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Thread: Calling all daito collectors

  1. #16
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    Thumbs up

    Yes, Ric, as you can see from these posts, semantics & nomenclature are everything. I guess Nihonto is also a better word to use than the more generic daito; thank you for that idea. And if "forged folded steel" will get a better response (& fewer arguments), then I'm all for the change in my question!

    I guess part of my problem is that I AM a metallurgist by training, & frankly don't see much difference at all between the forged folded steel of Nihonto & the Damascene processes of Spain & India. Lord knows there are literally dozens of different metals that are used today in all these processes, again depending on the area of the world, but the actual processing is awfully similar.

    Thank you again for helping clarify what I was really asking, Ric.

    Ken
    Ken Goldstein
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    "A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it'll annoy enough people to be worth the effort."

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    Aloha, Christian:

    I just wandered in & shot a pic of my latest sword, oops, Nihonto, per your request.

    I hope it shows up okay at the lower resolution that's needed to post! One way you can tell that a blade is folded steel is to simply touch the surface with your fingernail; you can easily feel the folds. And then wipe the blade down immediately with blade oil, of course.

    Ken
    Ken Goldstein
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    "A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it'll annoy enough people to be worth the effort."

  3. #18
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    Question Okay, where did the picture go??

    One more time:
    Ken Goldstein
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    Judo Kodansha/MJER Iaido Kodansha/Jodo Oku-iri
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    "A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it'll annoy enough people to be worth the effort."

  4. #19
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    It's odd to see that much grain without a clearly defined hamon. Is it a signed piece?
    Christian Moses
    **Certified Slimy, Moronic, Deranged and Demented Soul by Saigo-ha Daito Ryu!**
    Student of:
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    Tuesday Night Bad Budo Club (TM)

  5. #20
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    Default nice knife pictures

    I prefer the simpler stuff, but those knives are very artsy. But that looks more like the layered damascus I've seen knife makers use (where they take bars of different grades of steel/types of steel and twist/fold/weld them together to come up with something very ornamental). As far as I know, it's pretty, but doesn't contribute much to the functionality of the blade (some makers have told me that it actually detracts from the "real" qualities of the blade, but I don't know that).

    I've never seen or heard of any processes to make a traditional sword in the same manner or for the same reasons (I've read books on the subject, so I don't actually know anything, I can just regurgitate). The nihonto construction that I've seen has always been one that uses two steels, a high carbon one for the edge and a lower ( I don't know if it's low-carbon steel, I just know that it's lower in carbon content) for support. And I've read that there's about a half dozen ways of welding the two pieces together.

    In the crucible steel I've seen and heard of knifemakers making and using, casting wasn't part of the process, but that's pretty incidental. It was an odd blend of cast iron and medium carbon steel along with different materials for flux. The resulting ingots are used as material for forging out a blade (I've also read and been told that the process doesn't work much of the time, and several of the guys who make it for their knives say that two thirds of the time they simply end up with a bigger chunk of cast iron). Supposedly this is more similar to the traditional wootz than the style of damascus shown in the knife pics. (http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM...even-9809.html)

    I haven't seen any nihonto that have the characteristics associated with the more "traditional" wootz. I've had people tell me that the hamon is where the low-carbon and high-carbon steels meet, and I've had other people tell me that it has something to do with the heat treating process. I personally don't know.

    The picture of your blade does look pretty odd when compared to the other nihonto that I have seen, but I haven't seen enough that I could say that it's non-standard. But it's really interesting.

    Aloha back,

    -Charles
    ----------
    Charles Lockhart
    FBI: From da' Big Island

  6. #21
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    Default Re: nice knife pictures

    Originally posted by charlesl
    I've had people tell me that the hamon is where the low-carbon and high-carbon steels meet, and I've had other people tell me that it has something to do with the heat treating process. I personally don't know.
    The hamon has to do with the heat treating process. The smith spreads clay on the blade, the clay controls how the crystalline structure of the metal ends up after heat treatment. There's lots of Japanese terminology that describe the types of hamon and the crystals you can observe. I'm not a collector, so I don't know them off-hand.

    Ken - as has been pointed out, nihonto by definition is a Japanese sword forged using the traditional methods. Some would go even further and say that it must be made in Japan by a Japanese smith. Daito just means "long sword", generally it means a sword where the blade is over 2 shaku long (a shaku is a little less than a foot). If you're interested in the construction techniques, "Craft of the Japanese Sword" by Yoshihara and Kapp is the definitive reference.

