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chrismoses
30th August 2006, 18:48
I have a question for the board. My main sword that I use (kata and tameshigiri) is a Joe Walters shobuzukuri. Those of you who have trained with me know that I'm a sweaty b@stard, so after every workout I have to clean the blade with Noxon to keep rust at bay. The problem I have is that even doing that, and letting the saya breathe for a day or so (to dry out), if I leave the sword in the saya even overnight, I get rust beginning on the mune. It's always in roughly the same section (about 6-8 inches out from the habaki) and it comes on FAST. Sometimes within hours of putting the sword in the saya. I can leave the blade out (as I usually do) on a sword rack for weeks without any rust showing up, but put it in the saya and bang, instant rust. Anyone know of any tricks to clean out the inside of the saya or is it just hopeless. The saya is beautiful, but I've even considered having a resting (unfinished) saya made so that storage would be safer. Anyway, thanks in advance.

Walker
30th August 2006, 19:04
If you do a search over on Bugei (sword crafts maybe), this has come up several times. Some have had good luck with carefully filing that spot in the saya using a very long handled file available from Big Tony (and others). Maybe the dojo could invest in one as a group that cuts would find use for it over time.

Ron Tisdale
30th August 2006, 20:36
Did they talk about what causes that? Is there material in the saya holding moisture in some way, and filing it stops that from happening? Interesting, I'd never heard of this (but then I'm not a "real" sword guy, so...)

Best,
Ron

chrismoses
30th August 2006, 20:44
If you do a search over on Bugei (sword crafts maybe), this has come up several times. Some have had good luck with carefully filing that spot in the saya using a very long handled file available from Big Tony (and others). Maybe the dojo could invest in one as a group that cuts would find use for it over time.

Yup, that sounded like the same thing. I don't know if I can swing $250 for a file however... :o Maybe I'll go sit on Br. Irey's steps until he comes home and see if he has one of these (or something comparable).

Ron, my guess is oils/minerals from sweat that gets worked into the wood and happens to be where the wood touches the blade. My saya was apparently very difficult to make due to the shape of the blade, it's very straight and exactly the same distance (mune to ha) from the habaki right up until the kissaki forms (3-4" from the very tip). Not surprising that some points would touch the blade that probably shouldn't.

Tim Mailloux
30th August 2006, 20:49
I have had a similar issue with my last two blade, just not a serious. I too am also a pretty sweaty guy, and I also clean my blade after every use. But I find that if I miss a training session and go 3 to 5 days with out using / cleaning my blade I get a small amount of oxidation on the mune in almost the same spot.

My only guess is that acid from our sweat get on the mune during noto. The acidity of human sweat can vary from person to person. Diet can even play a role. Maybe our sweat is just more acidic than the average person. Anyway, those acids then get transfered to the inside of the saya after noto and the wood inside the saya soaks them up. Just think about how many time you do noto during any given class. Again, this is just my best guess. You might want to go to the source and drop Keith Larman an email.

With my current swordstore steel iaito it is not that big of a deal, just a minor annoyance. But when this same issue occured with my old Howard Clark blade I almost had a heart attack. I was cleaning the mune of that blade with Noxon every other day.

Edit: it looks like we posted at the same time

Tim

pgsmith
30th August 2006, 21:53
Hey guys,
Yours is actually a fairly common problem. It has been my experience that rust breeds rust. If you have a spot that happened to rust, and this spot contacts the inside of the saya, you will have rust transferred onto the wood. This rust will rest against your sword, causing it to rust at that spot. I have found that gently scraping the rusted spot in the saya to remove the surface wood will relieve the problem. Now, how to do this without spending a fortune on a special saya tool. The easiest way I found was to use heavy gauge copper wire. Eight or ten gauge solid works, or you can cut a piece of copper pipe long ways. Pound the end fairly thin, file a good edge on it, then carefully bend it back so that you have a sort of hook on the end. Mark how far into the saya the rusting spot is, and gently scrape out the offending wood in the proper area. This has worked well for me and a couple of others in the past.

