SOTW #19 - Assembling the Inome Tanto
Вставка
- Опубліковано 8 сер 2019
- Making-of and photos here: islandblacksmith.ca/2019/07/in...
The inome (pronounced “ee-no-may”, 猪の目, eye of the boar) name comes from the pierced heart-shape designs on the decorative o-seppa (washers) on either side of the tsuba (handguard). This lovely motif is ubiquitous in Japan, seen often in architecture, furniture, and sword mountings. In this context, the inome symbol conveys the idea of the always forward-moving wild boar of Japan’s forests and mountains, never giving up or retreating.
This tanto was forged from an antique horse-drawn carriage spring in 2016, was used at several demos as an example of the forged surface as it comes out of the fire, made a cameo in a short film in 2017 as one of the filing stages, was finished with geometry inspired by a visit to Japan in 2018, and is the first of my blades to incorporate antique sword parts in its mounting (there are 4, the rest is newly crafted for this piece).
The blade began as a reclaimed carriage spring and was hand forged in a charcoal fire, smoothed with files and a sen scraper, differentially hardened using traditional water quench yaki-ire, and polished by hand with natural Japanese water stones.
This tanto consists of ten separate components that began as twenty-two individual pieces, crafted and finished entirely with hand tools and traditional techniques.
Materials for the chisagatana style koshirae mounting include Japanese hounoki wood for the handle and scabbard, copper bus bar for the habaki, reclaimed brass doorplate for a seppa, buffalo horn for the mekugi and kurikata, and an iron spike salvaged from thirty feet under the Pacific for the tsuba. The centerpiece of the mounting comes from an outdoor antique market in Kyoto, a gold-accented Edo-era fuchi made from nanako-ji (魚子地, fish roe) textured shakudo (a traditional alloy of gold, silver, and copper). The tsuba sits between two Showa-era zouheitou (officer’s sword) o-seppa with pierced inome (猪の目, eye of the boar) motifs. The saya is finished in black sabi-nuri (rust texture) style ishime-ji (stone surface) made from natural source urushi lacquer and ground tea leaves, and the koiguchi band is also antique.
Blade has a hira-zukuri profile, suguha hamon with artifact on the omote, an iori mune, and an ubuha (unsharpened portion near the hamachi). The blade is 8.75″ long, overall length is just under 13.5″, and the overall length of the koshirae is just over 15″.
Specifications
長さ/刃長 Nagasa: 7 sun 3 bu 5 rin (222mm)
元幅 Motohaba: 9 bu (27mm)
重ね/元重 Motokasane: 2 bu 3 rin (7mm)
反り Sori: uchizori
中心/茎 Nakago: 3 sun 6 bu (109mm)
柄長 Tsuka: 3 sun 2 bu 5 rin (93mm)
拵全長 Koshirae: 12 sun 6 bu (382mm)
形 Katachi: hira-zukuri, iori-mune
刃文 Hamon: suguha, with ubuha
帽子/鋩子 Boshi: ko-maru
中心/茎 Nakago: futsu, kuri-jiri, one mekugi-ana, signed near the tip
銘 Mei: hot stamped katabami-ken kamon
拵 Koshirae: chisagatana, issaku (with the addition of four antique parts)
Material: Reclaimed carriage spring steel, Edo-period gold and shakudo nanako fuchi, antique brass koiguchi and Showa-era zouheitou o-seppa, ocean-salvaged iron spike, copper bus bar, brass doorplate, buffalo horn, Hounoki, leather, natural urushi and tea leaves, antique silk cord
Making-of and photos here: islandblacksmith.ca/2019/07/inome-tanto/
The inome (pronounced “ee-no-may”, 猪の目, eye of the boar) name comes from the pierced heart-shape designs on the decorative o-seppa (washers) on either side of the tsuba (handguard). This lovely motif is ubiquitous in Japan, seen often in architecture, furniture, and sword mountings. In this context, the inome symbol conveys the idea of the always forward-moving wild boar of Japan’s forests and mountains, never giving up or retreating.
