Need an Assist on Japanese

[David Weaver]

Can anyone tell me what my irons actually say on them? I know who made each iron, but I have no clue what they say.

Obviously, if you can't read kanji, then it'll be difficult to tell.

I'll put them in different posts (because i have more than five pictures). Apologies for the poor photography - it's kind of hard to photograph the things, and the lighting will look a little funny because the pictures are rotated.

First one, takeo nakano (supposedly togo inukubi) - all clickable pictures.

184974

[David Weaver]

Next is mosaku - white steel. First the iron:
184976

And the subblade.


184975

[David Weaver]

And the ogata (sorry, this one is hard to read):

Front of the iron:

184977

back of the iron.

184978

And the subblade.

184979

[David Weaver]

Again, thanks in advance for anyone willing to take the time to look at these. It's not like I can just look at the front of them and type the symbols into google translate.

[george wilson]

I can't see them well enough to read them if they were in English!!!:)

[David Weaver]

I think the top one says "George. D. Wilson, Maker" on the back of it.

[george wilson]

Rub some chalk in the letters. You can scrub it out later with your wife's toothbrush.:)

No,I didn't make them. I'm not into reticulated surfaces.

[Johnny Kleso]

I belong to the one who brings the new way with the old :)

[David Weaver]

I can't see them well enough to read them if they were in English!!!:)

Did you click on the pictures and click through until they were full size? If you can't read them then, you should get your money back from those eye surgery guys!

[george wilson]

What are you doing up so late?????

[Adam Cormier]

Well I can't translate it but I will say they are very interesting pieces! Where did you get them?

[Stanley Covington]

Center in large kanji: Tougou.

Left: "Takenori Saku" meaning "made by Takenori." The smith is named Nakano Takeo, so I think he has combined the "Take" character, which is also the "bu" in "bushi" with "nori" meaning "rule" or "law." This is a more classical name and the addition of nori has implications beyond blacksmithing.

Right: "Tougou hagane." This refers to a variety of steel used early in the 20th century, originally, if I remember correctly, for military swords in Japan.

Nakano is a smith living in the city of Yoita in Niigata prefecture.

[Stanley Covington]

Center: "Kami" meaning God, gods, or having to do with the divine. Since the smith's actual name is Kanda, combining the same "god" character with "field," I suspect he simply employed the first character in his family name.

Left: "Mosaku" in hiragana phonetics. This word can have multiple meanings, and it is impossible to tell what he intended without an explanation from him, but the most common usage of the word, and one that implies he has a sense of humor, is to "hunt about" or "grope" for something, such as the best way to do something, or for skill to make something.


Next is mosaku - white steel. First the iron:
184976

And the subblade.


184975

[Stanley Covington]

Everything but the center is hard to read, but I was able to find very similar blades easier to read on the web.

Face Center: "Nami no Hanna" meaning "sea foam," "salt," or a type of edible seaweed. Probably he means sea foam since it is a bit more romantic in the Japanese tradition, at least until you get into what it is actually made of.

Face Left: "Ogata　Shuji　Saku" meaning Made by Shiji Ogata. I might be wrong about his first name since the characters in this combination can be read several ways, but I think this is the most likely pronunciation after checking with some other guys here in the office.

Face Right: "nyukon." Meaning = everything; best effort; I can't do any better. The first character means to enter, or put into, the second character means spirit, as in the individuals spirit, or the "spirit" of bushido.

Back: Wow, this is hard to read as it was carved quickly without much style. A portion of it seems to refer to "sword blade forging method." From what I have found on the web, he is proud of his "secret" methods, using "low temperature forging" techniques. He has carved portions of this detail in blades seen on the web, but that does not appear to be what he carved into the back of yours. Do a pencil rubbing, or put some white crayon into the cuts and perhaps it will be legible.

Chipbreaker: Nami no Hanna. Pretty fam dancy carving for a chipbreaker.

Stan

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[Sam Takeuchi]

Just a side note on Togo hagane. There were wide range of Togo brand steels that were designed for various things, not just for sword. The range of steels covered anything from HSS (drill bit) to non-cutting tool steel (mining tools for example).


Here (http://www.photohighway.co.jp/ImageView2.asp?key=687.704442&un=77293&m=0&type=2&cnt=5156)for what's written on each label (in Japanese, but should be understandable through google translate).

[David Wong]

Another side note about Tougou steel. There is a writeup on japan-tool.com (http://www.japan-tool.com/tech_knlg/Togo_Reigou_and_Yokoyama_Kunio.html). The steel was named after a great admiral in the Japanese navy (1848-1934). See wikipedia link here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tōgō_Heihachirō).