chrismoses
30th August 2006, 22:00
OK, I'm really disappointed here. I ask a simple question and all I get is relevant information and useful tips on how to solve my problem. No digs at my personal hygene, lack of skilz, or "ask your sensei." C'mon guys, you're letting me down here. No one even jumped on my comment that I let my saya dry out overnight. I mean, I'm in Seattle... nothing ever dries out here! :p

Just kidding, thanks for all the advice, that copper scraper tool sounds like a good idea, the rust spot's not too deep into the koiguchi so that should be pretty easy to get to. Thanks again.

pgsmith
30th August 2006, 22:16
Just kidding, thanks for all the advice, that copper scraper tool sounds like a good idea, the rust spot's not too deep into the koiguchi so that should be pretty easy to get to. Thanks again.
Heh, I'll just add a beer that you can owe me the next time! :)

... And no more banana slug tameshigiri! See what it gets you!

Ken-Hawaii
14th September 2006, 03:09
Chris, if you think Seattle is damp, you should live 200 feet from the Pacific Ocean with trade winds blowing wet salt air onto everything in your house! Comfortable for my wife & me, but downright painful for our shinken & nihonto.

My wife & I are both engineers, & we went the same Noxon route as you did, with the same results. We didn't think about scraping the inside of our sayas, but instead decided to handle the humidity. We now keep our steel blades in a long wooden cedar box we built with two types of dehumidifiers: a DriRod (http://www.drirod.com/products.html) & a couple of bags of dessicant. You have to be sure & keep the blades well above the dessicant, because as they pick up stray moisture, they get wet themselves, which kinda' defeats the purpose. But a standard sword stand works great.

Never a problem with rust after we did that. And the cedar smells great, too!

Scott Irey
28th October 2006, 04:31
Chris, give me a call....sitting on my porch will gt the neighbors suspicious... Not a hard thing to fix...if you have not already fixed it.

Neil Yamamoto
28th October 2006, 21:48
Ooh, an appearance by Scott Irey!!

Scott, Chris and the other Shinto Ryu guys are in Japan for the Taikai Mochizuki Sensei puts on each year, this is the last time he's doing it so it's a big deal. He'll be back next week.

Come on by the dojo some Tuesday night and Chris can bring his rust bucket, and then we can drink a few beers when you are done with repairs.

Joseph Svinth
28th October 2006, 22:36
Chris --

Nobody said "Ask your sensei" because they know him.

Anybody tried the products used to protect fishing reels and firearms that are routinely exposed to saltwater? See, for example, http://www.sentrysolutions.com/MarineTufCloth.shtml .

kdlarman
29th October 2006, 03:08
I've heard of folk using rennaisance wax (sp?) when they were particularly corrosive to their own blades. I've had a couple people swear by it. The stuff works very well on some things I use it for (fresh steel fittings for instance), but I've never put it on a blade. My concern would be about obscuring activity in the steel, but that is probably not a concern with folk here in this discussion. I suppose one could just use the wax on the mune and shinogi ji if you were getting conservative about it.

Most likely it is gunk in the saya. Rasp the area out a bit, tap it out, then maybe use something like compressed air to really blow out the inside. Most likely there's just some old booger hiding in the saya...

devourment77
30th October 2006, 14:29
I had this problem before, not so much for sweating, but because I did not wipe my blade down good enough after a tameshigiri session (in between cuts). I must have got a little water from the wara in my saya and it would rust in the same spot on the mune over and over (I would clean it with noxon).

I finally got it to stop by using a blow dyer on medium. I would point the kojiri up with the koiguchi pointed to the ground and use the blow dryer to blow warm air into the saya (by doing it upside down, if any particles would get stirred up, they would usually just fall right out).

It worked for me and I never had the problem again. This was only moisture though and not body acid/oil.

chrismoses
2nd November 2006, 19:04
Chris, give me a call....sitting on my porch will gt the neighbors suspicious... Not a hard thing to fix...if you have not already fixed it.

Scott, I tried calling you yesterday, but wasn't sure if I had the right number. It ended in 5175, that still you or do you have a more current #?