Adam Savage Handles a Real Samurai Sword!

Okay, are you ready? So I'll hand this to you. Okay. Say height when you've got it. Height. Turn it a little. Let the light play over it. Feel the weight. You getting goosebumps yet? The finish is quite literally impossible. I feel so honored to be in its presence, let alone to be touching it. Hey everybody, Adam Savage, and I am in one of the back rooms at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with Ted. How are you, sir? I'm awesome. Every time we talk about what videos to shoot, there's a regular category we get to, which is I say, hey, I've never touched a, and you guys have brought me gauntlets and medieval swords, European, and this most recent time I said, I'm obsessed with Japanese cinema and samurai and sword fighting, and I've never touched or been around a real Japanese sword, and you endeavored to show me one, and that's what we're about to look at. Have I got a treat for you. I'm beyond excited. I know how you feel. Well, the thing about, before the thing, before we started shooting, you were like, listen, when we pull out the blade, you're gonna put on a mask, and I'm like, oh, I get it. Even my breath can tarnish. Yes. So what I have here for you is a katana blade in its shurisaya resting scabbard. Oh, you store them separately than their normal furniture. Yeah, the reason being, the blade's very highly polished, could corrode, it could get some grit or something inside the scabbard. If it's inside a beautifully decorated lacquered scabbard, I have no way to clean it out. A shurisaya is actually two halves glued together with a rice glue, and if I have to, I could pop them apart, clean the interior of the scabbard, and glue it back together. And make sure that it is a proper home for the blade that doesn't contribute to its deterioration. So if I'm doing my job right, I will never have to take it apart. Keeping track of the collection and the environmental storage and everything like that, hopefully will ever prevent that from happening. But if it does, this is the best way to store blades. And as we were talking about earlier, mountings come and go, but blades are their own thing. So we keep them separate because you might, not us here, but if you were a samurai, you might have a few very special blades, a bunch of different mountings. So they're not really one thing, they're actually two things. Wow. So when you guys put up a show where there's a bunch of swords on display, the work that goes into that show is remounting those blades into their original hardware. We usually display the blade all by itself. Oh, wow. Because the blade is appreciated as its own work of art. Got it. So I want to start with the mounting. Yeah, yeah. So we'll just reveal, we're gonna unwrap here. This is a katana blade that I quite like. It's very, I think, subtle and understated. What's interesting for me is that this is all lacquer brushwork to get this texture. It is, yeah. And then it has all the mountings. Now you remember, we were looking at mountings before. Right, right. And here they are. Here's your tsuba. Yeah. Okay. Here's your other grip hardware is all this stuff. And here, actually, you see a kogai, which is a different tool than the other side, which is the kozuka. And then- That's the little knife. That's the knife blade. And then there's some extra fittings that are not reflected in this set. You have your scabbard, which would be for the blade. The grip, which is a wooden core wrapped in ray skin. Yeah. And you see some variations. This is a very uniform bit of ray skin. Sometimes you will see a group of very large, highly raised nodules. Maybe it's on the other side. Nope. Sometimes you'll see that in there. That's from this part of the ray. Oh. And it's just only that one little bit. And so sometimes they use that as a design element? They would harvest that part specifically for sword grips. Sometimes you'll see the ray, they will lacquer it to fill in the interstices, between the nodules, and then polish it smooth. So they had a lot of- Ways of treating that. Yeah, exactly. But the ray skin is durable. It's glued onto the wood core. It's very hard. And I mean, gives you a good grip when the blood starts to flow. I think it's probably its origin. We see grips in European swords with shark skin and things like that. But then they wrap them in the silk cords, which I think is where a lot of the grip comes from. And it's a beautiful wrapping. It's really, really- Very precise. Dimensionally very close to the surface. Yep, you can see it's sort of raised along the center, but very tight along the sides. And then one of the other interesting things, the menuki originates on older blade forms as the thing that holds the grip together. But by this time, they're now decorative. And what's holding it together is the mikugi, which is just a little bamboo thing. This is a very nice one. I keep chopsticks in the back for emergency menuki. Oh my gosh, yeah. Very easy to shape, and you can kind of stick a whole chopstick in there if you had to just temporarily to hold something together. But that's all it is. That's a nice little bit of finished and stained bamboo that I keep as a spare. I think one of the things I found most surprising about Japanese swords is how configurable they really are. I like to bang on in my own shop about how I don't like glue, and I prefer mechanical solutions because I like taking my things apart and putting them back together. But the degree to which they have made these, you know, take apartable and put back togetherable is really