[David Weaver]

Thanks for the heads up, Dave. I've read several different things about the inukubi steel, but in my experience (only with this one plane blade), So's page is the most accurate.

It is easy to sharpen, it gets very sharp and it holds an edge reasonably long. It is not going to win any edge holding contests, but from looking at its content (not really that much alloying and carbon around 1.1 or 1.2% if I recall), it performs as you'd expect.

I have never used blue #1 in a plane, so I can't compare. The yamamoto planes are harder to sharpen and require a stronger cutting stone than does the nakano inukubi plane (though none of these planes are any trouble on synthetic stones - it's the natural stones that sometimes don't cut as well with the tough steels). I still have one of the yamamotos, probably sold them in error, because they are the best combination of price and features. Very straightforward with a good tough steel. I have been completely unable to get any response from Takeshi Kuroda about getting one with a longer dai, and gave up.

[David Weaver]

Well I can't translate it but I will say they are very interesting pieces! Where did you get them?

1st one - from the administrator of woodnet. Someone tried to get him into japanese planes, and he said it wasn't his thing.
2nd one - from ebay just this last week
3rd one - from alex gilmore, a guy who sells stones and blades

It is not easy to find much for reasonable prices in the US. The hardware stores here have *really* high prices on anything but basic planes (i think the yamamoto planes JWW has are probably the only reasonable full featured planes I've seen).

All of the above were fairly reasonable, only the second one was in the range of a LN plane, though the first is a little more than LN planes if you have to buy it new.

The third one was an example of why it can sometimes be hard to find decent stuff here. Several years ago, there was a dealer selling that blacksmith's work in japan and to the US, I'm paraphrasing what I saw elsewhere that sort of gives the name a taint: the dealer was selling the irons in planes for $350 to anyone who lived in japan, but was selling for $500 to "dumb foreigners" who couldn't read japanese to compare prices.

It's getting better, but the hardware stores over here still have really high markups and sell for much more than the cost of ordering from a hardware store in japan.

[David Weaver]

Stanley - thank you for taking the time to go through them and translate, it is much appreciated. You are right, the ogata subblade is dressy, but it wasn't expensive, so I don't mind as long as the iron is a good one. I won't know that until I make a dai for it, but the blacksmith has a good reputation here, despite the fact that a dealer selling his stuff several years ago took advantage of english speaking buyers by charging them 30+% more than on his japanese language page.

Ogata apparently had some stock and alex got it directly from him, which is probably why it was reasonable in price. I still haven't been able to find anyting about what "swedish blue steel" is, but i don't so much care what steel irons are as long as they are done well.

Google translate does a poor job with the metals page, but I gather from the entry of inukubi (which translates as "dogs..") that it says the usual stuff about being hard to stretch and something along the lines of "please do not use a grinder with it". The rest of the stuff is kind of hard to figure out. The way it works on a stone and in use, it's very easy to sharpen and use - it would be good as a first plane, but if you don't find it over here in a used plane, it is too costly to be sensible to buy. Reigou would be interesting to try, but it has gone through the roof and then some, it's a collector's item over here and out of my comfort zone for price.

[Stanley Covington]

Stanley - thank you for taking the time to go through them and translate, it is much appreciated. You are right, the ogata subblade is dressy, but it wasn't expensive, so I don't mind as long as the iron is a good one. I won't know that until I make a dai for it, but the blacksmith has a good reputation here, despite the fact that a dealer selling his stuff several years ago took advantage of english speaking buyers by charging them 30+% more than on his japanese language page.

Ogata apparently had some stock and alex got it directly from him, which is probably why it was reasonable in price. I still haven't been able to find anyting about what "swedish blue steel" is, but i don't so much care what steel irons are as long as they are done well.

Google translate does a poor job with the metals page, but I gather from the entry of inukubi (which translates as "dogs..") that it says the usual stuff about being hard to stretch and something along the lines of "please do not use a grinder with it". The rest of the stuff is kind of hard to figure out. The way it works on a stone and in use, it's very easy to sharpen and use - it would be good as a first plane, but if you don't find it over here in a used plane, it is too costly to be sensible to buy. Reigou would be interesting to try, but it has gone through the roof and then some, it's a collector's item over here and out of my comfort zone for price.


David:

It seems likely you have some good blades there. I would very much like to hear about the results of your efforts.

Inukubi translates directly as Dog Neck, but I am not certain of the origin of the term, do you?

If you like I can buy a specific plane or blade for you here and send it to you. I just learned yesterday (or at least I just got final word yesterday vs rumors) that I am to be assigned to open the company's office in Guam in April. Wife is very unhappy about it, let me tell you, and Guam is not exactly a woodworking heaven, so I am going to stock up while I am here.

