Jkoo/Sinosword kobuse pig iron tamahagane midare wakizashi
Jul 29, 2020 22:20:50 GMT
Post by Robert in California on Jul 29, 2020 22:20:50 GMT
Sword Review: Custom Sinosword/Jkoo 22” Kobuse Pig Iron Tamahagane Wakizashi. July2020
by Robert in California
Historically accurate tamahagane is tamahagane done in the Japanese tradition, using only Japanese iron sands, in a Japanese tatara (a disposable, single use furnace about 4 feet high, 4 feet wide and 12 feet long that takes the iron sand/charcoal mixture and produces rough, raw chunks of varying grades of raw steel over a period of several days). Such would be traditional tamahagane.
However, I'll settle for the term "pig iron tamahagane", for lack of a more descriptive, precise term. Starting with chunks of raw iron aka “pig iron” makes “tamahagane” more affordable. For more detail about tamahagane, see my Jkoo pig iron tamahagane katana review here at Sword Buyers Guide. No need to repeat it and the lively debate that did follow.
I paid slightly under $500usd (which includes the shipping of about $50usd) for this wakizashi. On the other hand, if the smith starts with a bar of pure, modern, high carbon steel such as 1095 high carbon or T10 tool steel, and not folding during the forging process, a good smith can perhaps make an equivalent blade at even less cost. So why fold? Tradition and beauty.
On to sword specifications. This wakizashi is a nice short sword, with very little to criticize. In fact it is near perfect, but it is not "eye candy" any more than a mono steel, non-folded forged blade is, because it is too difficult to see this blade’s hada/folding that along with a hamon, makes folded blades more attractive than non-folded blades.
I don't have anything to say about how it copies some traditional nihonto style, because I did not ask for a particular blade style. And the furniture was what I liked, not a style out of a particular historical type.
This wakizashi is slightly longer than my Huawei wakizashi and a bit over an inch shorter than my other Jkoo wakizashi's, in total length, sword plus saya. Like most any wakizashi, it is light enough to make one handed use natural. And much more easy to use in tight quarters than a katana.
JKOO / Sinosword pig iron tamahagane wakizashi with midare hamon Specifications:
The Sword:
Cost: About $485usa including shipping (China to California)
Weight: 26.6 ounces (1.7 pounds) (sword only)
Weight: 31.2 ounces (1.95 pounds) (sword + saya)
Total Length (sword + saya) = 33 inches (as compared to my Jkoo pig iron katana with total (sword + saya) length of 40.75 inches)
Sword Point of Balance: 3 ½ inches ahead of the tsuba.
Blade length: 22 inches (tip of kissaki to habaki)
Blade total length: 31 inches (22 inch blade plus 9 inch nakago)
Blade weight (blade only): 21.6 ounces (1.35 pounds)
Blade construction: kobuse
Blade polish: hazuya/jizuya (finger stones) with acid etch on top of the DH hamon.
Blade sharpness: razor sharp.
Easily slices thin typing paper or flimsy newspaper. My other Jkoo swords are “sharp with niku”, so I specified “razor sharp” (no niku). And this blade IS definitely razor sharp,
Blade sori: 5/8 inches
Blade thickness at yokote: 5/32 inches
Blade thickness ½ way down blade: 7/32 inches
Blade thickness at habaki: 10/32 inches
Blade width (ha to shinogi-ji) at yokote: 1 inch (9/16 inch ha to shinogi)
Blade width (ha to shinogi-ji) ½ way down: 1 1/16 inches (11/16 inch ha to shinogi)
Blade width (ha to shinogi-ji) at habaki: 1 1/4 inches (13/16 inch ha to shinogi)
Bohi width: 1/4 inch
Kissaki length: 1 1/2 inches (medium kissaki)
Blade hamon: midare (irregular, varying between ½ inch and 3/16 inch wide, averaging 7/16 inches wide)
Blade boshi (hamon of kissaki): suguha (straight, 7/32 inch wide)
Blade hada: hard to detect. Appears masame from the small areas where dimly visible.
