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Post by LG Martial Arts on Jun 5, 2013 19:13:59 GMT
A little annoyed since one of my katanas has a slight problem: it has a clearance issue both going into and being taken out of the saya. The habaki and koiguchi are nicely done, only frction is on the top and bottom instead of the sides. There is NO rattle from the blade in the saya, but don't think that has to do with the blade "biting" into the wood inside. I've compared the blade sori to the saya's sori, and it looks like the saya has a deeper one than the blade. Now, is there any easy way to fix this problem? More of an annoyance at this point than anything else, but could see that it could turn into something major in the long run with the ha gouging up the inside of the saya repeatedly and causing it to wear down/getting unwanted residue on the blade.
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Post by Lobster Hunter on Jun 5, 2013 21:10:58 GMT
I had a similar issue with a Dynasty Forge Musha. I taped a small file to the end of a thin steel rod I purchased from a hardware store and filed the inside of the saya. It helped a bit.
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Post by LG Martial Arts on Jun 6, 2013 0:30:55 GMT
yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking of doing, filing the inside of the saya. Thanks for the suggestion.
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Post by Jeffrey Ching on Jun 12, 2013 17:18:07 GMT
Scraping can be done with a simple tool. I made my scraper from aluminum (in the iori shape of a mune) since that was quite easy to shape and it's hard enough to scrape honoki wood. For the ha-side I have a very thin tsunagi (wooden blade) with a mini scraping tool attached. My working tip (tested thoroughly ) Tape a paper strip on the cutting edge and slide the blade in the saya. Stop when it starts jamming and mark how far the blade could enter. Together with the location where the paper on the edge has been ripped you can now exactly find out where the saya is a bit too tight. Now there are two different options: a) if the sori of the sword is LOWER than the saya, scrape the mune side. Because of the difference the kissaki will cut the saya until it splits. b) if the blade has a high sori than the saya, fixing it will be difficult. Scraping the ha side of the saya is possible but not that there is really not a lot of material you can remove.
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Post by frankthebunny on Jun 12, 2013 21:07:09 GMT
I'm not sure if I understand the op exactly. I think you are saying that there is too much friction on the ha and mune of the habaki when seated. The pressure or friction should be on the ha and mune and not on the sides of the habaki. if the blade is not cutting into the wood and thus not the problem, and you need to reduce the friction of entry, you could lightly file the inside of the mune in the saya. to find out where the pressure is greatest I use liquid white out to see where it scrapes it off. you could also use a sharpie for this.
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Post by LG Martial Arts on Jun 13, 2013 1:11:14 GMT
There's no problem with the habaki at all - the fit is almost perfect, with the friction being split evenly between the mune and ha, no scrape marks on the sides at all. The problem is that once the sword goes into the saya more than 3/4 of the way in, the blade feels like it's biting into the inside of the saya. I compared the sword and the saya against each other and it looks like the saya has a deeper sori than the sword, which to me is making the blade stick/cut into to inside of the saya. Once I push the blade deeper into the saya, the fit is better. It's a Chinese made katana, but from the ones I've had, this is the only one I've had this problem with.
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Post by whitefeathers on Jun 14, 2013 1:01:21 GMT
One of my Munetoshi Yukis had this problem. On the way in the edge would follow an off center groove that somehow got cut into the saya. I could feel the blade being twisted as it was tracking down this gouge in the wood. Sometimes when it got stuck I would have to pull it back out and try again. I tell you what it is embarrassing to be in front of people and have your sword get stuck. I was able to shine a flashlight down in there and see where the gouge was. I figured out how to avoid it when putting the sword away,by holding it in a very particular position. How I fixed it was an hour or so of repeated draw and return. using the sword itself to kinda cut away slivers bit by bit. It was messy and when I was done I had wood slivers all over the place, but the sword slides in nice and easy now. I was able to get away with fixing this one because of where the groove was and the blade geometry of this particular sword. What sword is this happening with? Maybe that will help us a bit.
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Post by LG Martial Arts on Jun 15, 2013 1:36:14 GMT
It's a custom Zhejiang Zhengs katana... unfortunately, I don't have access to either the sword or pics since I'm out of town on a business trip.
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