what causes rust on tsuba box liners

[rkg]

Hi,

 

Does anybody know what causes those rust shadows you sometimes see on tsuba box liners (see below)?

 

I'm trying to figure out if this could possibly be due to the materials/construction techniques used in the liners as I am looking at re-lining a number of tsuba boxes

and want to make sure that how I do it can't cause this.

 

Thanks,

 

rkg

(Richard George)

[Ford Hallam]

I'm pretty certain it's the tsuba :D ... and a humid atmosphere, that's all. Steel is hygroscopic and thus absorbs any moisture in humid air. Once there's H20 present in the steel an electrochemical reaction begins whereby Fe electrons move to the oxygen in the water. The presence of Chlorides (as in salt, left by sweaty hands) accelerates the corrosion process.

 

So, keep the tusba dry and lightly waxed and keep the tsuba stored in wooden boxes in a dry atmosphere.

 

You could try a small packet of silica gel in the base of the box, under the mounting board, to adsorb any moisture. Or simply keep a few packets of desiccation material in the tsuba storage area. Don't keep urushi in the same place though, that needs moisture.

[cabowen]

I have always been advised to not store firearms inside of fabric lined cases as the batting/fabric will retain/trap moisture which will cause corrosion in the steel. Perhaps this may also apply to iron tsuba...

[RobertM]

Hi Ford, you mention light waxing, what kind of wax would be suitable?

 

thanks

 

Rob M

[Ford Hallam]

Hi Robert,

 

traditionally metal would have been offered a little protection by the application of Ibota wax. This is hard to come by nowadays but micro-crystalline wax is a more than adequate substitute. Renaissance Wax is a formulation that was developed with the the assistance of the conservation specialists at the British Museum. I swear by the stuff.

 

It's important not to trap any moisture under the fresh wax application so what I do is heat the piece until it's too hot to touch with bare hands (A paint strip hot-air gun is perfect for this) then very sparing apply a thin film of wax with a lint free cloth or clean kitchen tissue. Make sure there's no excess left in crevasses etc and continue to gently wipe the piece as it cools. Once cold the wax is quite difficult to bring to a high sheen so you can actually regulate the degree of shine to suit.

 

Before applying fresh wax though it might be advisable to remove the old, oxidised wax and grime. Oxidised wax appears as whitish residues in engraved lines and recesses etc.

 

I use Nitromors paint stripper to get rid of any old wax before a gentle wash with warm soapy water and a light scrub with a tooth brush to dislodge any surface soil. Take great care that you don't end up abrading the surface with the grime and grit that comes off though.

 

Any boning and similar cleaning can now better be carried out as you can actually see the un-camouflaged surface now.

 

Hope that helps some,

 

regards,

 

fh

[Bazza]

This is all a very interesting discussion about iron tsuba. Over many years I've observed kinko tosogu, particularly shakudo nanako, that seem to have some "grot" all over the surface. Study under magnification clearly shows such grot, and gentle probing with a sharp toothpick reveals a waxy type residue that comes away. Some while ago I acquired a wakizashi with excellent mumei shakudo nanako fittings in a mitokoromono set. The menuki were considerably obscured with a "grot" that appeared to have dust etc etc embedded in it. It was a miracle the menuki were still there as the binding had pretty much rotted away. Again, observation with a 10x loupe and gentle probing with a sharp toothpick clearly showed "something" that came away from the surface. The menuki were very much obscured compared to the kogai and kozuka.

 

Having observed this stuff was one thing, but I have never attempted to clean it off. However, these menuki cried out for rescue. I've attached two images that show the before and after. My question here isn't so much about the cleaning (which people seem most reluctant to go anywhere near where shakudo nanako is concerned), but whether (say) ibota wax was originally applied to shakudo nanako to either improve or preserve the polish on a finished piece. The next question is, if this is so, what happens to such wax over 150 or more years?? The two images here clearly show some stuff has been removed from the surface of the menuki, and having once been removed it became obvious that the kogai and kozuka were also coated with "something", but I have left these as is for the moment as their appearance is acceptable.

 

The tsuba on this wakizashi is also shakudo nanako (Momoyama Ko Kinko) and it too has "something" coating it. Is it simply the dust of ages combined with oils from handling and decades of neglect that present this appearance, or does it originate from an original treatment of the pieces when they were made???

 

Regards,

Barry Thomas

aka BaZZa

[Soshin]

Hi Robert and Ford,

 

Thank you Robert for asking the question and Ford for providing details. I have a can of Renaissance Wax just setting around.

 

 

 

Yours truly,

David Stiles

[Ford Hallam]

Hi Barry,

 

Thanks a pleasing result with your menuki and no harm done.

