Zen_Hydra
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Born with a heart full of neutrality
Posts: 2,625
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Post by Zen_Hydra on Apr 24, 2017 21:14:55 GMT
I have encountered, and even touched, a few different kinds of rays and skates. None of their skins had the pebble-like textures found on sword furniture.
Is there some particular type of ray used, or perhaps a special preparation process for the skin, which gives this type of leather its characteristic texture?
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Post by Verity on Apr 24, 2017 21:15:54 GMT
It's dried. It comes from a certain part of the back. Which is where the nodes (particularly the emperor's node) comes from.
I've also pet multiple rays and find their back to have a pebbly texture (while their underside is velvety soft).
This probably gets more pronounced after drying
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Post by Verity on Apr 24, 2017 21:23:28 GMT
Will also note that some texts actually use the term samekawa (which translates to shark skin) vs samegawa.
Other notes point incidentally to it being harvested from the belly of the ray (which is odd since I find that to be very soft).
The only note I have ever found regarding sources in terms of species is either manta, or cowtail stingray
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Post by Timo Nieminen on Apr 24, 2017 21:53:37 GMT
"Samekawa" and "samegawa" are two different Romanisations of the same word, 鮫皮, "shark skin". Note that the finished product is sanded, and has a different texture from the original (which is super-rough). The preferred species was Pastinachus sephen, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowtail_stingray but other species were used. The big nodules (the "emperor nodes") are along the spine (i.e., back-"bone" of the ray).
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Zen_Hydra
Moderator
Born with a heart full of neutrality
Posts: 2,625
|
Post by Zen_Hydra on Apr 25, 2017 3:30:23 GMT
Interesting. The stingrays I have touched felt like a cross between velvet and sandpaper. Any large nodes/nodules went completely unnoticed.
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Post by Timo Nieminen on Apr 25, 2017 4:22:11 GMT
It varies a lot between species. Most species have quite small nodules/denticles. It also depends on which way you touch them - it's often one-directional sandpaper, smooth one way and rough the other way. A cross-section of shark skin (dogfish): biodidac.bio.uottawa.ca/thumbnails/filedet.htm/File_name/squa187p/File_type/gifThose "scales" (on sharks, properly called "denticles") are basically tiny little teeth, complete with dentine, enamel, etc. (One traditional use of sharkskin is as sandpaper.)
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Post by Jussi Ekholm on Apr 25, 2017 14:51:13 GMT
I'm not an animal guy so I don't know much about ray / shark species. I do have the book of same and in it reads that various species were used historically each with their own specific qualities. Some skins were also imported to Japan from foreign countries.
For example in modern examples you can notice a great difference between cheap rayskin that Chinese production swords use when you compare it to the high grade Japanese skins.
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Post by akran on May 3, 2017 4:05:01 GMT
I don't mean to hijack the thread, but are there any swordsmiths who make tsukas/hilts out of faux shagreen?
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Post by Timo Nieminen on May 3, 2017 6:22:12 GMT
Yes, especially for cheap swords. The Hanwei Practical uses imitation rayskin (the Practical Plus and Practical Plus Elite use genuine). The Hanwei Ninja-to as well. To find katana with imitation rayskin on ebay, just search for "katana imitation rayskin" with the "Include description" box checked. You can even find just tsuka by themselves: www.ebay.com/itm/New-26cm-Japanese-Samurai-Sword-Tsuka-Katana-Handle-White-ray-skin-Red-Cord-/301793527636There's no real point to it other than aesthetics. It doesn't provide the grippiness (either to stop the hand/glove from slipping, or to stop ito from slipping) that real rayskin has, and the way it's usually put on the tsuka doesn't strengthen it as much as a proper rayskin wrap (assuming it's a wrap rather than panels; real rayskin panels don't give you strength, just grip).
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Post by akran on May 4, 2017 2:10:31 GMT
Okay, thanks! I like the aesthetics of shagreen, but I don't know how environmentally-friendly the practice is, since there's conflicting information regarding its sustainability.
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