Wobbly guards on Jians and Daos

[Atlantia]

A fellow collector brought some pieces around to my place, amongst which was a fairly bog standard late 19th/early 20th Jian, with a really rattly guard.
I only have one Chinese sword at present, a rather large Dao, which also has a really rattly and rather ill fitting guard.

Anyway, I commented that I've only ever had one Dao, and every Jian I've ever had (and TBH none were exactly top of the range) always seemed to have rattly ill fitting guards.

He said thats how they are meant to be, but I cant see it myself.

[Gavin Nugent]

Originally Posted by Atlantia

A fellow collector brought some pieces around to my place, amongst which was a fairly bog standard late 19th/early 20th Jian, with a really rattly guard.
I only have one Chinese sword at present, a rather large Dao, which also has a really rattly and rather ill fitting guard.

Anyway, I commented that I've only ever had one Dao, and every Jian I've ever had (and TBH none were exactly top of the range) always seemed to have rattly ill fitting guards.

He said thats how they are meant to be, but I cant see it myself.

The guards on these pieces should NOT be rattly at all but most often are, though more so on the Shuang Jian in my experience.

I suspect it is for the most part due to shrinkage of materials such as timber and horn. The 18th century examples I have in my gallery have become slightly loose, it can be plainly seen that over time the collar has worn away parts of the timber and they no longer press hard against the guard as they should to hold it tightly in place. I suspect a little removal of some timber, some compression from the pommel end with a little further peening of the tang would fix it. I have however when the moments right earmarked these to be sent to Philip for proper restoration and loose guards are something he can correct.
The Dadao would suffer from the same issue. New grip slabs hard against the guard and some tight new binding would also remove play in the guard.

My two cents worth is that they are not supposed to be at all, it is just the ravages of time that have made them so.

Gav

[Philip]

Gavin is right, shrinkage of the grip material is the number one cause of loose guards. You see this in other kinds of swords, too -- I've lost count of the ivory- and MOP-hilted Euro. smallswords with loose hilts that I've been asked to fix over the years.

In general, the downmarket-quality jian and dao have less precise fitting of guards to blade tangs, as might be expected. Cheaper weapons were often assembled from blades and other parts obtained from different sources and of course there was no standardization. A fine sword would be put together by a master craftsman who made sure the guard was the right size, and filed the aperture to fit snugly.

Various approaches were used to ensure tight guard fit. During the late Qing, some sabers had brass guards peened tightly in place -- corners of the tang were raised with a chisel and a drift-punch was used to drive the little "horns" tight against the rear of the guard. Some early Qing saber fittings featured a tongue-and-groove interlock between the front of the ferrule and the rear face of the guard.

Occasionally I face the opposite problem -- hilts that are so tight all around that they can't be removed from the blade. This is almost exclusively a problem with jian using one-piece hardwood or horn grips. The things fit so tightly to begin with that when the tang starts to rust inside, the iron swells up and the hilt is on there for good.

[Philip]

Ever wonder why Japanese hilts have those thin metal washers (seppa) on either side of the tsuba? These plates take up the slack in case a thinner guard is substituted for another. More importantly, they can be used to compensate for shrinkage of the wood handle that would cause a formerly tight hilt to loosen.

With Japanese hilt construction (in which the blade is readily removabe), all this makes sense. With Chinese (and European) hilts that are secured by a peened pommel, it's a different story.

By the way, I don't suggest banging on the end of the tang to tighten a Chinese or Western-style hilt that's loose. Old wood can be dried-out and weak, or may have internal rot or worm damage.

[fearn]

I'm certainly not the expert the others are, but I have seen loose guards on modern wushu implements, and they're used essentially as castanets to make a more interesting performance--they rattle when swung. I don't know whether this is done deliberately, or whether the wushu artists are simply making the best of a bad implement (hate to call those things weapons), but there you have it. If it is done deliberately, it would be nice to find out how old the tradition is.

Best,

F

[Philip]

Wushu is choreography with practically no real martial content. Its modern incarnation is a creation of the communist government's sports ministry as a sugar-coated mishmosh of traditional martial arts forms to be promoted as exercise and entertainment. Hand-to-hand combat techniques were to be reserved for the military and police. Hence the insubstantial nature of wushu "weapons" whose thin blades make a nice noise as they are swung about.

