How was this made?

The object in the photo is called a tsuba. It's a handguard for a
Japanese sword. I want to find out how a tsuba like this is made. Was
it cast, carved, or..?

Here's a link to the photo:
http://micknewton.smugmug.com/photos/123184715-O.jpg

It's just a guess, but I think it was cast, and then more detail was
added by hand.

BTW, I don't know anything about the tsuba myself. I don't even
remember where I found the photo. I just like the design and I'm
wondering how it was done. I especially like how they left some of the
bamboo stalks unpainted (unleafed?). It makes the design more three
dimensional.

Does anybody know how it was done, or even have a guess?

On Mon, 15 Jan 2007 17:47:21 +0000, Mick wrote:

The object in the photo is called a tsuba. It's a handguard for a
Japanese sword. I want to find out how a tsuba like this is made. Was
it cast, carved, or..?

Here's a link to the photo:
http://micknewton.smugmug.com/photos/123184715-O.jpg

It's just a guess, but I think it was cast, and then more detail was
added by hand.

BTW, I don't know anything about the tsuba myself. I don't even
remember where I found the photo. I just like the design and I'm
wondering how it was done. I especially like how they left some of the
bamboo stalks unpainted (unleafed?). It makes the design more three
dimensional.

Does anybody know how it was done, or even have a guess?

Inlay (takane, iroye, or zogan) was sometimes used
on these sword hilts, but this one just looks like cast low relief that
has been leafed. (O.T.: The rocks depicted seem more of a Chinese motif,
taihu garden rocks it appears. Japanese gardens use more subtle rocks.)

--
mbstevens
http://www.mbstevens.com/cgi/mkatt.p...hu_Texas_style

Mick wrote:
The object in the photo is called a tsuba. It's a handguard for a
Japanese sword. I want to find out how a tsuba like this is made. Was
it cast, carved, or..?

Here's a link to the photo:
http://micknewton.smugmug.com/photos/123184715-O.jpg

It's just a guess, but I think it was cast, and then more detail was
added by hand.

BTW, I don't know anything about the tsuba myself. I don't even
remember where I found the photo. I just like the design and I'm
wondering how it was done. I especially like how they left some of the
bamboo stalks unpainted (unleafed?). It makes the design more three
dimensional.

Does anybody know how it was done, or even have a guess?



Well, for one, you could have used Google. You may have heard of it,
it's a rather decent search engine. You could have used a simple search
term like "tsuba making", which would have yielded 44,000 results. Or
just "tsuba", which would have yielded 389,000 results. Could it be,
that you are just a wee bit lazy?!?

Having said that, I do know a bit about bushido (look it up!). I have
had a 35 year interest in the matter.

From the style and decorations, is is clear, that this tsuba is from a
later period, after the establishment of the Shogunate (1603, after the
Battle of Sekigahara in 1600), and was only meant to be used
decoratively. From the image, it seems that this particular tsuba was
never even mounted on a sword. This is definitely not a tsuba that a
warrior would have taken into battle. Much too nice for that.

Tsubas, that were used in battle during the period of the Japanese civil
wars were usually just plain iron. After the establishment of the
Shogunate, when the country was at piece, strict rules were established
for who could carry swords, and how they should be carried. The
Shogunate established a very strict dress code, for practically every
aspect of daily life. This included the appearance of tsubas.

During the Muromachi period (1333-1573) and the Momoyama period
(1573-1603) Tsubas were more for functionality than for decoration,
being made of stronger metals and designs. During the Edo period
(1603-1868) there was peace in japan so tsubas became more ornamental
and made of less practical metals such as gold.

Tsubas like this one were carved out of high quality iron. After
carving the gold was inlaid by master craftsmen. What you call "left
some of the bamboo stalks unpainted", is most likely not that, but
rather "shakudo" or another applied metal alloy, which was also inlaid
over the steel.

--
Abrasha
http://www.abrasha.com

mbstevens wrote:

Inlay (takane, iroye, or zogan) was sometimes used
on these sword hilts, but this one just looks like cast low relief that
has been leafed. (O.T.: The rocks depicted seem more of a Chinese motif,
taihu garden rocks it appears. Japanese gardens use more subtle rocks.)