 

The nature of of these non-ferrous metals patina is such that to present the deepest and richest colour a final finish of wax would probably always have been usual. the protective aspect aside. Inherent in the actual formation of the patina layer is a slight haze that makes the colour appear lighter than it actually is so the wax covering allows the true colour to be better appreciated.

 

Natural waxes oxidise as matter of course and eventually turn white. This is, in time, happen to even the finest waxes we use today. Because wax is sticky it will also, over time, accumulate fine dust, soot particles and other detritus (like skin particles ). Wax may also hold some moisture too and this, in conjunction of salt from sweaty hands, may encourage small outbreaks of verdigris. Once old wax is removed from a shakudo surface, for example, it's fairly usual to find the whole surface covered with a fine, grey/green dustiness. This is also verdigris. It's nothing to be alarmed about and isn't at all the same as bronze disease such as one might find on ancient bronze artefacts. A gentle scrub with a toothbrush and warm water is more than enough to revive the surface.

 

David, glad to have been able to provide a little material to better illuminate the subject. :D

 

regards,

 

Ford

[Henry Wilson]

so what I do is heat the piece until it's too hot to touch with bare hands (A paint strip hot-air gun is perfect for this)

 

I use Nitromors paint stripper to get rid of any old wax

 

This is a joke right? The above sounds like dangerous (but well intended ) advice.

[Ford Hallam]

Not a joke, Henry. I'm not sure what why you think this is dangerous I gather you think I don't know what I doing or suggesting..... Perhaps you ought to put me straight instead of using insulting smilies.

[Brian]

Ford,

I think that stems from the fact that to most of us novices to metalwork...."too hot to touch" involkes mental images of soft metal fittings melting, inlay pouring out and perhaps irreversible damage. But of course not having experimented with these temperatures, we have no practical idea of what temperature this is.

I'm guessing it would be like putting a hairdryer to it for a while, nothing like leaving it on the stove for 5 minutes.

If someone was to give us a bit of a rundown on what heat can damage fittings..and where things start to go wrong in a worst case scenario...it might ease our minds.

Of course, many of us prefer to leave restoration to the experts...I know I don't trust myself to heat my tsuba. Maybe plain iron ones....but nothing kinko. I don't want my nanako to be formed by bubbles

 

Brian

[rkg]

Hi,

 

This is one of my "hot buttons" (no pun intended regarding the tsuba on the stove part of the threadjack)- the "right" way to restore pieces.. Please forgive the following rant...

 

First, I'm not a big fan of "un-necessary" restoration of pieces - Obviously owners can do whatever they want to their pieces, but by doing things like overzealous cleaning and other

restorations to make them shiny and new again you take away anything the "crud" might have told you (or the next owner) about the age of the piece, what it went through, etc.

The second (and probably worse) problem is that a lot (probably most) people really don't know what they're doing and have these "ideas" about how the piece should look and alter the pieces to match. Old and cruddy was kind of the "in" thing for quite a while (think wabi), so its a complex decision to decide whether or not clean of what might well have been very deliberately left over the ages... And please let's not go through the repatination thing Yet Again...

 

IMHO, if people really want "shiny and new" looking pieces they should just go to one of the good modern fittings makers of their choice and commission something (or, in typical sword

collector fashion, wait until the poor guy wants to clean out the shop or needs money and has a sale). Ford, for example, does really really good work and would be an excellent candidate for perspective buyer's short list of artisans (I'd be the owner of a some of his pieces, but his infrequent public offerings have managed to coincide with my sword fund

having just been drained ).

 

Second, I personally am not a big fan of waxing old iron tsuba - I'm sure there's exceptions, but I've have owned several of these in the past, have for one reason or another had to remove

the wax from a number of them, and in pretty much every case found red rust growing where it shouldn't be - I suppose you could chalk it up to sloppy preparation, but a couple of these were done by "the best", and there were problems (areas of red rust that just wipes off after the wax was removed (or comes off with the wax in the case of beeswax which seems almost impervious to the cleaning method recommended by Jim Gilbert), etc) its weird too, in that you'd think the wax would seal out the oxygen stopping the reaction, but I guess not. And obviously any new piece can have whatever done to the surface the artist likes - wax does have a nice "look" :-)

 

Interesting on the kinko wax - it would explain why you see the odd Old Piece that doesn't appear to have had the patina stripped off, but the patina doesn't match the (apparent) age of the piece:

 

http://www.rkgphotos.com/recent_stuff/a ... _kinko.jpg

 

and then you get the ones where they were lacquered and either through the lacquer wearing off or an overzealous later owner cleaning the lacquer off 'cause the like the "look":

 

http://home.teleport.com/~rkg/photos/ts ... _small.JPG

 

The thing is you also find lots of old pieces that apparently weren't waxed, so maybe everybody had an opinion back then too on what the 'right' way to protect pieces was.