Wushu does have antecedents in the flashy martial arts displays that were often part of the lowbrow entertainment of the marketplace in imperial China. These acts were sometimes paired with strongmen pulling massive bows or heaving large stone blocks, or boxers who would invite the wannabe pugilists in the audience to join them in a bout. Enterprising medicine pitchmen would often hire these guys as a "testimonial", and secret societies sometimes used the shows to attract young ne'er-do-wells as potential members.

The weapons used for such shtiks were often of exaggerated proportions, and more importantly, designed to make noise. An example is the broad falchion with 9 loose-rings on the dorsal side of the blade. Tridents would often have several large iron washers mounted on the shank between the tines and the socket that would jingle as the devices were brandished. The difference is that such show-weapons of the past were sometimes of considerable size and heft (although their blades of course were mostly unsharpened) whereas today's wushu weapons are almost all extremely light and flimsy.

[Atlantia]

Well, I'd have thought that they indeed DID fit tightly originally, but here is my old Dao, a proper old warrior and the guard is an atrocious fit:

[Philip]

I recognize that peidao as a mass produced pattern that was cranked out in large numbers at the end of the 19th cent., probably to arm hastily-recruited militias. They are quite common since many were brough back by foreign troops sent to quell the Boxer rebellion. Nothing about them indicates any sort of quality control, it seems that the components were made more or less to some sort of standard but without much care for fit and finish. When the saber was new, the pressure of the grip assembly kept the guard tight enough but as the wood shrank, the looseness was inevitable considering the oversized tang aperture.

One pattern of military saber of the 18th and early 19th cent., probably issued to the jianruiying or elite assault troops, had a solid brass guard peened to the blade via little spurs of metal raised from the tang's corners with a cold-chisel. The pommels and grips can be dismounted if necessary but those guards are on for good unless you get through the peening first.

[Atlantia]

Originally Posted by Philip

I recognize that peidao as a mass produced pattern that was cranked out in large numbers at the end of the 19th cent., probably to arm hastily-recruited militias. They are quite common since many were brough back by foreign troops sent to quell the Boxer rebellion. Nothing about them indicates any sort of quality control, it seems that the components were made more or less to some sort of standard but without much care for fit and finish. When the saber was new, the pressure of the grip assembly kept the guard tight enough but as the wood shrank, the looseness was inevitable considering the oversized tang aperture.

One pattern of military saber of the 18th and early 19th cent., probably issued to the jianruiying or elite assault troops, had a solid brass guard peened to the blade via little spurs of metal raised from the tang's corners with a cold-chisel. The pommels and grips can be dismounted if necessary but those guards are on for good unless you get through the peening first.

LOL, my poor old Dao! Not exactly a glowing review!

[Neil]

Many of the "village smith" ring pommel dao I have seen have significant play and gap-page in the guard. I am wondering if there are examples of period shimming or something of that nature that others have seen. Could a certain amount of play just have been the norm for the time as well. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks

[fearn]

Since one major point of a guard is to guard your hand, I don't think a loose guard is a good thing. Since the other point of a guard is to keep rain out of the scabbard, a loose guard isn't very useful in that context either.

My personal guess is that anyone who really cared about the state of their dao probably shimmed and sealed it into utility.

Best,

F

[Philip]

I've seen a fair number of the village smith and late military daos with attempts to stabilize the disc guard when it got loose. One way of doing it was to drive thin wood wedges into the gap on either side, trimming the tag ends flush with the frontal surface of the guard. I've also seen small-diameter cord wrapped and tied behind the guard, the ferrule then being driven forward to cover it. The ring-pommel hilted dadao or falchions were kept in leather scabbards which were split at the dorsal side to allow easy withdrawal, so weatherproofing was not in the cards here. In fact, the Vietnamese often dispensed with scabbards completely with these knives, instead slinging them over the back like a carbine via a thick cord knotted through the ring, the other end having an iron hook that went through a small hole drilled in the dorsal peak of the blade. When worn in this way, the blade tended to rotate outward so that the edge faced away from the owner's body.

At least these guards, if not carefully fitted-up, merely loosen instead of falling off. I've had to restore the hilts on several Ottoman shamshirs and kilijs over the years, and because of the bulbous pommels the guards don't slide forward onto the tang to lock up against the blade shoulders as with most other swords. They are put on from the front, and an adhesive resin holds the langets into recesses in the grip. When the mastic gives way, these things can loosen or become detached.