The Habaki:
Habaki: bright gold color brass with horizontal hand-machined scratches, which look like a tiny Dremel engraving tool did them. Most lines were done evenly, but a few lines overlapped others.
Habaki length = 1 inch
Habaki fit: perfect when the sword is assembled. And with good fit when other furniture is removed. I had no reason to shim to make the habaki fit better. Habaki fit was very good. I have been pushing Sinosword/Jkoo to standardize nakagos so production habaki’s fit like they were custom made. More work, but they are smart to make “perfect” habaki fit, a goal.
The Tsuba:
Tsuba: iron, rounded edges, slightly raised flowers and grasses. Painted black semi-gloss.
Tsuba thickness: 1/8”
Tsuba length (ha to mune direction): 3 inches
The Tsuka:
Tsuka length: 9 1/4 inches
Tsuka: full wrap of raw, white, small nodules ray skin
Tsuka ito: black, silk (real Japanese silk – a $50usd extra cost)
Tsuka ito wrap: traditional “criss-cross”. Very tight. Diamonds even.
Every bit as good a wrap as the wraps on my Huawei's.
Tsuka Mekugi: one bamboo mekugi
Tsuka is tapered:
Tsuka width (ha to mune) at fuchi: 1 4/8 inches (with ito)
Tsuka width (half way between fuchi & kashira): 1 3/8 inches (with ito)
Tsuka width (ha to mune) at kashira: 1 2/8” inches (with ito)
Tsuka thickness (side to side): 1 inch (with ito)
Tsuka thickness (side to side): 3/4 inch (without ito)
The Fuchi:
Fuchi: blackened iron with waves design
Fuchi length: 1/2 inches
The Kashira:
Kashira: blackened iron, rounded oval shape with waves design on sides and top.
Kashira length: 1 5/16 inches
The Menuki:
Menuki: dull brass, floral, flowers and branches
Menuki length: 1 5/8 inches
The Saya:
Saya: smooth, gloss black with translucent brown buffalo horn furniture
Saya length: 23 1/2 inches
Saya width at kojiri: 1 1/2 inches
Saya thickness at kojiri: 7/8 inches
Saya width at koguichi: 1 5/8 inches
Saya thickness at koguichi: 7/8 inches
Saya furniture (kojiri, kurigata, koguichi): buffalo horn, natural brown
Saya color: black
Saya shito-done: brass (gold)
Saya sageo: black & white braided, Chinese cotton
Saya weight: 4.6 ounces
My Thoughts:
On tsuka length:
At 9 ¼ inches, this tsuka works one or two handed.
On kashira shapes:
I personally favor rounded kashiras. The rounded shapes, to me, are more comfortable.
Summary and nit picking:
Observations: This $480usd wakizashi has a handsome blade with a good feel to it. But I could have had a less expensive wakizashi, if instead of Jkoo’s pig iron tamahagane, I had asked for a mono steel, non-folded blade of modern steel like T10 or 1095.
But I ordered the tamahagane. Does starting with 4% carbon, pig iron yield just as good steel, worse or better, by the end of the forging and tempering process? I don’t know. I have not compared my Jkoo/Sino tamahagane, T10 and 1095 blades on anything beyond looks. In appearance, the Jkoo/Sinosword tamahagane steel looks darker than the T10 or 1095 blades they have made for me. And the folding of the “pig iron tamahagane” steel (hada) is of finer, denser nature.
A “true” tamahagane blade that starts out as a bucket of raw Japanese iron sand would be beyond my budget, due to the extra processing iron sands and a “use only once” tatara require. For instance, there is a sword seller who offers tamahagane katanas produced from iron sands and a tatara, not chunks of crude (pig) iron but asks about $3,700usd. [3 below]
That is a high price, maybe too high, but still it points out that there is a big time and labor difference between starting with iron sand and starting with chunks of pig iron. And China, in the ancient days, had more iron resources and used a more productive method than did old Japan's tatara (sort of a labor intensive, disposable smelter) [2 below].
