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Post by hypothalamus83 on Jan 1, 2018 22:55:27 GMT
Greetings all,
I have been spending the past while gleaning wisdom from the SBG Forum denizens in silence and finally decided to join up properly. Your conglomerate insight has been quite helpful as I seek to deepen my knowledge of the Japanese sword.
My specific question regards the Bugei Bamboo katana I expect to receive near the end of March. I am a new student of iaido and plan to use it for tameshigiri, both soft and hard target. I went with a 29.5" nagasa and 11" tsuka. As much as I love the aesthetics, I have read that of the "axe handle" nature of the tsuka and was thinking of having a new one made with rikku, new wrapping, and new koshirae and new saya.
I have read both glowing and less than stellar reviews of Fred Lohman's mounting work, but none of them are very recent. His full package seems reasonably priced on his site, but if I needed to look elsewhere and spend a bit more to have it done right, I am open to suggestion.
Thoughts? My advance thanks.
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Post by tancred on Jan 3, 2018 5:03:56 GMT
I have experience with Fred Lohman, but it was close to ten years ago. Things may have changed since then. If things are the same, I would not recommend getting mounting work done there. Unfortunately, the results I got there kind of scared me off of sending any other katanas for customization to other places, too. So, I can't recommend anyone else, either. There are plenty of people around here with more experience with the different places, though, so I'm sure others can chime in with good advice.
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Post by sankojin on Jan 3, 2018 14:42:58 GMT
I have not had any work done by Fred but I did contact him about 5 years ago when I was looking to have my Howard Clark L6 blade polished and mounted. I had asked Fred who would be doing the polishing and he wouldn't share that information with me. Fred outsources to other people to do this kind of work. My guess as to why you have read both good and bad reviews of the work that comes out of his place of business is most likely due to having been completed by different people. I to was in the same spot as you are now just with blade polishing. With not knowing who was going to be working on my blade I couldn't see any photos of their previous work. I didn't like that so I ended up going with someone else. Not sure how much you're looking to spend but I would highly recommend Josiah Boomershine. He is a student of Rick Barrett and is a fantastic bladesmith as well as a fittings and mount maker. You can get a hold of him on FaceBook if you are interested in getting something done by him. Wish you luck in your search.
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Post by shepherd214 on Jan 8, 2018 16:49:46 GMT
In my opinion, Josh Marlan of Cottontail Customs has cleaner looking work than Fred Lohman, for about the same price or actually might be slightly cheaper. I had a saya repainted with new buffalo horn fittings, handle reshaped, new tsukamaki and stingray skin. He did a fantastic job and was very patient with my lack of knowledge of what my choices were. Search for him on facebook or go to the Cottontail Customs website.
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Post by hypothalamus83 on Jan 8, 2018 19:47:05 GMT
My thanks for the suggestions. I have recently been in contact with Randy Black, about whom I understand there to be good things said by all.
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Post by sankojin on Jan 11, 2018 5:58:04 GMT
My thanks for the suggestions. I have recently been in contact with Randy Black, about whom I understand there to be good things said by all. Indeed, he is also an excellent choice.
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Post by wazikan on Jan 15, 2018 19:14:44 GMT
iv3e had randy do a few of my blades. great work
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