It's hard to tell from the photo, but the background appears to be a
fine nanako (fish roe) pattern in concentric circles. Is it possible to
get detail that fine from a casting, or would that need to be added
after casting?

On Tue, 16 Jan 2007 01:14:55 +0000, Mick wrote:

It's hard to tell from the photo, but the background appears to be a
fine nanako (fish roe) pattern in concentric circles. Is it possible to
get detail that fine from a casting, or would that need to be added
after casting?


Maybe the original base was
simply sanded with an oval motion, then wax decorations modeled over the
sanded surface before a casting was made.

Or cast decorations could have been
applied to the oval-sanded steel base, perhaps by brazing, before being
leafed.

It's really hard to tell without having the piece in your hand.

On Mon, 15 Jan 2007 20:24:19 -0800, in rec.crafts.jewelry mbstevens
wrote:

On Tue, 16 Jan 2007 01:14:55 +0000, Mick wrote:

It's hard to tell from the photo, but the background appears to be a
fine nanako (fish roe) pattern in concentric circles. Is it possible to
get detail that fine from a casting, or would that need to be added
after casting?


Maybe the original base was
simply sanded with an oval motion, then wax decorations modeled over the
sanded surface before a casting was made.

Or cast decorations could have been
applied to the oval-sanded steel base, perhaps by brazing, before being
leafed.

It's really hard to tell without having the piece in your hand.


True, but considering the amazingly skilled longtime traditions in Japanese
metalsmithing for inlay, chasing, chisel work, hammer work, and not so much for
casting comparatively, I'd say you're probably safe assuming an iron sheet metal
base oval, textured/engraved with chisels, gravers, and punches etc, the design
area chiseled out to recieve cold inlaid gold and other alloys in pieces then
further worked and shaped to the desired designs. I doubt any brazing or hot
joining would have been used or needed, nor any casting. Just cold inlay in the
finest traditions of japanese, and western engraving/chasing artists, of which
the Japanese smiths are and were, absolute masters.

In short, go with Abrasha's fine description.

My two cents.

mbstevens wrote:
On Mon, 15 Jan 2007 17:47:21 +0000, Mick wrote:

The object in the photo is called a tsuba. It's a handguard for a
Japanese sword. I want to find out how a tsuba like this is made. Was
it cast, carved, or..?

Here's a link to the photo:
http://micknewton.smugmug.com/photos/123184715-O.jpg

It's just a guess, but I think it was cast, and then more detail was
added by hand.

BTW, I don't know anything about the tsuba myself. I don't even
remember where I found the photo. I just like the design and I'm
wondering how it was done. I especially like how they left some of the
bamboo stalks unpainted (unleafed?). It makes the design more three
dimensional.

Does anybody know how it was done, or even have a guess?

Inlay (takane, iroye, or zogan) was sometimes used
on these sword hilts,

It's not a sword hilt!

but this one just looks like cast low relief

No, it odes not.

that
has been leafed. (O.T.: The rocks depicted seem more of a Chinese motif,
taihu garden rocks it appears. Japanese gardens use more subtle rocks.)


Tsubas were almost never cast. Especially the older ones.

For one, they did not have the technology, and two, if they did, no self
respecting Samurai would have accepted cast tsubas on his daisho.

You see, cast iron is very brittle, and during battle a direct blow to
the tsuba would simply break it, and possibly cost the poor fellow his life!

Only recently have cheap cast copies of tsubas flooded the market. The
tsuba in the photo seems to be an example of very fine craftsmanship,
although it is difficult to tell with certainty from an image.

--
Abrasha
http://www.abrasha.com

On Tue, 16 Jan 2007 04:30:56 +0000, Peter W.. Rowe, wrote:

In short, go with Abrasha's fine description.

My two cents.

I don't think I can go with you and Abrasha on this one. The examples of
relief work I've seen of these with reliefs show a trench carved around
the depicted object, to make room to carve the relief. Those that don't
show nanako that is not as regular as this piece shows. My guess is that
this is a (more or less) contemporary piece, which means that any
technique available to modern jewelers could have been used.

To carve that relief with the perfect background without making a trench
would have required a machine to rout it out. I suppose the reliefs could
have been pressed into undercut grooves, as the classical ones were, but
then they'd have to recut the top of the reliefs because of the hammering.