amazing. So with the mikugi in there, well, of course, I'd hold it like this, right? It's not gonna come apart. Right. So it's good to know. So I'm just gonna take this apart here, and you'll see that inside, because I do not have a steel blade in there, I have a replica blade. That's what's holding the whole thing together. And it probably doesn't need to be the whole thing, but it is, and it always is, and they look beautiful. It even has the hibaki here carved out because that is what actually holds the sword tightly in the throat. But we should be able to take this apart. Is it gonna pop out without difficulty? I think so. There we go. Look at that. So there's our little mikugi there. And then if I had a sword blade in there, I would have to pop it, but this is probably not quite as tight. So if I pop this out, there's the grip. That's one piece. And you can see that it might not come off, but they just pop off. So everything's carved and shaped to fit the fittings, which have already been made. Right? Oh my goodness, yes. So then you put the grip together, and then you fit it to this, and then you say, okay, there's where the hole goes, and you drill the hole out. And then you've got little spacers, these washers in here. This whole thing can just come off. And there's the tsuba. So I could take probably any one of those and fit it on here and see if it worked, but I'm not gonna do that because it wouldn't match. So this is, again, if you have a blade that is made or fits perfectly into a particular mounting set, you can very easily just copy the blade. You trace it out, you carve it, so everything fits just right. And then we'll look at the blade next. While we have it out, let's talk about the Kozuka and the Kogai. So we already looked at some Kozuka handles, and that's what they look like when they have a blade in there. Ooh, oh, so lovely. And you see there's a sort of a channel slotted in there for it. There's this nice little, what do we got here? I guess it's just a, maybe it's a horsefly or something, but it's fitted in there to protect the opening. And then you have this fitting on the other side that holds the lacing, which is tied decoratively now. And then you also have the Kogai. And what was this for? This is- A letter opener, clearly. A letter opener. If you need to scratch under your helmet, maybe. Jam it into your saddle and hang your enemy's head from it in a bag. But you'd rather not be using a knife for any of those things. Yeah, your horse would object. And then that little guy right there, would you care to speculate what that little piece is for? Does it aid and abet a knot or an untying of a knot in some way? Actually, you probably could use it for that, but that's not its stated intent. It's an ear scoop. It's got- As someone whose ears produce a ridiculous amount of wax, I'd love that. I 100% sympathize with this, for sure. I wish I had one. Kogai? Kogai. That just slides in there. And then, as you noted earlier, when we were talking about Tsuba. Yeah. The little slots in the Tsuba. And it looks like they've even lined the channel with a little leather. I think it is. I think it's a nice hide. I'm not sure what, possibly deerskin, but probably something else. They use a lot of deerskin on the armors and things, so, and they just snugly fit in there. That's a very satisfying little pop sound that made. Oh, I love the little satisfying pop. And that slides like that. You really wanna avoid damaging the edge, so you ride along the back gently, keeping it straight. So the edge is not touching any part of the interior. And then, when that clicks in there, the blade is now totally floating inside the scabbard. So now you wanna see a blade. I do. So we're gonna put our masks on. Now, you mentioned how you always wanted to get a hold of these, and I was the same way when I started. And for years, the Japanese curator would not let any of us touch the swords. And then it came time for him to retire. And he said, I love this, and I have to repeat it. He says, I go heaven soon. He has not yet gone to heaven. He's still with us, thankfully. But he finally agreed that we were gonna have to learn how to do this. And we would go in the storeroom, and he'd lay out some blades, and we would draw and return and draw and return over and over and over for months, just drawing and returning, before he would even let us clean the blades. And he would, you'd draw it, again, again, till he was satisfied we could at least more or less do it right most of the time. I read that in the Art of Archery, that fits right with my picture. Hopefully I will not dishonor myself on camera here. So the sword bag doesn't just protect, like, it's part of, we can put a label on it. Yeah. It protects the shurisaya. Yeah. It keeps the interior dust free. So we're kind of, we have to be a little bit careful with the way we handle these things so we don't get dust inside and have cords flopping around that cause us to do something accidentally foolish or trip or cut something. Okay, now, you can see here, there's a little gap. Yep. This is, these shurisaya are made from an unfinished wood, which means they are susceptible to humidity. Expansion, contraction. Expansion and contraction. They're not done. And occasionally, something like, something goes wrong with your HVAC system, temperature, humidity, something changes in there, and you get this. There's not a lot of ways to correct it short of taking it apart and filing it. Adding in that extra eighth of an inch. Or carving away to let the tabaki fit. Right, right. Either one would