Hanwei Oni L6 Bainite Katana
May 22, 2013 16:51:33 GMT
Post by frankthebunny on May 22, 2013 16:51:33 GMT
Greetings,
here are some pictures of a customized Hanwei Oni L6 bainite katana I worked on.
To see pictures in full frame click here
What I did:
Carved a new 12" (actl. 11 3/4") tsuka core from yellow poplar
Applied samegawa panels, lacquered black
Tsukamaki in black nubuck leather, lacquered
New bamboo mekugi
The tsuka had previously been shortened from the factory 14" length to around 11" including cutting down the nakago and re-wrapped in red tsunami ito. The tsuka core was in pretty bad shape since it was also cut down instead of making a new one and they had to make up for the changed dimensions.
There was about a half pound (exaggerating a bit) of thick double sided tape along the ha and mune to build up the profile for the large fittings and the mekugi ana were completely shot from what looked like multiple drillings.
This sword is a beast imo. It's not even that it's that heavy of a blade but it's large and the blade profile is very wide and the saya alone could be used as a club to crush some skulls. I personally don't like extremely long tsuka like the 14" one it comes with but because of the big blade presence, I think the new 12" tsuka has a nice feel. I think the Hanwei W&T is still the heaviest blade I've ever handled other than odachi
The final deciding factor to carve a brand new core was a large crack in the mune that went very deep down the length. It looks like this was an issue before and was attempted to be fixed with a lot of glue just applied everywhere.
The rebuild
Blade close ups
(the tip is not broken, it's just in the fabric of the bag)
Thanks for looking
~Josh
here are some pictures of a customized Hanwei Oni L6 bainite katana I worked on.
To see pictures in full frame click here
What I did:
Carved a new 12" (actl. 11 3/4") tsuka core from yellow poplar
Applied samegawa panels, lacquered black
Tsukamaki in black nubuck leather, lacquered
New bamboo mekugi
The tsuka had previously been shortened from the factory 14" length to around 11" including cutting down the nakago and re-wrapped in red tsunami ito. The tsuka core was in pretty bad shape since it was also cut down instead of making a new one and they had to make up for the changed dimensions.
There was about a half pound (exaggerating a bit) of thick double sided tape along the ha and mune to build up the profile for the large fittings and the mekugi ana were completely shot from what looked like multiple drillings.
This sword is a beast imo. It's not even that it's that heavy of a blade but it's large and the blade profile is very wide and the saya alone could be used as a club to crush some skulls. I personally don't like extremely long tsuka like the 14" one it comes with but because of the big blade presence, I think the new 12" tsuka has a nice feel. I think the Hanwei W&T is still the heaviest blade I've ever handled other than odachi
The final deciding factor to carve a brand new core was a large crack in the mune that went very deep down the length. It looks like this was an issue before and was attempted to be fixed with a lot of glue just applied everywhere.
The rebuild
Blade close ups
(the tip is not broken, it's just in the fabric of the bag)
Thanks for looking
~Josh