I suspect this is that it's just a casting with gold applied to the relief.
The way the gold flakes makes me think it could have been an amalgum
instead of leaf, but it's not perfectly clear one way or the other.

On Tue, 16 Jan 2007 04:30:56 +0000, Peter W.. Rowe, wrote:

In short, go with Abrasha's fine description.

One possibility that I didn't think of in my other post to you was that
occasionally the reliefs were attached with pins. This is also a
possibility, although the tiny leaf tips and such seem to be very flat to
the background. I'm still going with a contemporary casting.

Mick wrote:
The object in the photo is called a tsuba. It's a handguard for a
Japanese sword. I want to find out how a tsuba like this is made.
http://micknewton.smugmug.com/photos/123184715-O.jpg

If it's modern, chances are that it's cast. Probably diecast in zinc!
"Gold" areas wil be surface gilded rather than inlaid.

In period, tsuba were iron and tsuba weren't cast. Of course there were
cast iron tsuba - the only vaguely "old" tsuba I own are Satsuma period
ones in just this style. However they're not part of the classical
tradition and even a standard book like Sato's "The Japananese Sword"
manages to avoid mentioning them altogether.

The first tsuba were the "armourer" style, made by swordsmiths (or at
least, in their workshops). They were simple flat iron disks with a
raised rim at most (forged) and a few characters or a simple design
pierced through them. Some later ones started to show simple line
engraving in kebori technique.

In the later part of the Muromachi period specialist tsuba makers began
to appear. They still worked flat iron disks but the piercing had
extended to become an overall design with more hole than iron. Patterns
like pierced spoked wheels or swirling commas appeared. A few tsuba of
this period begin to show _raised_ designs and stylised mon, formed by
punching with a recessed punch and then hammer-working the rest of the
disk down thinner.

Thin-line zogan inlay techniques began too, where contrasting lines of
brass, silver, gold or shakudo are inlaid. This technique is similar to
the contemporary komai techniques seen on many post-war cigarette cases
and small jewellery items. Even enamel started to be used, particularly
in combination with inlay (shippo zogan technique) akin to cloisonne.
Base materials other than iron were used, the copper alloys of shakudo
or shibuichi. Japanese patination techniques are based (unlike the
West) around standard reagents and varying the alloy mix instead. Pure
copper wasn't (AFAIK) used in more than small spots, as it doesn't have
mechanical strength or the same aesthetic potential.

In Edo times tsuba became far more sophisticated. The takabori iroe
technique of high relief designs applied in a contrasting metal began,
typically brass figures on a solid iron ground. Different schools
specialised in different techniques, some new, some developments of the
old pierced and fine inlay styles. A few makers used dark yamagane
copper alloys as a base metal. Metalwork other than the tsuba began to
grow in complexity around this time, particularly the increasing demand
for mitokoromono (menuki, kozuka and kogai), usually with finer detail
and showier gilding or gold inlay than was possible for a working
tsuba.

The most distinctive tsba though are probably those of the late Edo
period and the development of the shishiaibori technique in iron.
Although it looks like casting and these days it usually is, this was a
technique for carving relief figures into an iron plate by reducing the
depth of the surrounding.

In the Satsuma period increasing civil unrest led to a demand for cheap
wakizashi for the use of townspeople (they wouldn't dream of carrying a
full length sword). These were the swords where the cast iron tsuba
finally appeared, and fine pieces of Victorian factory engineering they
were too. Iron needs a higher temperature than bronzes to pour and so
the casting techniques are limited. Investment and lost-wax techniques
weren't practical. Although cast iron itself wasn't new, the ability to
cast it to anything like this level of detail certainly was.
Developments in domestic goods such as tetsubin had provided this.

The military swords after the 1876 edict were deliberately Western in
style (the first were made in Sheffield) and rejected tradition. As
with most Western swords, fittings were cast in brass. When the Showa
period nationalism re-instated the tachi style as the shin gunto, this
relatively untraditional material of detailed brass casting with little
applied work afterwards was adopted, albeit styled in a traditionally
florid manner of sakura blossom.

All three of these last sword patterns are avidly collected in the
West, yet snubbed in Japan as not being part of the "true" tradition.
So there are plenty of cast iron tsuba still around, but little
interest in them in their native land.