My kai-gunto: some photos & questions.

[Franco]

2 hours ago, Nazar said:

What is your general opinion on this sword though? 

 

Dear Nazar,

 

Love the kitty!

 

Not to be evasive. Well, maybe just a little. My focus has been on old swords for so long that I've forgotten most of what I once knew about military swords. Asking and receiving thoughts from the military sword collectors would be more of value and accurate I should think. Please don't be discouraged. Take what you learn from this experience and use it to move forward. The best advice for any Japanese sword collector is to follow what the Japanese advise. Which is take the time to study and look at the very best swords possible.

Train your eyes. 

 

Best,

 

 

 

[Nazar]

Thank you for your kind words and advices, Franco! I am not discouraged.  Slightly worried are the right words. See, my opinion on this sword was as follows: 

 

I have genuine kai-gunto, however assembled from parts of different swords: blade, habaki and tsuka (which I like greatly) from one sword, while tsuba and seppa from another, since their nakago-ana are too large for this nakago. And because saya mouth is too big for habaki of this blade it may belong to the sword from which tsuba and seppa come or may be from yet one sword. I believe that blade is made of "western" steel, however it has interesting hamon. 

 

I liked that hamon. When I received the sword its blade was stained with fresh fingerprints. It had some older imprints on it as well as a lot of scratches and dots of rust. I started to treat the blade with microfibre and oil. I used Ballistol Gunnex oil as I prefer it for my guns and have it at hand. And gradually the blade started to look better, especially hamon. Hamon manifested itself more clearly, gleaming, when light was put at sharp angles.  In other cases hamon looked clearly different to ji, with a thin wispy and slightly darker line between them. 

 

Then Jean dropped in and started questioning. Thanks to him yet one time for that, by the way. Some of his questions (like ones about nakago tapering and tsuka fitment) confirmed my opinion on my sword. Yet, the situation with hamon made me doubtful about my general opinion on the sword. Sure, I pondered different ideas but never seriously thought that I have some fancy blade. Having genuine kai-gunto (even an assembled one) is sufficient to make me happy. 

 

As for training my eyes on the question of hamon, nioi, nie and other such delicate things, I believe the only way is to get the real thing in one's hands and have some time to study it and to take some photos. Alas, this is not an option for me at the moment. 

 

My greatest ambition in Japanese swords so far is to get gendaito in kai-gunto mounts. As a serviceman I could apply for vacation and get permission to cross the border of Ukraine (there is a restriction for men of draft age on leaving the country). My wife and son live in Germany and I haven't seen them for more than three years. So this silly idea popped in my mind one day: what if I could combine travel to my family with buying a sword? There are a lot of members from Germany here and from what I see some of them sell swords on a regular basis. So maybe one day the sword in question poppes here in the sale section of the board.  Then I could  study it and leave it for my son as some kind of heritage. Yet, so far it's just  a dream. 

 

 

The kitten's name is Mavka. It could be translated as dryad in English. She likes when I stay at home and keeps me company. We have yet one cat.  His name is Cat since at that time he was the only one cat. He is rather small and of black colour. He is more shy when it comes to photos. Also he likes to spend days exploring neighborhoods and fighting other cats. He gets his share of scratches and bites, but being a true samurai he continues to carve his place in the local hierarchy of cats. 

 

[Nazar]

Well, I decided to figure out how with all my small expertises I landed in a situation with hamon and  how this "hamon" was imitated.

I conducted a little test on a part of "hamon" that is usually hidden by habaki. And I believe I figured out how it was made. My first mistake was taking for granted that the blade is buffed. It was not so.  My second mistake was about media blasting. Some time ago, after regular application of microfiber and oil to the blade,  I started to notice that the blade may have some fine dotty structure.  It was present all over the blade and was most noticeable when only the thinnest layer of oil remained on the blade and mostly when artificial light was set at a certain angle. It was mostly impossible to catch in photos, since the main texture of "polish" hid it well. So I started to think it may have something to do with the structure of metal. Pretty silly thought, but very human, since every person tries to see the silver lining even if there is none.  

So,  I believe this 'hamon' was made in the next way: first, the whole blade  was media blasted. and it was very fine media.  Then two masks were applied. In what order they were applied it is hard to say.  When one of them was applied  the part of the blade that became hamon was buffed. Yet a thin strip was left mostly untouched. At this stage what I considered as nioi-guchi was "formed". When another, inverted mask was applied it covered the zone of "hamon" and all other areas of blade were put into semi polish. Thus the effect of a blade that was buffed overall was created, with a "hardened" hamon zone more shiny and other "softer" areas more blurry. It is possible that the very same person who created this "hamon" also tampered with nakago artificially aging it. In this way a picture of a more "interesting" sword was created.

Not good enough to fool experts, but good enough to fool me. Nice lesson though.

After such an eye opener I started rethinking the whole picture of the sword I assembled in my mind. Still it seemed to me that the sword is genuine, even as not all its components are from one set. Yet I had to be sure. Thanks to Jean  for his expertise and valuable advice!  Also thanks to all who participated in this topic!

As I already said, I am more than satisfied to have this blade for my first real Japanese sword. It provided great experience and my luggage of knowledge became slightly less empty.

[Nazar]

Not much of a story left to tell. At the moment when the situation with hamon developed, I already finished  cleaning saya. Yet, I was busy with my main tasks and barely had time for photos or writing. 

 

As I already mentioned, there is no way this saya belonged to the blade. Here is how habaki sits in it:

 

 

However, the main issue of saya was epoxy glue. Kuchigane, ashi, semegane, ishizuki - they all were fixed to the saya with what I believe is 5min epoxy glue. Kuchigane and the ashi next to it were also covered in the same glue. It seemed that glue polymerized faster than the person who was using it expected. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Nazar]

Couple of things that I noticed about this saya. First, the finish on brass parts differs. Kuchigane and semegane have identical dark copper coating. Ishizuki copper coating has a rather lighter brownish-red  tint to it. Both ashi have identical copper finish but it looks rather worn and  thinner than on other components. Second, ashi and ishizuki seem to have rather large gaps between them and saya. So it may be that they do not belong to this saya. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Nazar]

The glue left me no choice. It was everywhere: on surfaces and in crevices. This annoyed me greatly.  I had to clean it.  I made some wooden scrapers to remove glue. I used all kinds of soft brushes to work on brass parts.  

 

 

I used small brushes from the set for paint gun cleaning  to clean dust from inside of saya.  It looked similar to this "special tool" I made to clean the insides of tsuke, but I used some piece of wire instead of a wooden stick. 

 

 

I couldn't say that I was satisfied with the results of cleaning, but I believe it had to be done. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Nazar]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Nazar]

 

 

 

Kuchigne turned out to be stamped with "179" on the inside. 

 

 

The gaps between saya and  ishizuki: 

 

[Bruce Pennington]

Nice work Nazar.

[Nazar]

Thank you, Bruce!

[Brian]

Definite improvement. Someone put a lot of effort into cobbling those parts together. Seems there is no end to the trickery used by sellers. But at least they are genuine parts, and maybe you can eventually put it back into the correct ones.