Jkoo/Sino makes swords ranging from around $100usd to $2,000usd, with most of their swords around the $300 mark [4 below]. Is it reasonable to expect perfection for about $300usd?
Jkoo does make swords that IMO are underpriced for the quality and features they have, when the pre-shipping q.c. person is doing their job, which increasingly seems to be happening.
When good, pre-shipping q.c. is done, there is no or minimal “blade in saya rattle”. A few of my Jkoo/Sino swords have some rattle, but most have no rattle. My Sino/Jkoo swords have tsukaito… that is very tight and the ito “diamonds” are regular and even. Jkoo/Sinosword makes good blades, with a wide variety of available furniture options (which I always go with the lower priced choices) And when they do make errors on a sword, they have been good about compensation or making things right.
And this Jkoo/Sinosword pig iron tamahagane kobuse wakizashi? Tight ito, even diamonds, well done mekugi/mekugi ana, excellent habaki fit…good enough that even I, Mr. Detail Obsessive, did not feel an urge to shim with Auto engine grade, steel impregnated JBWeld to perfect the fit. Nice blade, razor sharp, nicely done hamon. But something different. This blade looks non-folded. Even in good lighting, most all of the blade looks non-folded, the hada is so fine and tight. Only in places could I see the folds.
Good:
The Bad:
Bad:
Tsuba: I really like the shape and design of the tsuba. But I will offer two nit picks. First, the floral design lines could be crisper.
But they still looked good..kind of worn like a really old, antique iron tsuba. Ok, but given that koto era antique attractive looks, then gosh Jkoo/Sinosword, why enamel paint such a nice tsuba with shiny gloss black paint?
Saya Koguichi. Fit is excellent with zero rattle. But what did I not like? At the koguichi, the “mouth” of the saya, one side of the koguichi had had more wood removed than the other side, so the saya’s wood koguichi fit to the brass habaki was better on one side than the other (koguichi had more wood removed on one side than the other). So I shimmed the koguichi, but feel I should not have had to. Pre-shipping q .c. should have caught that.
Thoughts:
Keep custom orders from being more complex than necessary. We deal with Chinese sellers whose English is not perfect. But they have done us non-Chinese speakers the courtesy of trying to learn to understand English.
Jkoo/Sinosword can and has been able to meet detailed and unusual specifications most of the time. But their standard blades feel good to me and my own orders are just for varied furniture options and off the custom menu blade options.
Robert Hamilton aka "RinC", California 29 July 2020
[1] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_iron
[2] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironsand
[3] www.swordsofnorthshire.com/tamahagane
by Robert in California
This is a review of a Jkoo/Sinosword kobuse construction, pig iron tamahagane wakizashi.
above: the real hamon that was under the acid etch of this Jkoo kobuse pig iron tamahagane wakizashi blade
Jkoo is a small Longquan, China forge. They do both wholesale and customer-specs sales. Custom swords are ordered via the web site (www.sinosword.com).
above: Jkoo wakizashi
Jkoo/Sinosword make decent, solid swords. Good value for the money. I ordered a wakizashi. This tamahagane wakizashi blade differs from my Jkoo tamahagane katana blade, because this wakizashi blade has hada/folding much tighter than my katana blade. The wakizashi blade hada is so tight and fine that the steel looks almost non-folded. This custom order took about two months and arrived in fine shape, plastic shrink wrapped, in a long cardboard box lined with styrafoam blocks cut to fit and protect the sword inside.
above: Jkoo waki, the other side
above: Jkoo waki came shrink-wrapped in clear plastic
It has a forged 22 inch blade of kobuse construction, midare hamon, of pig-iron tamahagane steel. Kobuse blade construction is when the blade is hard, thick skin steel wrapped around a softer steel core. Midare hamons are like sughua (straight) hamons drawn by a person with the shakes trying to draw a straight line. Pig iron tamahagane is when chunks of raw iron are what the smith starts out with, instead of iron sands.
