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Japanese Craft Workshop
University of Wisconsin La Crosse
Bill Fiorini, metalsmith at the University of Wisconsin and master bladesmith, recently held a craft workshop featuring three top Japanese craftsmen. Enomoto Sadahito, a swordsmith specializing in the shoshu style and norishige style o-hada and coming from a long line of swordsmiths, Asai Shoji, metalsmith specializing in high relief chasing and inlay of non ferrous alloys, and Ryoji Koie, ceramist working both in sculptural and vessel forms.
The workshop began as an internet drum beat and soon gathered momentum as metalsmiths from all over the country and England made plans to attend. Hank Knickmeier, Al Dippole, Howard Clark, Doc Price, Richard Furrer, Thomas McGuane, and Mike Blue represented the working bladesmiths in attendance. There were also top mokume artists and jewellers there making an interesting blend of skills and knowledge. Mokume artist, George Sawyer, was folded into the bladesmith group along with Joe Muench, metalsmith from St. Louis.
It was difficult to cover all that was going on, but I did manage to see a little of all the demonstrations. The most interesting for me, of course, was the Japanese swordsmith. Despite having to overcome the usual problems of having to work in a strange shop, with alien tools and a having a crowd of spectators leaning over his shoulder, Mr. Sadahito did a wonderful job of covering the basic steps in forging and heat treating a katana. He brought samples of tamahagane, Japanese iron, in all stages from the bloom, to flattened and graded pieces.
During his demonstration Mr. Sadahito made initial welds on a billet. The main differences aside from the steels and charcoal fire was his use of rice straw ash as a coating on the billet. He would roll the billet in the ash prior to returning it to the fire for reheating. Between the folds he sprinkled borax for his main flux.
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The folding and welding was much the same as we are doing with the Damascus and really nothing of note there to mention. The same can be said for the blade forging with the exception that he began forging the sunobe or rough shaped bar back at the tang end of the blade. He began in the area that would mark the end of the blade and drew down the edge bevel. Another difference was the he was careful to not only forge on both sides of the blade, but he also reversed his hold on the blade and was careful to final forge that section from the opposite direction, alternating holding onto the tang and the tip.
He worked about five inches of blade at one time and finish forged the shape before moving onto the next section. He worked with a down curving nose hammer of around 2 lbs and worked off a rectangular block of steel for an anvil. The forging process went fairly quickly and he was careful to measure the width of the blade as he was working it. Before he began working a new section, he would down curve it so that it would come back to straight as he forged the bevel. This was an experienced smith and he was able to correct the blade even when it became quite distorted from the forging. He didn't sight down the piece until the final stages and did very little forging on the flats or on the edge.
The point was not beveled any differently than the rest of the edge leaving the yokote for the grinding. Nor did he bother with the mune. The finished forging was accurate though quite rough. The edge dimension was around 1/8th, but there was a gentle taper from the guard to the tip though that must have been forged into the sunobe before he started. He did not do any special heat treatment when he was finished with the blade and merely let it normalize.
Clay coating the blade was a method new to me and began by mixing two separate clay formulas. One was a light tan color and the other was charcoal gray. When asked about the ingredients, he slyly said it was a secret, but it appeared that the darker clay was the same material as the lighter clay but with carbon added. They were mixed to a thin, runny consistency on a flat tray using a long bamboo spatula.
A base layer of the tan clay was applied to the entire surface of the blade and then scraped to a thin coating. Next the darker clay was applied as a line where the hamon would appear. Mr. Sadahito demonstrated several of the traditional lines by drawing the patterns on the base clay with a layer of the darker clay.
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The turn back at the tip was made by first placing a spot of clay and then drawing the lines back from that point joining the hamon line on the edge side and running to the mune on the back. Ashi lines were delicately and lightly applied to selective points. A joke was made about Mt. Fuji and he complied by creating one in the hamon and then removing it and the previous sample lines by wiping them out with the spatula.
After the hamon was applied to the blade, the base clay was again used to fill behind the line with a thicker layer of clay. The thickness of the back clay appeared to be around 1/8th in. and covered the mune. Once the clay was applied, the blade was set to dry above the fire.
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