be able to buy nihonto, much less commission a shinsakuto. From what I've read there are 200-300 licensed smiths in Japan but only around 30 are able to make a living doing it full time with the rest either getting a second job or giving it up altogether. 

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I hear different ideas about colour. Most of the main references refer to colour as an indicator of both school and quality. I admit I find it very difficult to assess colour in steel unless it is set against something else. Some polishers will tell you they can achieve a range of hue variations based on the chemical composition of the final finish they apply.

I have seen blueness in steel, especially early Yamashiro work but also in a sandai Tadayoshi blade. I have also seen what I think would be described as "blackness" as seen in northern province work. But unless it is fairly extreme I find it very challenging.

Whether the views about quality are correct or not I have no idea.

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  • 3 months later...

I am sorry if it is bad to revive this thread after three months. But besides the material and the technique of the swordsmith, maybe the way the polishers polished the sword can affect the steel color as well? A sword can look totally different between Sashikomi and Hadori style of polishing. And different polishers have different ways/formula to do Nugui. So one sword can also look very different if it is polished by different artisans. In addition, an ancient sword could have been hundreds of years old while a newly made sword is less than a few decades old or just several months old. So the ancient swords have been taken care of with lots and lots of Uchiko powder + sword oil and been polished by many different generations. All of these elements can affect how the swords look like today.

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I have heard many speculations that the kamakura period steel had lots of impurities. I found myself with an early period Ichimonji tachi and access to x-ray florescence equipment so I decided to test that idea non destructively years ago. I found the tachi has varying carbon content . At the edge it is around .8% which is pretty much ideal for hardening. The only other elements detected were .05% titanium by weight and a small amount of silicon. That percentage of titanium exactly matches an ideal saturation for thermomechanical processing in modern steels.  It helps keep the grain structure very fine which increases both hardness and toughness. That is the only mechanism that increases hardness and toughness at the same time that I know of.

 

Silicon is added to modern steels to increase toughness. I believe the silicon was introduced as flux in the folding process. Rice husks produce pure silicon when all of the carbon is burned out. There were no other elements or impurities in the steel when analyzed to 5 decimal places. I don’t know of any modern steels that achieve that level of purity except for some electroliticaly refined modern steels. The idea that early Japanese steels were impure or inferior in any way to European steels is incorrect.
 

I have only done x-ray florescence on the Ichimonji tachi so I can’t say that “impurities” are not a factor in the differences between different schools. Some of what we call color variation may be due partially to the reflectivity characteristics of different crystalline micro structures.
 

One of the early metallurgist, Cyril Stanley Smith, came to the conclusion that Japanese metallurgy was the supreme pinnacle of the craft of steel making in human history. I agree with that completely. The Japanese sword is essentially a metal to metal composite of exquisite structure and complexity. I knew nothing of swords when I stumbled across my first one but I was floored by the beauty and craft I saw in the metallurgy.
 

Anyway, that’s just my two cents on the subject.

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Shannon, thanks a lot for the post above. It demonstrates that one of my favourite sword schools perfected the craft 800 years before modern smiths and metallurgists :))

 

This is a very interesting experiment you have run there. May I please recommend and request, if at all possible, to run it with a Norishige sword? Soshu experimented a lot with different types of steel and that is how the numerous hataraki came about but Norishige is the one who took matsukawa hada to a different dimension, so would be on the extreme end of Soshu. 
 

What equipment did you use for the test? 

Thank you. 

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I don’t have access to x-ray florescence equipment anymore. Some of the larger companies that deal with metal salvage use a handheld piece of equipment that provides a partial analysis of the different elements in alloys that is accurate. They use it to sort metals for salvage. All that is required is to hold the equipment against the bare metal for a few seconds. It’s non destructive testing if you’re careful to not scratch the surface you hold it against. That would at least give you a snapshot of the alloy composition. 
 

It might not be difficult to talk your way into access to the equipment at some company. Most people are interested in things like that and it requires almost no effort on their part to help.

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Shannon, thanks. Yes, I am familiar with the instruments (Oxford Instruments, Olympus, Spectris etc make them). But they are expensive and professional equipment. So when we get a chance we should use it and thanks for the initiative Shannon! 
 

 

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