above: Jkoo waki
Next to a Jkoo Soshu Kitae blade, this is probably the fanciest blade that Jkoo makes. How good are the Jkoo Soshu Kitae (complex) blades? I don’t know. I ordered kobuse. Kobuse blade construction is a method of blade construction, that was common enough in actual nihonto of old Japan.
above: Jkoo waki, the other side
There has debate over what is "tamahagane". Jkoo/Sinosword calls a blade that begins as chunks of raw iron (aka "pig iron"), instead of grains of iron-. sand, as tamahagane. Some folks would not call that "tamahagane".
Historically accurate tamahagane is tamahagane done in the Japanese tradition, using only Japanese iron sands, in a Japanese tatara (a disposable, single use furnace about 4 feet high, 4 feet wide and 12 feet long that takes the iron sand/charcoal mixture and produces rough, raw chunks of varying grades of raw steel over a period of several days). Such would be traditional tamahagane.
However, I'll settle for the term "pig iron tamahagane", for lack of a more descriptive, precise term. Starting with chunks of raw iron aka “pig iron” makes “tamahagane” more affordable. For more detail about tamahagane, see my Jkoo pig iron tamahagane katana review here at Sword Buyers Guide. No need to repeat it and the lively debate that did follow.
I paid slightly under $500usd (which includes the shipping of about $50usd) for this wakizashi. On the other hand, if the smith starts with a bar of pure, modern, high carbon steel such as 1095 high carbon or T10 tool steel, and not folding during the forging process, a good smith can perhaps make an equivalent blade at even less cost. So why fold? Tradition and beauty.
On to sword specifications. This wakizashi is a nice short sword, with very little to criticize. In fact it is near perfect, but it is not "eye candy" any more than a mono steel, non-folded forged blade is, because it is too difficult to see this blade’s hada/folding that along with a hamon, makes folded blades more attractive than non-folded blades.
I don't have anything to say about how it copies some traditional nihonto style, because I did not ask for a particular blade style. And the furniture was what I liked, not a style out of a particular historical type.
This wakizashi is slightly longer than my Huawei wakizashi and a bit over an inch shorter than my other Jkoo wakizashi's, in total length, sword plus saya. Like most any wakizashi, it is light enough to make one handed use natural. And much more easy to use in tight quarters than a katana.
JKOO / Sinosword pig iron tamahagane wakizashi with midare hamon Specifications:
The Sword:
Cost: About $485usa including shipping (China to California)
Weight: 26.6 ounces (1.7 pounds) (sword only)
Weight: 31.2 ounces (1.95 pounds) (sword + saya)
Total Length (sword + saya) = 33 inches (as compared to my Jkoo pig iron katana with total (sword + saya) length of 40.75 inches)
Sword Point of Balance: 3 ½ inches ahead of the tsuba.
The wakizashi came in a two layer cotton sword bag, black with grey dragon designs and a cream colored cotton interior lining.
above: blade pic
above: blade pic
above: kissaki
above: single bohi
above: blade
above: blade showing ha-machi and muni-machi
above: another machi pic
above: nakago showing mekugi ana
above: another view
above: signed per request by smith. I darkened the signature to help me photograph it better.
The Blade:
Blade steel: tamahagane made from pig iron. Blade length: 22 inches (tip of kissaki to habaki)
Blade total length: 31 inches (22 inch blade plus 9 inch nakago)
Blade weight (blade only): 21.6 ounces (1.35 pounds)
Blade construction: kobuse
Blade polish: hazuya/jizuya (finger stones) with acid etch on top of the DH hamon.
Blade sharpness: razor sharp.
