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Post by steves87 on Sept 10, 2018 5:14:01 GMT
hello! I have been practicing sword arts for a while now and some of the fellow students have found out I am into sword modification/repair. Increasingly I am finding with the de-construction of katana (low to mid prices), the Tsuka cores are cracked, like 80 to 90% !! and the fit has acres to spare without shims. One of the pictures below is of 4 brand new sword tsuka! not sure what wood is used but it is horrible and some cracks run the whole length to the kashira. I always remove the wood core and re-make one with furniture grade hardwood, when time permits I like to make custom fuchi and kashira but otherwise re-use the mass produced as some are decently thick enough. I always replace the Tsuba with my own custom steel Tsuba, I feel it changes the look of the sword a bit more, even with mass produced hardware elsewhere. My tsukamaki is ok for beginner status and I could get it better with enough time allowed, but lately I have found that a gangimaki style wrap is ultra quick and better for practice/class and im finding others I do repairs for are tending to agree as the last 5 or so have requested it. some with menuki, some without. anyway, just trying to contribute to the forum without annoying people too much. feel free to give feedback, I like to think im always in pursuit of betterment and feedback pushes that along. cheers Steve
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Post by steves87 on Oct 25, 2018 2:47:25 GMT
I've been having a shot at a bit of hand engraving lately and I feel I am slowly improving. One thing that has been troubling me is smoothing of the engraving, I just cant smooth it out enough. Through flat chiselling, sanding and light burnishing its getting to where it is, but I feel there must be something else I have not tried. Does anyone have some tips or methods for smoothing engraving?
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Post by zsg1313 on Oct 30, 2018 15:48:31 GMT
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Post by steves87 on Oct 30, 2018 22:33:50 GMT
Thankyou! I have not come across this site before, looks like ill reading this for days!
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Post by zsg1313 on Oct 30, 2018 22:44:15 GMT
Thankyou! I have not come across this site before, looks like ill reading this for days! Ford Hallam, the owner of the site I think has some amazing videos as well. If nothing else check his Utsushi videos on recreating a tiger tsuba. www.youtube.com/user/ironbrush
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Post by steves87 on Oct 31, 2018 0:12:25 GMT
That is a great video, thanks!
I do know of Mr Ford Hallam, I did not realize he had a youtube channel or a forum!
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Post by steves87 on Nov 3, 2018 7:59:33 GMT
Week 4 of my self teaching metal engraving. Noticable improvements, but a lot of room for improvement. Im hopeing to have a bit of a go at inlays soon, it will be interesting to see how that goes!
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Post by steves87 on Nov 12, 2018 5:25:35 GMT
5th week in, tried some inlay... worked... but Ive learnt what I did wrong and how to make it better... next one hopefully will be better. Im thinking of selling these trials at a local fair, do you think id get $50-$60 for one? hoping to recover some cost and get money to further my self teaching.
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Post by Adrian Jordan on Nov 12, 2018 7:15:37 GMT
Those look great. $50-$60 is a bargain.
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Post by steves87 on Nov 12, 2018 8:54:22 GMT
Those look great. $50-$60 is a bargain. thank you Adrian, I have not had luck in the past at the same dollar point... I realize the sword market is just not big where I am, but I thought maybe from an art display point of view it may still be worth it.
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Post by steves87 on Nov 12, 2018 13:54:44 GMT
Just 'finished' this tonight A bit more complicated than the last one. Looks ok, but what I learnt doing this was invaluable. The inlay material/quantity verses the dovetail trench required to hold the inlay is not what I expected. I also think that the inlay material may need to be anealed during the install... especially using brass, but may be a case of me needing to hammer more efficiently. Had a scare also with the different melting points of the various materials as I heat and oil blue the tsuba. I didnt have silver so used aluminium which has a melting point very close to the blued steel
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Post by Sir Thorfinn on Nov 12, 2018 16:38:51 GMT
These are beautiful work!
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Post by steves87 on Nov 13, 2018 5:42:14 GMT
These are beautiful work! Thank you SirThorfinn, Long way to go, but I'm confident I'm showing improvement
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Post by Madmartigen on Nov 13, 2018 8:43:13 GMT
You certainly are, these look very nice. Apart from manual skills that show improvement, I very much like the designs themselves.
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Post by steves87 on Nov 13, 2018 12:45:20 GMT
You certainly are, these look very nice. Apart from manual skills that show improvement, I very much like the designs themselves. Thank you Madmartigen, Im currently working on making the designs flow or relate for both sides of tsuba, previously i felt they have not been obvious enough to others, although they make sense to me, i admit I have an oddball way of thinking of things
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Post by zsg1313 on Nov 13, 2018 14:59:36 GMT
Those are looking great, may I ask what you do for a patina?
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Post by steves87 on Nov 14, 2018 4:09:25 GMT
Those are looking great, may I ask what you do for a patina? Thank you, yes of course you can ask. It sounds maybe a little silly (and probably is) but I actually place the Tsuba in a small sealed bag of sand and play around with it for some time (watching tv/you tube etc) sometimes days sometimes hours, its the long long long version of sandblasting im guessing, but doesn't seem to take too much detail from features and is usually very even. Once taken out of bag I heat tsuba to desired temp (or colour) and twizzle it round in a bucket of very old sump oil (wearing gas mask - ohs). after it is all degreased and cleaned I use the thinnest coat of natural beeswax, that's it! this finish I have been doing for years on all sorts of things, some with daily use and some with none, all cases (bar one) have not yet rusted. Im still trying to get a good finish using accelerated rust, but have not yet.... frustrating but I feel im getting close.
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Post by steves87 on Nov 19, 2018 13:14:31 GMT
Had another practice of a flat inlay and tried to get a bit of a flowing theme one side to the other. The flat inlay went ok, but you can see the raised metal either side of the inlay. Not sure if I should be accepting this or not, could probably stone grind it down a bit more but wasnt sure if id accidently expose buried inlay. The plus side of this tsuba is im confident I can join separate inlays well enough to (almost) look as one. Below is the second attempt on a tsuba i tried once before, but broke. Still mounted the broke one on a waki, i think its posted here above.
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Post by RaylonTheDemented on Nov 19, 2018 22:42:41 GMT
That's very fine work there, keep it up!
The sandblasting idea is actually very interesting, I have access to sandblasting devices at work, will start thinking thinking about this when looking at what tsuba I got...
Cheers
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Post by steves87 on Nov 20, 2018 4:23:46 GMT
That's very fine work there, keep it up!
The sandblasting idea is actually very interesting, I have access to sandblasting devices at work, will start thinking thinking about this when looking at what tsuba I got...
Cheers Thank you, sandblasted steel is a great finish, I also find a stiff steel wire brushed finish similar
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