Acid polishing
Recently we have seen many blades that have acid polishing.
Acid polishing is very bad for study blade and bad for blade itself.
Acid polishing is a kind of polishing style that emphasize
appearances of blade by using acid. Acid erodes steel, so some kinds of
appearances on the blade come up like etching.
Various kinds of acid are used for polishing on both
classical style and modern style. For beginners' eye, acid polishing looks
attractive because of its emphasized appearances on the blade. Many beginners
appreciate acid polishing better than natural stone polishing. Therefore
some polishers go to acid polishing to make their business easier. Sometimes
a polisher who is skilful to use acid is called "Master" (?).
The appearance by acid etching is different to it by
natural stone polishing. We can't see the quality of the blade because
its face is trick by acid effect. Not only that, one more bad point of
acid polishing is the acid bites the steel deeply. Sometimes it rusts steel
deeply under the steel surface.
We are afraid if acid polishing becomes common in the
future, or now already. We have to hate acid polishing, and have to break
its trick. We love honest blades rather than aesthetic tricky blades.
Honesty is a point that we appreciate on the blade, even
if it is not a masterpiece. Polishing style is very important to study
the blade, because the blade is a mirror of your spirit.
Fake hamon
An example of a fake hamon.
This blade "Bishu Osafune Norimitsu" is polished up with the
modern style.
It has an attractive hamon-like white pattern, looking like big waves. But it is not the hamon. It is only a "hadori" that is forged by a polisher. And so is the fine steel colour.
In fact, this blade has no hamon. There is no hardening effect at all.
It is easy to break the trick. We can't see any hamon line in the white
pattern by studying with good lighting.
Another example.
This blade has a excellent modern style polishing and we can see an attractive
hamon line in the white pattern. And it has a genuine signature of a famous
smith on the tang.
In fact, this blade has no hardening effect at all. Probably it had burned
out in the past by fire accident.
This hamon like white pattern is forged by a miracle
polisher. It is not a simple tecnique that we can imagine. It may be very
complicated and exellent method.
It is very difficult to brake the trick. To study the
hamon particles (nie/nioi) is very important.
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