Easily slices thin typing paper or flimsy newspaper. My other Jkoo swords are “sharp with niku”, so I specified “razor sharp” (no niku). And this blade IS definitely razor sharp,
Blade sori: 5/8 inches
Blade thickness at yokote: 5/32 inches
Blade thickness ½ way down blade: 7/32 inches
Blade thickness at habaki: 10/32 inches
Blade width (ha to shinogi-ji) at yokote: 1 inch (9/16 inch ha to shinogi)
Blade width (ha to shinogi-ji) ½ way down: 1 1/16 inches (11/16 inch ha to shinogi)
Blade width (ha to shinogi-ji) at habaki: 1 1/4 inches (13/16 inch ha to shinogi)
Bohi width: 1/4 inch
Kissaki length: 1 1/2 inches (medium kissaki)
Blade hamon: midare (irregular, varying between ½ inch and 3/16 inch wide, averaging 7/16 inches wide)
Blade boshi (hamon of kissaki): suguha (straight, 7/32 inch wide)
Blade hada: hard to detect. Appears masame from the small areas where dimly visible.
above: habaki
above: another view of the habaki
above: no JBWeld shimming needed. Good habaki to nakago fit.
Habaki: bright gold color brass with horizontal hand-machined scratches, which look like a tiny Dremel engraving tool did them. Most lines were done evenly, but a few lines overlapped others.
Habaki length = 1 inch
Habaki fit: perfect when the sword is assembled. And with good fit when other furniture is removed. I had no reason to shim to make the habaki fit better. Habaki fit was very good. I have been pushing Sinosword/Jkoo to standardize nakagos so production habaki’s fit like they were custom made. More work, but they are smart to make “perfect” habaki fit, a goal.
above: iron tsuba
above: iron tsuba with "worn" designs to give that antique look (so why the gloss finish?)
above: proving the tsuba was iron via magnet
Tsuba: iron, rounded edges, slightly raised flowers and grasses. Painted black semi-gloss.
Tsuba thickness: 1/8”
Tsuba length (ha to mune direction): 3 inches
Tsuba width side to side): 2 7/8 inches
Above: tsuka with the extra $50usd Japanese silk ito
above: the (real) Japanese silk feels about halfway between a Jkoo cotton and a Jkoo synthetic silk wrap..harder than cotton and softer than synthetic silk.
above: full wrap of white/natural, basic grade of rayskin (you can ask for better rayskin for higher cost)
above: tsuka, full samegawa wrap, black Japanese silk ito, even and very tight
above: tsuka wood. It comes in two halves.
Tsuka length: 9 1/4 inches
Tsuka: full wrap of raw, white, small nodules ray skin
Tsuka ito: black, silk (real Japanese silk – a $50usd extra cost)
Tsuka ito wrap: traditional “criss-cross”. Very tight. Diamonds even.
Every bit as good a wrap as the wraps on my Huawei's.
Tsuka Mekugi: one bamboo mekugi
Tsuka is tapered:
Tsuka width (ha to mune) at fuchi: 1 4/8 inches (with ito)
Tsuka width (half way between fuchi & kashira): 1 3/8 inches (with ito)
Tsuka width (ha to mune) at kashira: 1 2/8” inches (with ito)
Tsuka thickness (side to side): 1 inch (with ito)
Tsuka thickness (side to side): 3/4 inch (without ito)
above: fuchi
above: fuchi, blackened iron, does not appear nor feel painted (unlike the shiny black enameled tsuba)
above: Fuchi, iron, waves design. Jkoo has iron fuchi/kashiras, brass fuchi/kashiras and also more fancy, more expensive fuchi/kashiras.
Fuchi: blackened iron with waves design
Fuchi length: 1/2 inches
Fuchi width: 7/8 inches
above: brass seppa, gold color
above: seppa, a better view
The Seppa:
Seppa: brass, oval, gold colored
Seppa length: 1 5/8 inches
Seppa width: 1 inch
above: blackened iron kashira
above: kashira with waves design on top and partly on sides
above: Kashira and fuchi were iron, verified with magnet
Kashira: blackened iron, rounded oval shape with waves design on sides and top.