work, so. Again, so pulling it out is just as important as putting it in. Oh yeah. Having long arms is very helpful. These are very sharp. Copy. So, one of the things we do now is when we are, we have the blade out, you have to have 360 degree situational awareness. If I say, I'm moving over to the display case, everyone listens and steps away, so I will endeavor not to cut any of your important parts off. Thank you. We have the blade, the decorated habaki, which is gold and it's been hand chiseled to create these shapes. And you can see how it fits around the blade perfectly and it provides the collar for the scabbard, but it also is the stop for the grip. Okay, and again, it's just held in with the manuki. So if I can, you said satisfying clicks. Let's see if I can get this to happen. Talks out. Perfect, that was amazing. And then, listen. Is that not very satisfying? Very deeply satisfying. Now I have only the blade. And this is where you find signatures on both sides. I don't have the translation of this immediately in hand. Currently, the blade is oiled. I can take that off. Oh, that's a little glisten that I can hear. You see some glisten. Okay. There's different things you can appreciate about a blade. One thing is the curvature, right? And you can see this has a nice, uniform, gentle curve that incorporates nicely with the tang. Sometimes they tend to make a more dramatic jump right there or up at the tip. And again, that's an age and style thing. You also can see, and you're probably able to see it very well from where you're standing, the temper line. This is a very complicated temper line. It's a super complicated temper line. From pictures I've seen, it extends much farther down the blade than I usually have seen pictures. There's a lot of variety. Sometimes temper lines really just run straight along the edge. Sometimes they wave. Sometimes they are not as sort of repetitive as this. They're very more chaotic. Sometimes you see places where the temper line seems to stop and then you see another kind of ghost of a pattern, like little clouds on the ground. They all have different names. This one is very much like ocean waves or zigzags, almost like a saw blade. So that is achieved during the forging process. You forge the blade, you've shaped it, you've carved it and cut it. It's not yet been sharpened, but you need to temper it. So you apply clay. And where you apply the clay thickly, it will cool more slowly. Where you apply it thinly, it will cool rapidly. So that when you quench it, you create a hard, because you've also controlled the alloy along the edge, you create a nice hard edge for taking a good sharp edge when you polish it and sharpen it. And the back of it, let's see if I can do it on this one, allows a little flex. I don't know if you can see that on camera. I don't have a lot of flex, but that little bit of flex means that when I strike something, it's not gonna shatter. Okay, are you ready? So I hand this to you. Stand across from me. The blade is to me. Handing it to you, both hands. Say height when you've got it. Height. Turn it a little. Let the light play over it. Feel the weight. You getting goosebumps yet? I'm getting goosebumps. This is, the finish is quite literally impossible. It takes weeks for a master polisher to go from an unfinished, unpolished sword to this level. They start with grades of stone that you and I would recognize, and get down to a level where they're actually just using their fingertips and the slurry to put the last polish along. I mean, and specifically that transition between the blade's edge and the blade's side, that shallow angle is so crisp. I can't. And having ground some blades poorly, I have some tiny glimpse of how hard that is to get that perfect, and it boggles my mind. And there's also no, like, the blade, the whole blade just descends to zero. There's no extra little extra blade at the very end, or sharpened part at the end. It's astonishingly well-made and sharp, and it's one of my favorite blades. We have a lot of different ones. Some, you know, are highly regarded, famous sword makers, whatever. I don't personally worry too much about the name of the maker. I really like this type of curvature. I like this type of temper line. And I like blades that just have the right weight in your hand. It really does. Ted, thank you. I'm just, I feel so honored to be in its presence, let alone to be touching it, and I want to hand it back to you. Okay, so turn the edge to you. Edges turn to me. And then I get a hand in there, and I say, height, and I've got it. Okay, so now what I'll do, yeah. At least Mr. Ogawa wasn't standing here harassing you. I'm just gonna clean it a little more, get some old oil off that I spotted that I missed the first time. When you run along, we're always working from the back, and I have these, I use these, they're just lens cloths, right? I wash them and keep them clean and stuff, and I have this cotton around the outside so that I'm never really touching the lens cloth. And I go in, and you can see how my knuckle's bent. I don't want to get on the other side of that edge. I want to just ride along the side of it. And I go along vertically, and I can feel all the parts of the blade touching my hand and the cloth, and then I get to the end, and I go, boop, across the end. Gotta do the sound effect. Just that end. I mean, I can't, I don't think it's unreasonable to imagine someone spent a couple of weeks just there. Ted, I, thank you, sir. That was truly incredible. Yeah, I don't have any way to wrap this up. That was so cool. Glad to hear it.