This tanto was forged from an antique horse-drawn carriage spring in 2016, was used at several demos as an example of the forged surface as it comes out of the fire, made a cameo in a short film in 2017 as one of the filing stages, was finished with geometry inspired by a visit to Japan in 2018, and is the first of my blades to incorporate antique sword parts in its mounting (there are 4, the rest is newly crafted for this piece).
The blade began as a reclaimed carriage spring and was hand forged in a charcoal fire, smoothed with files and a sen scraper, differentially hardened using traditional water quench yaki-ire, and polished by hand with natural Japanese water stones.
This tanto consists of ten separate components that began as twenty-two individual pieces, crafted and finished entirely with hand tools and traditional techniques.
Materials for the chisagatana style koshirae mounting include Japanese hounoki wood for the handle and scabbard, copper bus bar for the habaki, reclaimed brass doorplate for a seppa, buffalo horn for the mekugi and kurikata, and an iron spike salvaged from thirty feet under the Pacific for the tsuba. The centerpiece of the mounting comes from an outdoor antique market in Kyoto, a gold-accented Edo-era fuchi made from nanako-ji (魚子地, fish roe) textured shakudo (a traditional alloy of gold, silver, and copper). The tsuba sits between two Showa-era zouheitou (officer’s sword) o-seppa with pierced inome (猪の目, eye of the boar) motifs. The saya is finished in black sabi-nuri (rust texture) style ishime-ji (stone surface) made from natural source urushi lacquer and ground tea leaves, and the koiguchi band is also antique.
Blade has a hira-zukuri profile, suguha hamon with artifact on the omote, an iori mune, and an ubuha (unsharpened portion near the hamachi). The blade is 8.75″ long, overall length is just under 13.5″, and the overall length of the koshirae is just over 15″.
Specifications
長さ/刃長 Nagasa: 7 sun 3 bu 5 rin (222mm)
元幅 Motohaba: 9 bu (27mm)
重ね/元重 Motokasane: 2 bu 3 rin (7mm)
反り Sori: uchizori
中心/茎 Nakago: 3 sun 6 bu (109mm)
柄長 Tsuka: 3 sun 2 bu 5 rin (93mm)
拵全長 Koshirae: 12 sun 6 bu (382mm)
形 Katachi: hira-zukuri, iori-mune
刃文 Hamon: suguha, with ubuha
帽子/鋩子 Boshi: ko-maru
中心/茎 Nakago: futsu, kuri-jiri, one mekugi-ana, signed near the tip
銘 Mei: hot stamped katabami-ken kamon
拵 Koshirae: chisagatana, issaku (with the addition of four antique parts)
Material: Reclaimed carriage spring steel, Edo-period gold and shakudo nanako fuchi, antique brass koiguchi and Showa-era zouheitou o-seppa, ocean-salvaged iron spike, copper bus bar, brass doorplate, buffalo horn, Hounoki, leather, natural urushi and tea leaves, antique silk cord
Beautiful tanto! Love the seppa. Craftsmanship is incredible, very well done!
Gotta love the ritual! Beautiful work!
...thanks for connecting me with the zouheitou seppa!
Master piece
This makes ne want to light my forge again!!! Outstanding craftsmanship!
Made skills from long practice!
love ur works the tanto looks magnificent
She’s a beauty!!! Well done brother.
very much appreciated, the form, colours, and materials certainly work well together on this tanto...
Perfect
new blog entry, time to get my reading glasses!
good read and close ups of the impressive detail work.
the process to produce the tekkotsu pattern on the surface of the tsuba sounds really interesting!
any chance we might see pictures of the ocean salvaged spike?
im curious how it looked before forging.
you can see a similar process on these projects:
islandblacksmith.ca/2015/12/touzai-fusion-tanto/#tsuba
islandblacksmith.ca/process/carving-saya-scabbard/#kurikata
I miss when I forged and made the pieces.
Talk about glamor shots.
..just hit the lighting and colour palatte right on this one!
How did they do the dotted texture on the fuchi?
with a very tiny inverted dot punch...one at a time...there is a close up photo down in the process section on the website with the correct angle of lighting to actually show the outside of the overlapped punch marks: islandblacksmith.ca/2019/07/inome-tanto/#assembly
No one cares for bonsai either ordinary ppl just do not get it.