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hamon
Feb 1, 2015 14:34:03 GMT
Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2015 14:34:03 GMT
Blackthorn, can you elaborate a little on what "civilian sword" means in the context of a culture that had proscribed swords in excess of a certain length from anyone who wasn't a member of the warrior class? Would you consider Peter Johnnson's work to be superfluous? There's a meticulous attention to detail and aesthetics that goes well beyond meeting the requirements of functionality at play there. Just curious. Hi John, to answer your question, the peacetime era samurai were not warriors, there was no combat for a period of 400 years, and for many generations they were nothing more than idle civilian bureaucrats, who carried the title of warriors by social class, and their swords were no more than status symbols, much like European dress swords. Eventually they were stripped of their rights to bear swords, and they were recognised to be useless as warriors when Japan modernised during the Meiji reformation and adopted western military style training.
To answer your second question, I believe it was Howard Clark who stated that you build a sword for function, and the beauty will emerge from there. Attention to detail and superfluous decoration are not the same thing! Albion's swords are very well made, and that's where their subjectively perceived beauty comes from for those who like that style of construction, with nice, precise, accurate CNC milled lines, clean functional design, the undistracted and simple beauty of purposeful steel! Some people who aren't partial to Peter Johnnson's work prefer a more hand-made look and consider that a more historical look, but then beauty is a subjective matter after all. Thankfully a well-made Euro sword is a very functional Euro sword, even the showy dress swords such as smallswords and rapiers, to which the katana is the Japanese dress sword equivalent, were made extremely functional, even if the hilts were quite fancy. In my subjective view they have much more aesthetic appeal, finesse and elegance as dress swords than a big, crude looking, blinged-up two handed sabre.
Hope this satisfies your curiosity :)
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hamon
Feb 1, 2015 14:42:30 GMT
Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2015 14:42:30 GMT
Traditionally, kukris are differentially hardened. Polish and etch, and you should get a hamon. Since they're deliberately differentially hardened, I wouldn't call it "unintentional", even though the intent is only to get a hard edge, not to get a pattern. Traditional kukri hamons I've seen are pretty narrow. From what I understood about kukris, the method is more of a selective drawing-back of the body rather than a deliberate differential hardening of the edge, but perhaps I'm remembering wrong, as I often do, or perhaps it's a case of different approaches to the same end. Either way, same effect. Some Nepalese kukris use proper differential hardening.
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hamon
Feb 1, 2015 15:38:44 GMT
Post by randomnobody on Feb 1, 2015 15:38:44 GMT
"Proper" suggests there's an "improper" way, despite several methods existing. But I get what you mean, and yeah, some do. As far as I'm aware, not all, or maybe even most, but some. I often wonder what would happen if I etched one of mine...probably nothing.
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hamon
Feb 1, 2015 15:43:09 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2015 15:43:09 GMT
I completely agree about building a sword for function and the beauty will appear. It's statements like those that should be the norm really. Over thought out opinions on beauty vs function are silly (unless you plan on going to war with one or abusing it) .
Tim, there have been scientific tests on kobuse blades tested against laminated ones.The kobuse has better duarability. We are also straying into discussing TH blades now which is like comparing apples and oranges.
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hamon
Feb 1, 2015 15:50:04 GMT
Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2015 15:50:04 GMT
Blackthorn, can you elaborate a little on what "civilian sword" means in the context of a culture that had proscribed swords in excess of a certain length from anyone who wasn't a member of the warrior class? Would you consider Peter Johnnson's work to be superfluous? There's a meticulous attention to detail and aesthetics that goes well beyond meeting the requirements of functionality at play there. Just curious. Hi John, to answer your question, the peacetime era samurai were not warriors, there was no combat for a period of 400 years, and for many generations they were nothing more than idle civilian bureaucrats, who carried the title of warriors by social class, and their swords were no more than status symbols, much like European dress swords. Eventually they were stripped of their rights to bear swords, and they were recognised to be useless as warriors when Japan modernised during the Meiji reformation and adopted western military style training.
