# Communities > Bladesmiths, Blacksmiths, Artisans and Professionals > Japanese-Style Sword Makers Cafe >  Books on polishing?

## Daniel Gentile

one more question  :Big Grin:  

Since a good ammount of time I'm searchin' for a book about traditional japanese sword-polishing...

recently I found the name of such a book... but I couldn't track it down anywehere I searched,... maybe it's out of print?

"STONE AND SWORD" ( by Laurent Milhau)

If anyone does know where to get it or owns one and is willing to sell, please inform me.


As well if some may know other books on that topic, I'd apreciate the Information...


It should be much more detailed than "The craft of the japanese sword", which has a chapter about polishing... but IMHO lacks some details ...


Thanks


Daniel

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## Keith Larman

Best of luck. That book has been out of print for a long time. And it along with the Kapp and Yoshindo book are the only ones in English that have any coverage of polishing. And fwiw, even the Milhaus book glosses over *huge* amounts of information. I've yet to see a book in English or Japanese that could possibly cover the depth and breadth of polishing swords. The longer I do it the more I realize the subtlety of the craft, the shaping, the issues, etc. And that's before we even start talking about the issues involved with polishing particular blades of a particular style. 

Anyway, neither book is intended to teach polishing.

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## Daniel Gentile

Keith,


thanks for the fast reply  :Smilie: 

well, I guess you saved me from further spending my time on searching the book...

But maybe I shortly have to explain what I want to do...

I forge the blades, and that's my main intention.
Polishing takes, IMHO, at least the same ammount of years if not much longer to master...
But I want to be able to achive a more traditional look on my blades, to bring out the subtle details as the hamon, hada,... 
And I want to use stones rather than my sandingpaper (it works, but well, it's not what I want).
Another thing is that I have not much knowledge, yet, about trad. polishing methodes... I've seen many traditionally polished blades (ancient and new ones) so I know what they should look like but not really how to do.

The main questions which have held me from "just starting" are the following ones:

- What stone do I absolutly need, as a minimum
- where to get the "fingerstones" without having to buy a whole Stone and break it appart (expensive as far as I know)
- where to find HADORI-stones?

I want to get a polish with a "slight mirror", and use hadori to give the hamon some "extra apereance"


Thanks


Daniel

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