Posted on 03/15/2003 9:39:19 AM PST by yankeedame
Forging perfection
By HANNA KITE
Special to The Japan Times
Yoshindo Yoshihara is not looking forward to his trip to the United States this month. Ever since Sept. 11, Yoshihara, a master swordsmith, has had difficulty checking his baggage through U.S. airports. For security reasons, United Airlines has insisted that his chest of four swords, each one worth about 3.5 million yen, remain unlocked.
The 2002 Takamatsumiya Award sword crafted by Yoshikazu Yoshihira. PHOTO COURTESY OF TOMOYASU KANAME
"I am afraid they will be stolen in transit," says Yoshihara, "but I obviously cannot take them on board." Sixty-year-old Yoshihara is reluctant to switch airlines because he has accumulated too many rewards with his frequent-flier program.
Such are the concerns of a modern-day swordsmith. While Yoshihara's techniques date back to 12th-century Japan, his workshop in Katsushika Ward, northern Tokyo, is hardly in a feudal rut. Yoshihara's fleece-clad son, age 36, like to have the radio blaring as he works, while one of Yoshihara's three disciples enlivens his corner of the studio with a Takanohana poster. Then there's the wall of Yoshihara's living room filled with his grandchildren's crayon drawings.
Yoshihara is a 10th-generation swordsmith. His grandfather produced katana (long swords) for the Showa emperor, and his brother, Shoji, plays a swordsmith in Tom Cruise's upcoming movie "The Last Samurai."
By law, Yoshihara is only allowed to forge two katana, or three shorter swords, per month. The shorter swords include the tanto, which is shorter than 30 cm, and the wakizashi, which spans from 30 to 60 cm. In the Momoyama and Edo periods, samurai wore both a wakizashi and katana at their waist. The longer katana is defined as a blade over 60 cm in length.
Yoshihara sells and exhibits his pieces to clients both in the United States and Japan. His son, Yoshikazu, just won the 2002 Takamatsumiya Award from the premier national sword organization, the Society for the Preservation of Japanese Art Swords.
The final touches Before he can think about selling his wares though, Yoshihara must heat, fold, hammer, slather, quench and polish 5 kg of steel into a 1 kg piece of art. That is only the beginning. His blade is then passed on to at least four other craftsman before it is returned to Yoshihara for the final touches.
Katana in the making
Yoshihara says the most difficult part of making a sword is reworking and tempering the special steel he buys that is made in a tatara (Japanese-style smelter). Steel, an alloy, is formed in the smelter by heating iron-oxide sand, or iron ore, so that it naturally combines with the carbon released from burning charcoal.
About 2 to 3 kg of steel at a time are heated at 1,300 degrees and hammered into flat sheets 0.5 cm thick. The sheets are then laid on top of each other and hammered together over the fire. Once the steel is malleable enough, the metal is folded over onto itself several dozen times.
After the hard steel form of the sword has been made in this way, a soft inner layer of steel is sandwiched in between and the blade is then shaped into the length of the final sword. Japanese blades are so outstanding because they combine two types of steel, a soft but flexible low-carbon inner layer, and a hard, high-carbon outer layer that forms the cutting edge.
Crafting a strong and flexible blade from naturally nonhomogeneous iron ore is an art that is slowly learned over time. "I wish I could take a pill and automatically have that sense," says Yoshihara's disciple, Hiroshi Yamashita.
Yoshikazu Yoshihira applies clay to a blade.
"You have to know what a good sword is," explains Yoshihara. "But then you have to be able to produce that with your hands."
After the inner and outer layers are hammered into a sword, two types of insulating clay are painted on. A thick clay is added to the cutting edge, while a thinner clay is spread along the smooth edge.
The blade is then heated and quenched in water. The layers of clay affect the cooling rate of the metal, thus adding another dimension of hard and soft metal to the sword. The pattern left by the clay is called the hamon (temper pattern), whose beauty is one measure of the swordsmith's art.
At this point the sword is passed onto a polisher. Depending on the sword, the polisher usually spends about eight days on one blade. With a new one, the time is evenly split between relatively rough polishing, using stones slightly larger than a video cassette, and the final polishing, which includes the use of paper-thin stones glued onto a special kind of washi paper.
Yoshihiko Usuki, a Japanese sword polisher who works with Yoshihara out of his shitamachi studio in Tokyo, compares sword polishing to fixing someone's makeup. "Every sword is different; you have to figure out how to polish each individual sword."