To answer your second question, I believe it was Howard Clark who stated that you build a sword for function, and the beauty will emerge from there. Attention to detail and superfluous decoration are not the same thing! Albion's swords are very well made, and that's where their subjectively perceived beauty comes from for those who like that style of construction, with nice, precise, accurate CNC milled lines, clean functional design, the undistracted and simple beauty of purposeful steel! Some people who aren't partial to Peter Johnnson's work prefer a more hand-made look and consider that a more historical look, but then beauty is a subjective matter after all. Thankfully a well-made Euro sword is a very functional Euro sword, even the showy dress swords such as smallswords and rapiers, to which the katana is the Japanese dress sword equivalent, were made extremely functional, even if the hilts were quite fancy. In my subjective view they have much more aesthetic appeal, finesse and elegance as dress swords than a big, crude looking, blinged-up two handed sabre.
Hope this satisfies your curiosity :)
Well, if you want to consider the Edo period as a peacetime era, it ran from 1600 to 1868. Considering that timeframe opened with the Battle of Sekigahara, and closed with the Boshin war, at best you've got 268 years not 400. That number sounds like one of those things people just keep repeating without bothering to look into it. There's an assumption that aesthetics and performance have to necessarily be two separate things. It might be worth while to study the details of aspects of the swords we're discussing before making too many assumptions about what the swirly patterns mean. www.japaneseswordindex.com/hada.htm You don't have to care about it, but it is rather dismissive to just hand-wave it away or simply assume it's just a modern contrivance. Those pretty swirls aren't something they just throw in like an after market upgrade, it is evidence of skill and quality in the construction.
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hamon
Feb 1, 2015 17:16:15 GMT
Post by Cottontail Customs on Feb 1, 2015 17:16:15 GMT
Good point too about 'unintentional' hamons, the 'art sword' crowd miss the point of what swords actually are, tools for combat, and they similarly forget what differentially hardened edges are for, which is to create a harder cutting edge for efficient cutting and edge retention, not to make pretty patterns.
My swords with attractive or purely functional hamon were not designed for battle, nor was any modern made sword you own. I understand the design is based on those that were carried into war but mine were made for tameshigiri and kata and admiring. They're certainly capable of causing serious harm but battle against other humans was not intended by the manufacturers of these particular blades. Different people see a need for different things and there are those that feel a painting is nothing more than paint on a canvas. Or paint on a wall in your home is nothing more than something to seal the sheetrock. I appreciate both aspects of hamon and believe they can be both fully functional and decorative. I love the art of swords but also get the point of hardened edges. Considering that the Japanese couldn't even work out how to forge steel, and were taught how to by the Chinese, and considering that they were also taught by the Chinese how to differentially harden blades, it's laughable how differential hardening is spoken about from the perspective of the Japanese, when they were one of the last nations to catch on historically and all they did is make a fuss about it when they learned how to do it properly. It's like discussing a topic from the least significant perspective really... Many cultures have adopted skills and techniques from others and some have even flourished and excelled. I don't think that because they learned from the Chinese or anyone else, it makes what they've done any less impressive. My country has very little they can really call their own but they deserve to make a fuss about many of the things they do well. I don't think anyone's denying the origins or claiming otherwise but then again I haven't asked or heard from everyone so I might be wrong. There are those who only appreciate one aspect and those that appreciate more than one, I like my hamon to be functional and pretty too -Josh
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hamon
Feb 1, 2015 20:00:13 GMT
Post by Timo Nieminen on Feb 1, 2015 20:00:13 GMT
"Proper" suggests there's an "improper" way, despite several methods existing. ;) But I get what you mean, and yeah, some do. As far as I'm aware, not all, or maybe even most, but some. I often wonder what would happen if I etched one of mine...probably nothing. :-X AFAIK, the most common traditional heat treatment method is pouring water on the edge (from a metal teapot, usually), quenching the edge and not the body. The majority of old traditional kukri were supposed to be done this way, and the "traditional" modern kukri are supposed to be done this way (look at the claimed HRC in the ads). There are other ways to differentially quench. Along the lines of pouring water on the edge, just dunk the edge into the quenchant (not so easy for a kukri-curved blade). Or use a quenchant that doesn't flow - cut into a melon, or quench on a soaked towel, etc. You can differentially heat the piece, so that only the edge is hot enough to quench-harden, and dunk the whole thing into the quenchant. (After quenching the edge, you'd then dunk the whole thing (or pour water over the whole thing) so that the hot body doesn't auto-temper the edge.) Then the are all of the differentially tempering methods! Heat the spine so that only the body is tempered. A very quick dunk when quenching so that the body is still hot, so you auto-temper the body.