 

(Brian, you need that smilie showing the guy hiding under the table...)

 

Best,

 

rkg

(Richard George)

[Ford Hallam]

Hi Brian

 

I thought "too hot to touch with a bare hand" was fairly self explanatory. I doubt anything more than 100 degrees C would be considered comfortable...probably a bit less. At that sort of temperature there is absolutely no effect on any oxides that make up patina. In fact, the neashi on the backs of menuki were routinely soft soldered in place after patination had been completed and the temperature to do soft soldering is in the 200 to 300 degree C range.

 

The usual metals we encounter in sword fittings cannot be melted below 700 degrees C at the minimum. Sahari is an exception but in that case you still need to get the whole piece to beyond the melting point before you can effect the inlay.

 

As for using paint stripper, it doesn't effect patina at all. It will only remove wax, varnish and other paint-like applications. Obviously I wouldn't recommend using it on organic inlays or lacquer.

 

Richard,

 

In principle I would tend to agree that things are often best left alone but if we use the analogy of a painting I think there are many situations where the judicious removal of accumulated grime can significantly enhance the work and present it in a way that the artistry and intentions of the maker are more clearly visible to enjoy.

 

I don't entirely accept the argument that leaving grime and rust on pieces is appropriate just because it's part of it's history at all. This particular shibboleth is, I feel, a somewhat spurious interpretation and appreciation of shibui, wabi and sabi.

 

I don't really think "crud" can tell us anything of any real use at all. There is no way to date the grime in any meaningful way, it's really just a conceit to suggest that if it looks convincingly old therefore it is. Even degrees of corrosion are dependent on the conditions the piece as endured in it's life-time and as this is generally unknown we're back where we started in terms of assessing age based on the metals appearance.

 

Anyway, any restoration or cleaning must be carefully judged according to the piece and it's age. I don't think anyone was arguing for everything to be shiny and new. I appreciate your recommendation though

 

I can't prove it beyond any doubt but as to waxing soft metal fittings just consider; even the most minute droplet of spittle on an unprotected shakudo patina will develop a small green spot in a day or two. It being so vulnerable in this way it seems inconceivable to me that waxing wasn't de rigueur from the earliest times. What I would say too, is that un-waxed patinae are simply not as deeply coloured. I can't say I've ever seen old pieces that suggest they were never waxed. I suppose we all make our assessments based on our own understanding of the materials and processes

 

regards,

 

Ford

 

Perhaps I really should keep my thoughts to myself, every time I offer something it seems to open a can of worms.

 

p.s. Richard, the 2 items you show pretty much make my point about judging the age of pieces by what you think they should look like. You actually have no firm reference point to work from nor any solid basis to assert what the lacquer looked like when it was made. How do you really know it didn't have the lacquer removed like that when it was first made? You can't know. Actually, the fact that the applied mimi is a different metal (shinchu, and it would have been more expensive than plain copper) rather argues that the pieces was intended to exhibit more colour variation from the start. Yet your interpretation is that it's been over zealously cleaned of lacquer.

[rkg]

Ford,

 

 

Perhaps I really should keep my thoughts to myself, every time I offer something it seems to open a can of worms.

No worries - you're not alone here on that :-) gotta love stuff that's open to interpretation

p.s. Richard, the 2 items you show pretty much make my point about judging the age of pieces by what you think they should look like. You actually have no firm reference point to work from nor any solid basis to assert what the lacquer looked like when it was made. How do you really know it didn't have the lacquer removed like that when it was first made? You can't know. Actually, the fact that the applied mimi is a different metal (shinchu, and it would have been more expensive than plain copper) rather argues that the pieces was intended to exhibit more colour variation from the start. Yet your interpretation is that it's been over zealously cleaned of lacquer.

 

FWIW, On the first, the patina is too "young" to my eye, hence the supposition that either the patina was spiffed up in some way, lacquer was removed, etc. I have other pieces

from that era that are pretty black.... Point taken on the second one.

 

Gotta run,

rkg

(Richard George)

[Pete Klein]

Ford -- thank you so very much for that info on the neashi soldering. I've wondered about that for some time now.