Yoshikazu's father, Yoshindo, incises his plum design on another sword.
Usuki tries to remove the least amount of metal possible. "You can only take away from a sword," he explains, "you cannot add to it."
Usuki likens sword blades to manju (stuffed dumplings), with the soft inner layer being the anko red-bean paste and the outer layer the steamed bread. "You cannot polish away so much of the outer surface, otherwise the anko starts to show."
Sword polishing does not run in Usuki's family: He was a disciple for 10 years before opening his workshop in 1985. As a parting gift, his teacher gave him a lifetime supply of the washi paper used in the last steps of the polishing process. "The craftsman that made the paper is no longer around," says Usuki, now aged 46.
The highlight of Usuki's career was a Kamakura Period blade he encountered last year. A collector who has known Usuki for many years asked him to repolish the sword. Even though steel naturally tarnishes over time, this blade was in perfect condition. Usuki was amazed by the thought of how many people had to be involved in preserving the blade for the past 800 years.
Knots and lines Usuki feels that this particular sword was an example of an object choosing its owner. After all, he says, "I can't go to a museum and just ask to polish a national treasure."
Yoshihiko Usuki uses slivers of stone glued to washi paper to put the final polish on a new sword.
Once a sword has been polished, a scabbard, the gold band around the handle end of the blade that locks the sword in its scabbard, a grip and a tsuba, or hand guard -- each an art form in itself -- must be crafted by other artisans. Often, the scabbard-maker will send his product to a lacquer craftsman as well. Finally, the sword and its casings are assembled and sent back to the swordsmith.
While Yoshihara makes katana to order, some are also sent to sword shops. Seikichi Kurokawa, owner of Harajuku-based Sokendo, judges them by the grain of their steel. When held up to the light, older swords reveal evenly shaped knots and lines like one would see in stained pine.
The value of the blade depends on when it was made and whether it is a superior example of the swordsmith's body of work. Kurokawa would ask about 3 million yen for a new, "healthy" blade. A sword from the Kamakura (1181-1330) or Muromachi (1390-1570) periods, however, would be twice as expensive.
While it is rare to find inferior swords, the black nicks and deep scratches on the surface of a low-quality blade make them easily distinguishable. "You have to ask yourself," says Kurokawa, "whether it is beautiful. We only sell beautiful swords."
------------------------------------- The Japan Times: March 16, 2003 (C) All rights reserved
...and I know...I know...it's S-W-O-R-D. (Boy, is my face red! One misspelled word and its right in the headline. Oh well,(sigh) builds character, I guess.
FedEx delivers anywhere, reliably, and if you declare the value of the items they can be insured.
It's nice to see there are still master craftsmen at work.
I'm confused here. I always thought the hard steel was the inner layer, and the low carbon steel was on the outside, to reinforce the relatively brittle high-carbon edge. At least that's the principal for wood-working chisels, which I understand many swordsmiths turned to during the Meiji restoration.
Another question: does anyone know how the Japanese arrived at that process? I ask because their are similar approaches: of course there's Damascus steel,which is strong but cannot yield a smooth cutting edge; its used for decorative effect. Before the Bessemer process made high-carbon steel relatively inexpensive chisel irons and the like were laminated as Japanese chisels and plane irons are today. Also, you can buy Swedish carving tools that are laminated in the same manner.
Anyway, the independent craftsman is the middle class, and will always be the foundation of any good society. It's nice to see one featured. I wish the media saluted some of the more prevalent forms of this strata, the GC's, mechanics, masons, electricians, teachers etc. Kids don't understand that skill, a "stock and trade" will win them autonomy.
I've handled some edged weapons made of Damascus, and I can tell you right now that it holds a very sharp edge.
You're absolutely right about the serrations along the finished edge. However, they were exceedingly fine and durable, as well as being relatively evenly spaced. To the naked eye, they appear just as smooth as any other blade, even though they aren't. In consideration of this, you might say that the edge of a damascene blade is a composite of many tiny blades, all working together to very efficiently cut through flesh and bone. Your "chef's knife" analogy is apt. But they also were resistant to dulling and breakage by repeated contact with metal armor, swords and shields. Their combination of hardness and suppleness was unbeatable by western swords.
That said, there are still many unsettled questions about Damascus. Here is an excellent article that further explores the relevant metalurgical properties. Sword Forum International has a lot of knowledgeable "edge freaks." You might enjoy it. And here's just a small sampling of the beautiful effects that can be created on these blades.
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