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hamon
Feb 1, 2015 20:00:59 GMT
Post by Timo Nieminen on Feb 1, 2015 20:00:59 GMT
I completely agree about building a sword for function and the beauty will appear. It's statements like those that should be the norm really. Over thought out opinions on beauty vs function are silly (unless you plan on going to war with one or abusing it) . What's silly is arguing about opinions. Opinions are opinions, not facts or logical deductions from facts. Different people will (and have in this thread) state different opinions. So what? I said I prefer functional hamons. Other said they're happy with gaudy wide hamons, on what would be a display piece. So we have different opinions. But no sense in arguing about it. Some people like gold and shiny bling all over swords. Some people buy those stainless steel cut-from-sheet bat-winged covered-in-spikes fantasy wallhangers because they like them. They're not wrong, even though I'd choose differently. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Tim, there have been scientific tests on kobuse blades tested against laminated ones.The kobuse has better duarability. We are also straying into discussing TH blades now which is like comparing apples and oranges. Now this is a matter of fact, not opinion. Scientific tests? Reference? (I'm interested in all sorts of scientific tests on swords.) Properly DH kobuse should be tougher than sanmai with low-carbon cladding. The DH kobuse blade should have spring-tempered sides, which will cope with more strain than iron/low-carbon-steel sides. Not the point. As I said, lamination can make "too wide" hamons safer, or complete quenching with no tempering safer. DH kobuse aren't relevant to that point; as you say, apples and oranges. Kobuse does make complete quenching with no tempering safer compared to DH monosteel. That was included in the original point - kobuse is lamination. (But sanmai is a better example, since it works better with complete quenching with no tempering than kobuse.)
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hamon
Feb 1, 2015 21:20:13 GMT
Post by Jussi Ekholm on Feb 1, 2015 21:20:13 GMT
I would not say that wide hamon tends to break easier. Lot of it has things to do in blade quality in overall. Like was said in Nihontocrafts article, many of smiths whose blades are known for their cutting performance made blades with wide hamon.
Masahide himself made hade blades up until 1812. So he made blades in the hade style for 38 years and more toned down swords for 13 years.
The reality is that it's very easy for us to throw in some scientific stuff in but you have to consider what equipment and general knowledge was around 1300's, 1500's or 1800's.
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hamon
Feb 1, 2015 23:16:58 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2015 23:16:58 GMT
I completely agree about building a sword for function and the beauty will appear. It's statements like those that should be the norm really. Over thought out opinions on beauty vs function are silly (unless you plan on going to war with one or abusing it) . What's silly is arguing about opinions. Opinions are opinions, not facts or logical deductions from facts. Different people will (and have in this thread) state different opinions. So what? I said I prefer functional hamons. Other said they're happy with gaudy wide hamons, on what would be a display piece. So we have different opinions. But no sense in arguing about it. Some people like gold and shiny bling all over swords. Some people buy those stainless steel cut-from-sheet bat-winged covered-in-spikes fantasy wallhangers because they like them. They're not wrong, even though I'd choose differently. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Tim, there have been scientific tests on kobuse blades tested against laminated ones.The kobuse has better duarability. We are also straying into discussing TH blades now which is like comparing apples and oranges. Now this is a matter of fact, not opinion. Scientific tests? Reference? (I'm interested in all sorts of scientific tests on swords.) Properly DH kobuse should be tougher than sanmai with low-carbon cladding. The DH kobuse blade should have spring-tempered sides, which will cope with more strain than iron/low-carbon-steel sides. Not the point. As I said, lamination can make "too wide" hamons safer, or complete quenching with no tempering safer. DH kobuse aren't relevant to that point; as you say, apples and oranges. Kobuse does make complete quenching with no tempering safer compared to DH monosteel. That was included in the original point - kobuse is lamination. (But sanmai is a better example, since it works better with complete quenching with no tempering than kobuse.) I agree beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Yet there is a certain method to each style of hamon, which are works of arts that should be admired too! Whether you like or don't like a design of a hamon, I can still appreciate the technical skills involved in producing a very good one. Be it a straight suguha or a 'wild' choji.
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hamon
Feb 1, 2015 23:41:19 GMT
Post by Timo Nieminen on Feb 1, 2015 23:41:19 GMT
Likewise. There's plenty of art out there I don't like but I appreciate the technical skill. Common in music, painting, film. Sometimes (often!) I like stuff where the technical skill falls short.
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