Stan

[george wilson]

I am impressed with some of you guy's erudition!!

[David Weaver]

Stanley, I have no idea why it's called dog's neck. Our dogs have necks that are kind of floppy and soft, that's not real flattering for a steel name! It is, though, a very mellow steel. I didn't really pick, it was just available for cheap pretty much unused, so I bought it as the second plane I ever bought (after a funjii). Fortunately, someone has pretty much fit the iron perfectly and it was only a might snug, so there wasn't a risk as the second plane I fit of really screwing up the dai.

I have to cool it for a little bit on the planes (on buying), but your offer is attractive. How long do you think you'll be in guam? I won't likely be buying anything else before april, but i'm certainly not finished buying japanese irons for the long term. At this point, I need to back-fill a little bit and get some better irons for the rougher work, but maybe not as good as those shown. I have a good yamamoto iron that I want to make another longer dai for for flattening, but coarser than that and all I have is two funjii planes, and their irons are good for the price, i guess, but they wear very fast...and visibly so, just like an old american wooden plane. Similar edge life, i'd say. The yamamoto irons are very good for the price, really the best I have seen over here price to performance, but the only retailer who carries them keeps increasing the price such that the price on them is only really good if you go overseas to get them. They have a tough steel and they can do a lot of things well. Most of the other planes in the $200 range here are white #2 or some plane where the blacksmith's name in the ads keeps changing, which makes you wonder who makes them.

The three pictured are all relatively mild mellow steel that will take a sharp edge, well at least I know two of them are. I don't know what swedish blue is. I am tempted to set that iron in a dai at 45 degrees for hardwoods since the other two are probably a little more mellow (the inukubi certainly does fine on medium hardwoods).

[David Weaver]

I am impressed with some of you guy's erudition!!

oh, you live for this stuff and you know it!

[Stuart Tierney]

Whoever linked to the Japanese page of Togo steel, take a look at it.

Togo inukubi has a picture of a dog's head on it. Looks like a Tosa dog to me.

(If you've never seen a Tosa, imagine a pony with big. sharp teeth. Enormous fighting dogs.)

It still doesn't explain why it's called dog's neck, and I've not got the inclination to look harder. Maybe I'll ask some day. All I do know is it's so close to HSS that it might as well be HSS. Heaps of chrome and tungsten in it.

Back to work...

Stu.

[Sam Takeuchi]

I don't think you guys need to read into it too much. This range of Togo steel has some ridiculous names for steel products. Aside from Inukubi, there were "Keiba" (horse race), "Chikuonki" (phonograph), "Koumori" (bat), "Kabuto" (armor helmet) and "Niwatori" (chicken), none of them implying possible use for said steels. Now, name like Inukubi sounds almost respectable compared to those, doesn't it?

[David Weaver]

Isn't it about 2% chormium and 5% tungsten?

....er I just looked at your page, stu, and it's about 1.3 and 5 or so. Less carbon than everything else. For whatever reason, the combination makes for a pretty mellow iron.

Looks like swallow steel would be almost the same thing, but it more carbon, more chromium and more tungsten. Probably not as mellow.

Funny how things work out sometimes where you'd expect one thing and you get another. The yamamoto cutting steel (same stuff tsune uses) makes fun of my suita stone. The inukubi comes off on it in huge tire marks and comes to a very sharp edge.

I can't tell which camp i'm in, either the toughest steel possible, or a nice mellow steel that takes a great edge. It changes by the day.

[Stuart Tierney]

I know which camp I'm in, I don't give a rat's back passage so long as the stuff is 'no trouble' to sharpen, then I'll like it.

Of course, to me, even powder metal stuff is 'no trouble'... ;)


(How on earth I ended up with nearly 50 stones, after being very happy with just a few old stones I'll never work out. I think I need to offload some of them soon, just so I'll have somewhere to sleep.)

[David Weaver]

I'd ask you if you have a chosera 10k, but I think i'm just about 100% of the way to convincing someone to cough theirs up for cheap.

But that's not for japanese tools, it's just an itch.

You are correct, though, about the steels, there is no steel that's really hard to sharpen. For me, it's a matter of whether or not I want to turn around and flip a switch on, or do I want finish an edge on steel with diamonds (I really don't like the feel of diamonds on steel). At any rate, the natural stones sure don't like the tougher steels! At least not the hard ones. They will cut them and make them sharp, but it is very slow going.

does the old man at tsune do the inukubi, or have they got that pretty well automated?

I'll find out in a week or so if it's really any better than white steel (and worth the money - though I paid less for the inukubi than the white steel iron), or if it's just a boutique thing that showcases the skill of the blacksmith.