    The picture you posted is missing the hamon, which makes me think it is of non-traditional construction.
    Neil Gendzwill
    Saskatoon Kendo Club

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    Arrow Nihonto blades

    Okay, metallurical experience or not, I feel out of my league in discussing the pros & cons of folded & forged steel blades. I'm extracting the following few paragraphs from http://bronksknifeworks.com/Knife_Articles.htm as the info seems to tie things together:

    "Damascus is a place in Syria and is where westerners first observed the famed swords of the Far East. Actually they were made in India from a steel called wootz and only discovered in the city of Damascus. Wootz steel is melted in small sealed clay crucibles from steel scraps and carbon bearing materials and after solidifying, were then forged at a very low heat into sword blades. Sword remnants tested for content were often found to contain a fair amount of sulfur and phosphorous. It is believed that this made the cast ingots red short, difficult to forge and is very likely the governing secret to the success of Damascus blades. The higher heats that the European smiths were accustomed to, would have crumbled the steel and it also would not have produced the kind of steel that made them famous. Although the task of forging at such a low and narrow band of temperature was difficult, the first side-affect or benefit was tougher and springier steel with superior edge holding properties. The second benefit was the pattern formed by the ghosting of the dendrites which were formed during the slow initial cooling of the ingot.

    During this same time frame the Japanese were discovering the methods of producing fine steel blades from iron ore panned from the rivers. This panned ore was smelted in a wood coke furnace and the crude metal was broken up into pieces, forged flat and stacked into billets. These stacks were forge welded together and forged to length. Then it was folded first length wise and after welding and forging again folded sideways and welded again. This process was repeated from 8 to 16 times in order to refine the impurities out of the steel and to remove excess carbon. If you will get out your calculator, you will find that 16 folds will give you 65,536layers of steel if you start with one single layer, if you started with an 8 layer stack, 17 folds will give you 1,048,576 layers.

    Now when the sword is forged out of this steel, all of the layers will be lined up and going in the same direction. Any flexing of the blade sideways will be stretching half of these layers and compressing the other half. For sure, this would be as strong and resilient as a modern day forged blade of solid non layered steel. In fact I think that it can be argued that the layered steel would be more resilient because any stress cracking may be stopped as it reaches the next layer. Flexing the sword blade up or down would be the same as any other homogenous blade as each layer is undergoing the same stresses.

    Modern day Damascus or Pattern welded steel is manipulated in various ways to produce some very striking looking patterns. Many of these layers will be aligned in such an order as to produce a sound blade, but some of the layers will be running contrary to that which will produce a good blade. In other words some layers will weaken a blade because of an adverse alignment of weld lines. In such a blade, if you flex the blade sideways, the layers do not just stretch or compress, they could pull apart at the welds. A multi-bar composite blade or a sanmai blade will have built in factors favorable to the strength of the blade if done in the right way.

    A many layered blade will likely have weld lines running across the edge and this will give the edge a micro serration edge. This edge will feel sharper than a homogenous blade and will out cut a conventional blade using a slicing motion. By folding the steel billet like a paper airplane, according to Dr. Beck, the Japanese could improve the swords cutting abilities on the tip’s first couple of inches. This is the working part, the rest of the blade is there to put the first two inches into proper reach. He also suggested that the sword could be made to cut either on a forward slice or on a rearward slice depending on the way the folds were made.

    When you boil it all down, cutting is a function of blade geometry, hardness, toughness, sharpness, micro edge serration and technique. Yes Damascus can be stronger, no it sometimes isn’t. Yes Damascus does feel sharper and for many cutting tasks will out perform a conventional blade.

    It is interesting to note that Damascus swords and the Samurai swords had a parallel history a world apart from each other and both had an impact on the rest of the world. It is also interesting that both art forms were very nearly lost, indeed, one had to be reinvented. The modern day Damascus or (pattern welded blade) is a blend of both ancient arts and has taken on a life of its own."


    To answer Chris & Charles, I have several of these Nihonto blades, & they all look pretty much the same. Maeda-Sensei tells me that they are definitely of Japanese origin, & yes, all are signed. I can categorically state that they cut VERY well, too. As far as "standard" or "non-standard" construction, further deponent sayeth not....

