A "pommel" for a katana?

The pommels serve another purpose, even when they don't look so glamorous, they are a very effective close-in striking weapon!
A pommel on a euro sword is attached very securely (screwed or peened) to the tang of the blade, it's an integral part of the sword. The handle wraps around the tang almost like a lamination over it.

On the katana, the handle is actually a load bearing structure, as the tang only goes through part way. A pommel would need to be attached to the tang, but it can't with a katana because it ends around 3/4 way inside the hilt (tsuka). It's really a very different sword design, as it's a sabre, and if I'm not mistaken, most euro sabres such as cavalry sabres don't have pommels, though falchions do but they are huge wide-bladed cutters. If you try to attach a weight to a wooden handle with no tang running through it, it will create a weak point where the wood bears the stresses as the blade changes direction, and furthermore, katanas don't need pommels for balance, adding one would make it far too heavy. If you were to look at a westernised style katana, such as the Hanwei Tactical Katana, you see they just use a full tang design which adds the weight.

I'd hate to say it, but what you've probably just experienced is what makes euro swords nice to handle... What that means is you realise that while you still like your Japanese swords, you understand that you cant squeeze 'euro sword goodness' into a katana, and you end up buying both katanas and euro swords for your collection. Speaking from experience... :lol:

I'm guessing most euro sword guys might have (or had) at least one katana, and katanaphiles may have either a euro or chinese style blade hidden in their collection somewhere! :shock:

A Chaos Katana! :shock:

YES! So it is feasible and has been done before. This is good news for me.

If-- and this is a big if-- the blade is properly balanced, I see no reason an overly heavy kashira/pommel wouldn't be fine as long as it was epoxied onto the tsuka to the point where it couldn't be removed without destroying the tsuka. Regrettably, I don't think most katana blades would balance 'right' with such a heavy kashira as this would have to be, unless it was hollow or some such.

Excuse the ignorance, but for us who aren't in the know, who is jeffrey robinson? I don't know about his work...

Well, I don't mean it wouldn't be functional as in it wouldn't cut. It almost certainly would cut and everything just fine. What I mean is that it may not balance correctly for a katana, unless the blade is made specifically to compensate for the 'pommel'. This almost certainly would happen with most production katana blades as they're not designed for use with an extra-heavy kashira. On kats the main thing that's supposed to affect the balance is the tsuba, IIRC; the fuchi and kashira are mainly supposed to reinforce the tsuka, not affect the weight except minimally.

Ok, gotcha, he's the really talented chap tha does the most amazing bronze sculture work and sword fittings!

Well, there's this:
home.earthlink.net/~jggilbert/kofun2.htm

Which is an ancient sword form, shared by the Koreans, Chinese and Japanese. Of course, these critters have straight blades, chokuto if I'm not mistaken.

I've got one of these:
www.swordnarmory.com/Limited-Edi ... kh-182.htm
Which has the pommel. I'm not sure exactly how the pommel was attached on the originals, it looks like there is a separate mekugi wedging the pommel in place in a slot at the end of the tsuka, but I just don't know.

Here is some more pictures:
smg.photobucket.com/albums/v333/ ... 1QQtppZZ16
www.koreanturk.com/Konu-Hwanduda ... 0%EB%8F%84

I'm don't think these pommels would counterweight much if at all. I'm obsessed with these swords, I guess because their unusual looking in a cool way to me. Dunno.

Cheers

Reviving a zombie thread haha.
Kuya hasn`t been on line last 2 years but this is also someyhing that I would love to explore. Having a long nakago that turns into a tang at the end and a pommel attached to it. I even discussed this with James Liu, the only thing we couldn`t solve was having the tsukamaki done properly in traditional style because the pommel wouldn`t have the opening of the regular trad kashira. His option was to permanently epoxy glue the ito on the rayskin once handle was completed but that makes the ito crunchy as F. and changing its color.

If anyone can make a pommel that can be peened to the makago tang but also give the flexibility of kashira so ito can be wrapped and tied properly I like to listen. So I can proceed my project with James and provide a pommel he can use.
Cheers