Westmead Artificer - Knifemaking

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Artificer: [ART-IF-ISS-URR] : Noun: A craftsman who makes things

Restoration of a Daito - work in progress: part 2.

The koshirae have been made and mounted, and Carol at Photodiva has been busy again on my behalf...

The new tsuba - forged from 10mm copper plate down to 7-8mm thickness, rounded square shape, with a kozuka slot on the ura-side and a ko-sukashi dragonfly design on the omote.

Ura-side of tsuba showing kozuka slot. The current saya doesn't have a matching kozuka recess, but watch this space!

Ura-side of tsuka, showing menuki and habaki.

Omote-side of tsuka, showing the omote-side menuki (the hawk or possibly a raven in a pine tree) and the ko-sukashi dragonfly.

Ko-sukashi - negative relief , where the design is cut into the plate. The opposite is ji-sukashi, where the relief is positive, a large amount of plate being cut away, with the design then formed by the remaining plate. Strictly, this form of ji-sukashi is termed yo-sukashi. The other form is kage-sukashi, where a negative silhouette is cut, leaving only the outline of the design, like a pencil drawing.

More information here.