# Communities > Modern-era Swords and Collecting Community > Modern Production Katanas >  Darkening Hanwei hada posible?

## Mikey G

Has anyone tried applying nugui to a folded steel Hanwei or similar katana and if so what were your results.  I have a mono no saru that I am hybrid polishing and wanted to see if it worth my time to try and darken the hada.  If you have tried it and or have pictures please post.

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## Jeff Ellis

> Has anyone tried applying nugui to a folded steel Hanwei or similar katana and if so what were your results.  I have a mono no saru that I am hybrid polishing and wanted to see if it worth my time and money to try and darken the hada.  If you have tried it and or have pictures please post.


I believe that Mr Larman has done it a few times.

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## Aaron Justice

> Has anyone tried applying nugui to a folded steel Hanwei or similar katana and if so what were your results.  I have a mono no saru that I am hybrid polishing and wanted to see if it worth my time to try and darken the hada.  If you have tried it and or have pictures please post.


Well, yes and no. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. Tamahagane has such a unique structure, nugui will darken it because of the grain structure and level of polish in a japanese blade. With a Paul Chen sword, it may need a much higher degree of polish. You may get the look you want just from a repolish, but simply wiping nugui on the blade might not work so well.

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## Keith Larman

> I believe that Mr Larman has done it a few times.


A couple things...

There is no such "unique" thing as nugui. There are literally hundreds of formulations. Everthing from forge scale to magnetite to uchiko to ground tsushima stone to gold dust to aluminum oxide to mercury bearing minerals to... Well, you get the idea. Each polisher will concoct their own mixture depending on the unique needs of each blade. What is used on a koto blade is very different from a hard gendaito. 

So there is no "one thing" called nugui. Sorry. 

The second issue is that how you formulate your nugui will depend on both the steel you're working on and what effect you're looking for. Nugui is usually used as a final step in terms of surface refinement as well as slightly altering coloration/contrast with the yakiba. The right nugui can bring up the hada more, make it more pleasing, and give nice contrast. The wrong nugui will obscure it, rip out activity you want to see, and otherwise ruin all the work that went into the blade. And the nugui that works on blade one won't work on blade number two.

Finally, the blade surface has to be "appropriately" prepped for the nugui. That means the steel is clean, opened up with the proper stone work, etc. Otherwise the nugui simply won't do a thing. Production finishes (including what are rather amusingly called "stone finishes") leave the surfaces usually so screwed up that nugui won't do a thing. 

On most hanwei blades you'll likely find that the best effort would be to try to remove as much of the oxide "haze" from the softer ji surface. Using *real* uchiko (not the Hanwei faux uchiko ball, but the real stuff) tap a bunch on the blade. Next take a cloth that's been wet a bit with light mineral oil. Work the area between the hamon and shinogi. The uchiko will pull a lot of that haze out. Just be careful -- it is aggressive. Too much and you'll start fading the hada. Go over the hamon too much and you'll start obscuring that too. 

The short answer to the question is "no, nugui doesn't work on Hanwei pieces". However, the method I outlined is a sort of "nugui" itself. Just *very* aggressive. 

Good night...

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## Mikey G

Thanks Keith and Aaron for the helpful information.  I figured it probably would not work as well as I hoped it would.  I have toned down the hada quite a bit with a hybrid polish.  I have also removed most of the frostiness from the hamon, which has revealed a lot of hidden activity.  For now I think I will steer clear of trying to concoct my own nugui and leave it the way it is.  Here are a couple pictures.  The flash seems to make the hada pop out more that it really does.  It's at least half as hazy as it was from the forge.

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## AaronThomas

Its funny... I could tell right away from your pics that this was a Momo blade from the wavy watery like hada.  Did "they" do something different during the forging or polishing process...  The Momos don't look like other Chen SPS blades.  Mikey yours looks great by the way!

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## Jeff Ellis

> Its funny... I could tell right away from your pics that this was a Momo blade from the wavy watery like hada.  Did "they" do something different during the forging or polishing process...  The Momos don't look like other Chen SPS blades.  Mikey yours looks great by the way!


Hanwei has experimented with diffrent things in the past. I wouldn't put it past them to actually have Mr Chen's son working on the higher end line to get them better, which would reflect in what the factory does to finish them. Mr Chen's son was recently training with Mr Yoshihara, after all.

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## AaronThomas

Wow... did not know that.  I have to say out of all the SPS blades the Momo is my favorite.  Very soft hada and hamon... not so in your face like some of the others... Got a tiger (which I love) that just screams, GRAIN!!!

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## k.moralee

Just a quick question on hada if anyone wouldn't mind answering it...... 

I have just bought a folded iaito from a vendor over here in England, mainly deals in Cheness but has had some of these new iaito commissioned as his own line. They are pretty decent for their knocked down price. anyway, I digress.....

These blades have a visible hada and the polish job on them is considerably higher than Cheness, after looking at the pictures above I was wondering if it would be possible to bring this out a bit more by someone with no experience at polishing metal or is it best left to someone who knows what they are doing.... I would be prepared to give the uchiko method a go but as I have no experience I'm worried I might just spoil the way the blade is now and end up with something as dull as my Kaze....

Thanks
Kris

P.s, I can post a link to the guys site if you need to see what I'm talking about and maybe gauge the spec these are polished to

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