customized Kris Cutlery 26II
Apr 30, 2010 17:57:48 GMT
Post by Cottontail Customs on Apr 30, 2010 17:57:48 GMT
I have finally finished refitting my KC Katana 26II and all in all I'm pretty happy with the results. the most time consuming part of this project was 1. waiting untill I had the money to purchase materials and 2. waiting for them to arrive (which for some reason took twice as long this time around)
most of you probably know what the sword looks like without alteration, but for those who don't, here is a before pic
I was not 100% sure what look I was going for when I started this and figured I would choose one element and hope that the final theme would reveal itself during the process.
the first choice I made was to use red somewhere as this was the first sword that had ever been bold enough to reach out and bite me!! within the first 10 minutes of handling the blade I was wiping it down as usual and I guess the cloth got snagged on a dry spot and before I knew it, I had a nice slice in my palm. the Kissaki had cut in my flesh with a slight tap as opposed to a slice and after the initial shock I was actually pretty impressed.
so, I felt now that we had bonded and she has (hopefully) had her fill of my blood, I could move on with the work.
I chose "blood red" silk Ito from SnA and the same color Sageo from F.L.
IMO, the color was more like a mauve or even plum which I still liked a lot. once I had the cord color I then began testing different stain colors for the Saya. the darker colors seemed to go better than lights or clear with the purpleish red.
I wound up mixing a couple of stains and got a walnutty tone that was different in and out of direct light.
so now I pretty much felt that this sword was going to have an overall subdued look to it, which crosses between traditional and contemporary, or maybe a new looking old kind of thing.
I wanted to keep the fittings just because I happen to like them very much but wound up adding a little something to the Tsuba.
even though the "dragon" theme seems to be overused, I feel that is used so often for a lot of good reasons. number one reason .....'cause dragons are COOL! so I worked a couple of dragons in to my mix.
I toned down the brass dragon Menuki that originally came with the sword by washing them down in multiple India ink baths and then wound up adding just a little sparkle with some sprinkled silver dust. at first it was too bright, so I brushed them lightly with some of the Saya stain and them sealed them with poly.
I did a full Tsuka wrap with black ostrich skin using a different non-scaly part that had what looks like nodes throughout.
after securing the Ito, I realized that the color was way too bright for me so I tried aging it by soaking it in lacquer. I was afraid that it would have a hard plastic feel to it when dry but was pleasantly surprised that it had retained the softness of the silk while becoming almost bulletproof. I love lacquer soaked Ito!
the more I handle it the more character it gains, I think I'll love it more and more as time goes on.
I added a dragon menuki from another sword to the top of the Tsuba with a similar treatment as mentioned above.
here are a couple shots of the Tsuka and Tsuba
I also sanded the bright brass Seppa and then torched them until they had a nice burnished look. in angled lighting you can see a cool rainbow effect (sorry no pics of that)
I cross polished the upper and lower halves of the Habaki just to add a little texture.
because the KC Hamon is so cool when brought out I gave the blade a few rounds of etching.
after I had sanded down and stained the Saya, I felt it needed something more. I applied a ghosted dragon by hand painting a design in clear poly over the dry stain and sprinkling it carefully with silver dust on the top half and gold dust on the lower half.
I then used a metal pick and tweaked the dust so it was more or less aligned to one side or angle. that took a long long time and might not have even been necessary to achieve the effect I wanted.
well, it worked! when not in a direct light source or in the correct angle, the dragon is virtually invisible but when the light is right...........wow, there's my dragon!
no dragon
dragon
I had a lot of fun working on this sword and again, learned a lot while doing it. I am currently trying to finish my KC29 and about to start on my Hauwei and after those I have a few more projects waiting, so it should be a pretty fun summer for me.
thank you for looking and reading ;D
most of you probably know what the sword looks like without alteration, but for those who don't, here is a before pic
I was not 100% sure what look I was going for when I started this and figured I would choose one element and hope that the final theme would reveal itself during the process.
the first choice I made was to use red somewhere as this was the first sword that had ever been bold enough to reach out and bite me!! within the first 10 minutes of handling the blade I was wiping it down as usual and I guess the cloth got snagged on a dry spot and before I knew it, I had a nice slice in my palm. the Kissaki had cut in my flesh with a slight tap as opposed to a slice and after the initial shock I was actually pretty impressed.
so, I felt now that we had bonded and she has (hopefully) had her fill of my blood, I could move on with the work.
I chose "blood red" silk Ito from SnA and the same color Sageo from F.L.
IMO, the color was more like a mauve or even plum which I still liked a lot. once I had the cord color I then began testing different stain colors for the Saya. the darker colors seemed to go better than lights or clear with the purpleish red.
I wound up mixing a couple of stains and got a walnutty tone that was different in and out of direct light.
so now I pretty much felt that this sword was going to have an overall subdued look to it, which crosses between traditional and contemporary, or maybe a new looking old kind of thing.
I wanted to keep the fittings just because I happen to like them very much but wound up adding a little something to the Tsuba.
even though the "dragon" theme seems to be overused, I feel that is used so often for a lot of good reasons. number one reason .....'cause dragons are COOL! so I worked a couple of dragons in to my mix.
I toned down the brass dragon Menuki that originally came with the sword by washing them down in multiple India ink baths and then wound up adding just a little sparkle with some sprinkled silver dust. at first it was too bright, so I brushed them lightly with some of the Saya stain and them sealed them with poly.
I did a full Tsuka wrap with black ostrich skin using a different non-scaly part that had what looks like nodes throughout.
after securing the Ito, I realized that the color was way too bright for me so I tried aging it by soaking it in lacquer. I was afraid that it would have a hard plastic feel to it when dry but was pleasantly surprised that it had retained the softness of the silk while becoming almost bulletproof. I love lacquer soaked Ito!
the more I handle it the more character it gains, I think I'll love it more and more as time goes on.
I added a dragon menuki from another sword to the top of the Tsuba with a similar treatment as mentioned above.
here are a couple shots of the Tsuka and Tsuba
I also sanded the bright brass Seppa and then torched them until they had a nice burnished look. in angled lighting you can see a cool rainbow effect (sorry no pics of that)
I cross polished the upper and lower halves of the Habaki just to add a little texture.
because the KC Hamon is so cool when brought out I gave the blade a few rounds of etching.
after I had sanded down and stained the Saya, I felt it needed something more. I applied a ghosted dragon by hand painting a design in clear poly over the dry stain and sprinkling it carefully with silver dust on the top half and gold dust on the lower half.
I then used a metal pick and tweaked the dust so it was more or less aligned to one side or angle. that took a long long time and might not have even been necessary to achieve the effect I wanted.
well, it worked! when not in a direct light source or in the correct angle, the dragon is virtually invisible but when the light is right...........wow, there's my dragon!
no dragon
dragon
I had a lot of fun working on this sword and again, learned a lot while doing it. I am currently trying to finish my KC29 and about to start on my Hauwei and after those I have a few more projects waiting, so it should be a pretty fun summer for me.
thank you for looking and reading ;D