[Soshin]

Hi Everyone,

 

Relax the weekend is almost here. Just a quick note. I was cleaning off wax from a tsuba I purchased from Japan where much of the Ibota wax had oxidized and created a white film on the tsuba. I cleaned off the old wax using the method discussed on Jim Gilbert's website. I rubbed the iron tsuba with a plain cotton rags and used old pieces of piano keys to remove all of the dirt and rust trapped by the old wax. I then heated the tsuba whiled holding it with cotton gloves and a cotton rag with a hairdryer to a warm temperature so warm to not allow the tsuba to be held with a bare hand. I then applied the Renaissance Wax and then worked the tsuba some more with another clean plain cotton rag. I will be posting before and after photos soon. I wouldn't recommend this type of process to anyone first starting out or working with a valuable tsuba, a kinko tsuba, or a tsuba with soft metal inlays.

 

 

 

Yours truly,

David Stiles

[Henry Wilson]

I didn't know you were so easily offend Ford. Sorry for pushing a button.

I gather you think I don't know what I doing or suggesting.

The above is an assumption you have made yourself. I have every faith in you and your metal work abilities. Also I apologise for the smilies that have upset you and also I apologise for me daring to go against your way of thinking from my armchair.

 

I am sure that what you say is accurate, my point is that you have a very good reputation in your field and putting such information on a open forum were any Tom Dick and Mary can read it and apply as they understand it could result in a lot of damage being done.

 

I respectfully dare to say that from what you wrote I have understood (being a layman) that a blowtorch and paint stripper will set any tsuba right. Maybe that is not what you have exactly said but that is what I have digested.

 

As a way of explaining myself, I agree with what Richard says here.

First, I'm not a big fan of "un-necessary" restoration of pieces - Obviously owners can do whatever they want to their pieces, but by doing things like overzealous cleaning and other

restorations to make them shiny and new again you take away anything the "crud" might have told you (or the next owner) about the age of the piece, what it went through, etc.

The second (and probably worse) problem is that a lot (probably most) people really don't know what they're doing and have these "ideas" about how the piece should look and alter the pieces to match. Old and cruddy was kind of the "in" thing for quite a while (think wabi), so its a complex decision to decide whether or not clean of what might well have been very deliberately left over the ages... And please let's not go through the repatination thing Yet Again...

 

I didn't know smilies could be offensive.... which is why I used them..... To try an stop a bar brawl. Anyway, I am out off here and will leave you all to it

[Ford Hallam]

Henry

 

I suggested a paint strip hot-air gun not a blow torch. I also suggested that it be used to heat the piece to the point it uncomfortable to touch with the bare hand. that would be around 70 degrees at the most. How you've managed to then reach the conclusion that "a blowtorch and paint stripper will set any tsuba right " is beyond me.

 

I can hardly be held responsible for your inability to comprehend plain English now can I. I say one thing and you "digest" something else....can't help you there, I'm afraid.

 

As for what I've suggested being used inappropriately by others, perhaps, there's no accounting for the inability of people to make sensible decisions and to take instruction.

 

As a matter of fact I did take your post as being very insulting. I don't tend to waste my time trying to help people gain a better understanding of the work and how to best care for it as a joke and your "ranting" smiley did nothing to make me feel you were being in the least humorous.

 

I have no problem with people disagreeing with my take on things but at least have the courtesy to try to accurately understand what I'm saying before you spout off from your armchair.

 

As for quoting Richard on restoration, I've commented on the matter further and in a little more nuance manner than the usual unconsidered fashion.

 

fh

[Henry Wilson]

Hi Ford

 

I can't be bothered.

[Ford Hallam]

evidently....

[Soshin]

Hi Everyone,

 

How about we go from smilies to tsuba photos? Here are two photos I have of the tsuba before and after the process. From the photos not much can be detected. In hand the tsuba no longer has a whitish waxy film on its surface.

 

 

 

Yours truly,

David Stiles

[Henry Wilson]

Just one last post from me.

 

To everyone, I am sorry that this thread has turned out the way that it has as it was not my intention. I feel quite embarrassed with myself and hope you all will accept my apologizes.

[Bazza]

Henry, no wuckin furries, Mate. You're cool.

Bestests,

BaZZa.

[runagmc]

Ford, I was wondering if you've ever used any of the natural citrus cleaners. In my experience they work pretty good for cleaning wax and most other non water soluable substances. I would think they might be good for tsuba and other metal work...

 

Here's some info on citrus cleaners I pulled from a google search, http://www.ascleanedontv.com/articles/c ... aners.html

[Ford Hallam]

Hi Adam

 

I don't know the stuff but would be very hesitant about using any commercially available soaps who's composition I didn't know. Reading the material you linked to and following up on Limonene it does seem to be quite a usefull clearer/solvent but I'd want to conduct some careful test on it before recommending it's use.

 

 

Conservation Resources supply a number of fine soaps that are approved for museum use (they also supply Renaissance wax and silica gel ) and the Green dish washing up liquid by Procter & Gamble, fairy liquid, is safe.