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mattacme

Member Since 2006

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Saturday Mar 24, 2012

Mar 24, 2012
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Another Japan photo post to mark the passing of my favorite teacher this past week.

Meet Miyano Dai Endo (his professional name) known to many of those who were close to him as Yataiki. Like my Temple carpenter teacher Fujieda san, I met Endo san at a Japanese woodworking demonstration and seminar in southern New Hampshire in the early 1980s. Yataiki was the last in a long line of great swordsmiths. A swordsmith will typically only take on a son as an apprentice and while he and his wonderful wife were blessed with healthy children none were boys, so the traditions of his swordmaking line have now ended. The pictures below show the stages of the birth of a sword. These sorts of images are quite rare.

SPOILERS! (Click to view)
The top of the top image shows a small chunk of raw steel (right) and next to it a small pile of somewhat refined steel in sections, ready to be joined by heating and forge welding. Immediately below that is the next stage of refinement, all welded together and being hammered into a solid mass. The bar that sticks out to the left is only attached so that the smith can easily insert the steel into the fire and remove it for hammering. Below that is the body steel of a sword, ready to be folded to receive the hard (edge) steel. Next is the forge welded billet with both the softer outer steel and the very hard edge steel, ready to be drawn to length. Now the welded on bar is gone and the blade has been drawn to length, but remains straight and un-tapered at the edge. Finally, the shaped blade, with it's curve and nearly finished cross section defined, as well as the tip.
Again, same samples.Now this is really rare to get a look at: a sword prior to tempering, with the clay slurry carefully applied in very carefully controlled thicknesses and a pattern of one thickness with an added layer intermittently set. This will create a shadowy, rippled look to the polished edge. The slurry is applied and allowed to completely dry prior to the whole sword being heated to the perfect temperature and then plunged into a bath of oil or sometimes water, depending on the smith and the steel and the desired effect, to quench it.


I spent a day making steel from scrap antique (pre-industrial) iron objects, such as an ancient iron pot, broken up carefully into pieces the size of half a fingernail, as well as old nails, some heated in the fire and stretched, others cut into 1/2 inch pieces.

SPOILERS! (Click to view)



After preparing the forge, we built a fire using wood charcoal and started adding in the scrap iron, a little at a time.

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

This process lasted many hours. By the time we drew the mass of molten raw steel from the forge it was well after dark.


While a celebrated swordsmith, the bulk of Yataiki's blacksmithing income came from the making of woodworking saws. I have several of his blades and treasure them as great works of art. Here are some pictures of his saw scraping and tuning work area.

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

The area to the left was where he worked and you can see the pale grey shavings of scraped steel on his bench top.


Yataiki was an Ai-to master, a No master, an Urusenke tea master, at the time these pictures were taken the president of the International Calligraphy Association (one often sees his calligraphy on commercial products to this day) a Go master of the highest ranking, a poet, perhaps the greatest blacksmith of his generation and the most gentle and generous man I have ever known. The sadness I feel at his passing is so easily eclipsed by the light he brought to my life and many others. I revere him above any other and from the time we met considered him my master, and was privileged to do so.

VIEW 25 of 40 COMMENTS
dizzy:
Thank me??? I just posted a funny pic. You write journals that are monuments. Thank YOU!
Apr 7, 2012
robetesatemynoir:
other than padillas effort where was our bullpen this opening series? your call on aceves seems to be right on.

i am hopeful that with the injuries healing (becketts thumb) and the rotation being sorted out (dice-k /bailey returning)we will improve.
Apr 8, 2012

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