Novice question

[Mike]

Hi, I am reading the "Tsuba, an Aesthetic Study" by Torigoye and Haynes, they mention the iron hardness as one of tsuba characteristics, when trying to identify the tsuba maker school . My question is how can I see if the iron is hard/soft? is it the color? bones? something else?

Thanks for any help, Mike

[Mantis dude]

I'm still trying to figure that one out myself. I assume feel has something to with it. Would love to hear some more on this one myself!

[Rich T]

try to reply to this propperly tonight if I can as I am at work at the moment, but yes, colour does have a lot to do with it. The very hard iron of Kaneyama, Owari and Nobuie are a blackish/purpleish colour and this is derived from basically cooking the iron at very high tempreatures. This can give some of these tsuba an almost glazed look.

 

I find hard tsuba have a much smoother feel to them as well, probably due to the high tempreatures.

 

After the Edo period strarted, like most things Nihonto related, the quality started to dry up and the iron became softer, browner in colour and was generaly porely forge or stock iron in some cases. A lot of average Kinko tsuba are like this, poor iron convered in precious metals.

 

anyway, I will read up again tonight, and see what I can come up with.

 

rich

[Mike]

Thanks Rich, as always I apreciate your help. Does tekotsu appearance indicates strong iron?

Mike

[Rich T]

Hi Mike, Tekkotsu 鉄骨 do not nessisarily indicate that tsuba is made of hard iron though as it turns out, the groups that made harder iron tsuba were also keen on Tekkostu. So one could surmise that a tsuba with many bones had a lot of hard iron in it, thus making it a tsuba of hard iron. Tsuba were not forged the same way as swords remember so the results were a lot rougher than the steel produced in Nihonto. Many edo period tsuba have tekkotsu, Akasaka, Nobuie, Shoami, Echizen Kinai and others though the tekkotsu tend to be small and not at all powerful. Some of these works are not hard iron.

 

The main reason for tekkotsu is that the maker left impurities of harder steal in the tsuba iron, i.e. lumps of iron harder than the main body of the tsuba. So they are basically hard lumps just inder the skin. They probably work their way to the mimi during the forging process though some can also be seen in the tsuba face from time to time.

 

There is also a theory that ware can expose tekkotsu, were the softer metal is worn away over the centuries to reveal the harder. I am unsure of that, that would be a lot of rubbing.

 

Have a look at Usagiya for a good explanatin on bones.

 

http://www.ksky.ne.jp/~sumie99/tekkotsu.html

 

A lot of this is explained here.

 

Also have a look in the glossary at the back of the 'Tsuba, an aesthetic study' and see what it says there.

 

Cheers

 

Rich