Restoring a Gendaito

G

gunome

Joined
Jan 8, 2006
Messages
4
I have a Showa era gendaito with the tang inscription (in my best romoji) Seki no Masayuki tsukuru. The blade has been appraised by a dealer but other than that I have little information to verify the appraisal or anything else about it. I visited the NTKHB once with photos of the blade and the tang. They were pretty disinterested in helping me finding out anything more about this blade or the maker. Ho hum...:mad:

Living in Australia as I do there are not a lot of polishers around for hand forged Japanese blades - none to be found in fact!! :( This thing is no work of art but I am keen to get it up to a nice polished state and also get it mounted in buke-zukuri mountings to replace the bits and pieces of shin-gunto mountings I have for it. Does anyone have any suggestions on ways to polish the blade without damaging it? Someone once suggested I use wet-and-dry paper but this seems a bit coarse even in the finest grade.

Luckily I have both halves of the original tsuka to use as templates to make a new one. I read another thread about using hammer handles etc as blanks. This sounds like a good idea and will definitely have a go.

Anyhow if anyone has any suggestions to offer to help me on this restoration I will appreciate any and all that are made.

Cheers

Gunome
 
You can use ivory, antler or bone scraper to remove the major rust and
then Neverdull (metal cleaner on cotton wadding) to remove some of
the stains. Don't use emory paper, etc. You could have the blade
polished and mounted for iaido with good quality repro mounts by
Fred Lohman in the US. Price reasonable. Link to his site below.

http://www.japanese-swords.com/

I've a couple Masayuki oshigata on my Showa oshigata page also.
The are several Masayuki listed in the various Gendai swordsmith
indexes on my site also.

http://www.geocities.com/alchemyst/nihonto.htm

A picture of the tang of your blade would help id it. Any tang stamps?

Rich S
 
Rich,
thanks for your reply.

I have a good set of b&w photos but don't have any digital at the moment. I have just visited your site from the link in your reply and realised that I have already spent hours there. After I wrote the thread last night, using the appraisal from the dealer, I went to your site and found an oshigata the same as the one on my blade on your Showa Oshigatoa Database - 'Seki Miwa Masayuki saku'. It is the same all the way down to the position and 'incompleteness' of the Showa stamp.

Knowing this much now can you add anything to the story of my blade?

I will now hunt around for a bone scraper and an Aussie equivalent to Neverdull. It is my plan to have the blade mounted for Iaido and I have found someone here in Oz who will do it for about the same price as I see on Fred Lohman's site. This would at least save me shipping the blade halfway across the world and back and all the associated customs and quarantine grief.

Cheers and congratulations on your excellent and informative web site.

GJ
 
Thanks for the kind words about my website. It is the compilation of
mine and many others efforts. Glad you find it useful.

Can't really add anything about your blade, sorry.
Glad you found someone "down under" to remount it for you.

Rich
 
What exactly is a bone or ivory scraper and how might I find one? I gather it is like a hand burnishing tool. I have searched the web for an Australian source but with no luck.

The brand of metal polish I have found that might be suitable is Wenol. Is anyone familiar with this polish? It appears to be used for scientific instruments etc so must be pretty fine grade and therefore appropriate for the project I am working on.

GJ
 
Ivory, antler or bone scraper. Just make it yourself (don't know anyone
who sells them). Take a piece and with a grinding wheel or file sharpen it
like a chisel on one end and pointed on the other. I find ivory works best,
the antler, bone is easiest to get and works ok.

Rich
 
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