Kashira length: 1 5/16 inches
Kashira width: ¾ inches
above: menuki, dull brass, floral design
Menuki: dull brass, floral, flowers and branches
Menuki length: 1 5/8 inches
Menuki width: 5/16 inches
above: wood saya, gloss black, with natural buffalo horn furniture (dyed black buffalo horn also available)
above: saya, other side
above: saya koguichi
above: saya koguichi, too much wood removed on one side. I ended up shimming with gluing in a thin slice of wood.
above: saya, sageo
above: saya kurigata of brown/natural buffalo horn
above: saya kojiri
The Saya:
Saya: smooth, gloss black with translucent brown buffalo horn furniture
Saya length: 23 1/2 inches
Saya width at kojiri: 1 1/2 inches
Saya thickness at kojiri: 7/8 inches
Saya width at koguichi: 1 5/8 inches
Saya thickness at koguichi: 7/8 inches
Saya furniture (kojiri, kurigata, koguichi): buffalo horn, natural brown
Saya color: black
Saya shito-done: brass (gold)
Saya sageo: black & white braided, Chinese cotton
Saya weight: 4.6 ounces
My Thoughts:
On tsuka length:
At 9 ¼ inches, this tsuka works one or two handed.
On kashira shapes:
I personally favor rounded kashiras. The rounded shapes, to me, are more comfortable.
Summary and nit picking:
Observations: This $480usd wakizashi has a handsome blade with a good feel to it. But I could have had a less expensive wakizashi, if instead of Jkoo’s pig iron tamahagane, I had asked for a mono steel, non-folded blade of modern steel like T10 or 1095.
But I ordered the tamahagane. Does starting with 4% carbon, pig iron yield just as good steel, worse or better, by the end of the forging and tempering process? I don’t know. I have not compared my Jkoo/Sino tamahagane, T10 and 1095 blades on anything beyond looks. In appearance, the Jkoo/Sinosword tamahagane steel looks darker than the T10 or 1095 blades they have made for me. And the folding of the “pig iron tamahagane” steel (hada) is of finer, denser nature.
A “true” tamahagane blade that starts out as a bucket of raw Japanese iron sand would be beyond my budget, due to the extra processing iron sands and a “use only once” tatara require. For instance, there is a sword seller who offers tamahagane katanas produced from iron sands and a tatara, not chunks of crude (pig) iron but asks about $3,700usd. [3 below]
That is a high price, maybe too high, but still it points out that there is a big time and labor difference between starting with iron sand and starting with chunks of pig iron. And China, in the ancient days, had more iron resources and used a more productive method than did old Japan's tatara (sort of a labor intensive, disposable smelter) [2 below].
Jkoo/Sino makes swords ranging from around $100usd to $2,000usd, with most of their swords around the $300 mark [4 below]. Is it reasonable to expect perfection for about $300usd?
Jkoo does make swords that IMO are underpriced for the quality and features they have, when the pre-shipping q.c. person is doing their job, which increasingly seems to be happening.
When good, pre-shipping q.c. is done, there is no or minimal “blade in saya rattle”. A few of my Jkoo/Sino swords have some rattle, but most have no rattle. My Sino/Jkoo swords have tsukaito… that is very tight and the ito “diamonds” are regular and even. Jkoo/Sinosword makes good blades, with a wide variety of available furniture options (which I always go with the lower priced choices) And when they do make errors on a sword, they have been good about compensation or making things right.
And this Jkoo/Sinosword pig iron tamahagane kobuse wakizashi? Tight ito, even diamonds, well done mekugi/mekugi ana, excellent habaki fit…good enough that even I, Mr. Detail Obsessive, did not feel an urge to shim with Auto engine grade, steel impregnated JBWeld to perfect the fit. Nice blade, razor sharp, nicely done hamon. But something different. This blade looks non-folded. Even in good lighting, most all of the blade looks non-folded, the hada is so fine and tight. Only in places could I see the folds.