    Ken
    Ken Goldstein
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    Judo Kodansha/MJER Iaido Kodansha/Jodo Oku-iri
    Fencing Master/NRA Instructor

    "A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it'll annoy enough people to be worth the effort."

  8. #23
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    Default

    The picture does clarify things, I think. It appears to be a newer "art sword" as opposed to an antique or modern "practical sword."

    While "Nihonto" describes Japanese swords as a group, they can be further broken down into catagories such as Koto (Old Swords), Shinto (New Swords), Shinshinto (New New Swords), Gendaito (Modern Swords), etc.

    While traditional swords most often (though not always) have a layered look to them, the pattern is much more subtle than the example shown above.

    It would be interesting to see the nakago (tang) of this sword in order to see the mei (signature).
    Yours in Budo,
    ---Brian---

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    Default Nakago closeup

    Thanks, Brian! I'm learning even more on this thread than I had hoped!

    Here's the nakago you requested:



    Ken
    Ken Goldstein
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    Judo Kodansha/MJER Iaido Kodansha/Jodo Oku-iri
    Fencing Master/NRA Instructor

    "A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it'll annoy enough people to be worth the effort."

  10. #25
    Dan Harden Guest

    Default

    Ken

    I don’t have the time to spend here I am off for a weekend seminar. Almost all of the statements you made were so far off base as to be irrelevant.
    1. Wootz is a completely different process than Tatara smelting. Wootz steel yields its pattern from dendrites. Which can be completely lost in forging due to temp. The carbon content is not low but VERY high-sometime up to 2.5%.
    Mechanical Damascus is low and high homogenous billets or sometimes wire mixed to form a single billet.

    Its is far more complex then this-but your understanding of the manufacture is fundamentally flawed bud. The reference to the hamon structure is way off as well.
    There is much you can read here as well as researching on the net. I will post more when I get back



    cheers
    Dan

  11. #26
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    I look forward to being corrected, Dan. Knowledge is power.

    Ken
    Ken Goldstein
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    Judo Kodansha/MJER Iaido Kodansha/Jodo Oku-iri
    Fencing Master/NRA Instructor

    "A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it'll annoy enough people to be worth the effort."

  12. #27
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    Default Nakago

    Hi there!

    I looked at the nakago picture and from the file mark rust and signature type it looks like a chinese faked blade. The type of grain is also indicating this possibility. Pleas let us know where you did get this sword.

    Truly yours
    Sebastien Cyr 義真
    春風館道場
    Shunpukan Dojo

  13. #28
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    I bought the katana from a private collector in Fussa who is a friend of Maeda-Sensei. I almost always buy from collectors as they are far more likely to be trustworthy -- especially when recommended by Sensei!

    I'm not sure that I would want a rokudan upset with me!!

    Ken
    Ken Goldstein
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    Judo Kodansha/MJER Iaido Kodansha/Jodo Oku-iri
    Fencing Master/NRA Instructor

    "A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it'll annoy enough people to be worth the effort."

  14. #29
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    Default Sorry

    I am sorry but from the picture of the blade and nakago picture the blade it looks definitly like a fake one. I have seen and collected numerous Nihonto since 1996 and the Grain (Hada) of this sword is not representative of a Nihonto. I might be wrong since there are always some exceptions but this grain does not look to be Japanese. Also the signature is very sloppy and the file marks are sloppy as well. I am sure that if there is any other collectors watching this pictures they will be in accordance with me.

    Truly yours
    Sebastien Cyr 義真
    春風館道場
    Shunpukan Dojo

  15. #30
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    Mr. Cyr is correct. That is definitely a fake. The nakago is all wrong, from the signature to the file marks to the artificially activated rust. The hada is also wrong. The grain in Japanese steel is far more subtle as it is actually the grain of folded homogenous steel you see and not the grain created by two different steels.

    Ken, I have seen dozens of these Chinese fakes and the sword you have pictured here has all of the characteristics I have come to recognize. I sincerely hope you have not paid to much for this blade.

    Regards,
    Last edited by Scott Irey; 15th July 2004 at 20:37.
    Scott Irey
    Just another one of those "few peanuts short of a snickers bar" MJER guys.

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