A polish issue? Maybe, but maybe not. I have another blade like this, where almost all the blade looks non-folded. And that being my Shinshinto nihonto katana my Japanese sword teacher, Mr. A. Takahashi obtained for me around 1982 for $2,000usd.
above: Jkoo wakizashi top. Mumei Shinshinto 27 1/2 inch katana (probably early 1800's nihonto) bottom. Hada of both blades are near impossible to see. At least with my Jkoo and my finger-stone polishes.
above: close up, Jkoo on top. Nihonto on bottom.
above: closer close up of nihonto
above: closer close up of Jkoo waki.
The Good:
above: razor sharp. Sliced student binder paper with little effort.
Good non-niku blade. Easily slices thin paper. Attractive furniture. Good workmanship. First class tsuka ito wrap. Good feel in the hands. No rattle, tight but not too tight saya fit. A small thing, but something I like, is the mekugi peg is made slightly long and the top is slighly beveled.
The Bad:
Bad:
Tsuba: I really like the shape and design of the tsuba. But I will offer two nit picks. First, the floral design lines could be crisper.
But they still looked good..kind of worn like a really old, antique iron tsuba. Ok, but given that koto era antique attractive looks, then gosh Jkoo/Sinosword, why enamel paint such a nice tsuba with shiny gloss black paint?
Saya Koguichi. Fit is excellent with zero rattle. But what did I not like? At the koguichi, the “mouth” of the saya, one side of the koguichi had had more wood removed than the other side, so the saya’s wood koguichi fit to the brass habaki was better on one side than the other (koguichi had more wood removed on one side than the other). So I shimmed the koguichi, but feel I should not have had to. Pre-shipping q .c. should have caught that.
Hada: Hard to see the folds in this blade. Would mirror polish have brought them out better? Or fewer folds when forging the skin steel of this kobuse blade? But since my (antique) Japanese katana (mumei, kobuse or better) is the same way, there is historical precedence.
Investigation:
The blade was "hazuya" polished. And it was polished well. But face it, Jkoo can't spend a week or more on one blade, doing a Japanese professional polisher job where cost is a substantial sum per inch of blade. This blade was given a basic fingerstone polish and the hamon was acid etched. Looks nice. But I wondered, what was under that acid etch? So I spent two or three hours with hazuya and jizuya fingerstones to find out. This is a rough window as no nugui (iron oxide dust in oil) work has been done yet. But first is where I did the window and then here are pics of what was under the hamon acid etch:
above: acid etched hamon of Jkoo tamahagane wakizashi. Something under that acid etch.
above: Jkoo tamahagane wakizashi...I did a simple ha/jizuya finger-stone polish to see what was under that acid etch.
above: Jkoo kobuse tamahagane wakizashi hamon (was under the acid etch)
above: another view
above: close up
above: the real hamon under the acid etch. Not all the blade shows hints of activity like this under the acid wash, but multiple other places show enough that if I don't mess up the nugui job, I'm thinking of polishing the entire blade (as time allows...est. maybe 80 hours).
Thoughts:
Keep custom orders from being more complex than necessary. We deal with Chinese sellers whose English is not perfect. But they have done us non-Chinese speakers the courtesy of trying to learn to understand English.
Jkoo/Sinosword can and has been able to meet detailed and unusual specifications most of the time. But their standard blades feel good to me and my own orders are just for varied furniture options and off the custom menu blade options.
Robert Hamilton aka "RinC", California 29 July 2020
[1] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_iron
[2] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironsand
[3] www.swordsofnorthshire.com/tamahagane
[4] www.sinosword.com/katana-uchigatana-shinken.html
Below are more "what was under the acid etch" photos:
A lot of activity in this blade, which is a mark of quality.
There are duplicates because I tried different pics of the same area of the sword.
Below are more "what was under the acid etch" photos:
A lot of activity in this blade, which is a mark of quality.
There are duplicates because I tried different pics of the same area of the sword.