A garbage fire of a sword project.
Oct 19, 2019 1:25:23 GMT
Post by hyakkihei on Oct 19, 2019 1:25:23 GMT
First of all, I'm new to the forum, nice to meet you guys.
At the same time, hope I'm not posting this in the wrong subforum!
I've recently received a wakizashi from my grandfather, I've known about the sword he's had in his possession for about 20 years.
According to him he found it at a farm he was contracted to do construction at in the 70's ( We live in the Netherlands ), and brought it home.
It remained there in terrible state for a number of years, up to a decade and a half, until a friend of the family apparently attempted to restore it...
They sent a letter to the Japanese embassy about it, got some information from them, and then proceeded to restore the sword.
Well, the result was as follows:
A couple of years ago I had looked into the sword, thinking I might be able to find some parts for it while I was in Japan, as I had a trip there planned with my university.
So recently he gave the sword to me, and I wanted to look into perhaps restoring it partly.
And looking at the sword again really reveals some glaring issues right off the bat..
The tsuba being backwards, the fuchi being in the wrong place, the needlessly long handle, and more egregiously, the 4 pins that were in said handle. As well as the saya, and the several parts missing that I could spot straight away.
The letter from the embassy reads it was made in the 6th year of Eishou (1509) in Bishuu, made by Nagafune Sukesada.
Which... doesn't exactly give me a lot of results.
It wasn't until I had managed to remove the handle that I realized that it was supposed to be Bishuu Osafune, made by Sukesada. Different reading of the kanji. Got a lot more info when searching for that.
I was able to properly read the kanji on there at least, but removing the handle revealed to me that the guy who had "restored" it had indeed drilled 4 separate holes into the nakago and threaded them, also attempted to thread the bigger hole ( the top-most hole was hidden behind the tsuba and fuchi ).
He had also superglued the tsuba and fuchi into place, which was not pleasant to remove, also superglued the handle to the nakago.
The fuchi was forced around that lip on the habaki, probably damaged and deformed the copper towards the nakago, haven't managed to remove the habaki yet.
I want to say the tsuba doesn't look too rough... but the outlines of these marks on it are most definitely from where the fuchi and the handle were attached to it, no idea exactly what kind of damage they did to it.
I love how the fuchi looks, though it seems to be slightly bend on the inside on one side. But I have absolutely no idea what kind of design this is supposed to be.
Having finally been able to remove the fuchi from the nakago, and finding out it had been wedged over that lip on the habaki, i realized i couldn't assemble it properly because the tsuba wouldn't fit against the habaki, and for the longest time I couldn't figure out why the habaki looked the way it did.
Until I accidentally found an image online of a two piece habaki disassembled... And realized that aside from seppa, all the mountings on the saya, the menuki and the kashira, I was also missing a second part of the habaki.
Which kinda sucks. Even then, I still think the habaki looks rather thin on this sword compared to images I find online.
So yeah, long story short, the sword is in extremely rough condition, the guy who restored it probably did a lot of damage to it when removing the rust from the blade, and when gluing parts together and drilling holes into the nakago.
Nonetheless I'd like to at least make a nice tsuka and saya for it. A while ago I'd found a tutorial by an Erick Nelson for the tsuka which gives me a rough idea ( and I'll be sure to do more research before starting any of this ).
But I did have a few questions about all this stuff.
1, does anyone know what kind of design this fuchi is?
2, would it be best to replace the fuchi as well to get a matching set of fuchigashira, or could I somehow get a somewhat matched themed kashira to go with it?
3, I have too little knowledge on what kind of Menuki would fit as well, but I read there were a few standard types.
4, can this habaki be salvaged by making a custom part for the second part of the habaki? ( I still need to get it off because I could work on that )
5, Is the tsuba something I'd want to attempt to "fix"? I wouldn't necessarily know where to start on that.
These are the kinds of things I'd like to figure out before even starting on the tsuka and saya project.
I've looked into the possibilities of having the sword professionally polished as well, but... considering its state, I'm not sure how feasible this is.
Also my apologies if these images are akin to sword collecting gore.
EDIT:
Got the habaki off. I assumed the lip had been deformed and crushed against the nakago at some point, but looking inside of it i actually don't feel like it has been, are there different designs for two piece habaki? The ones I've seen online have the second part slide over but also partially inside the first piece in the back and front parts.
I also found something carved on the inside of the habaki, it looks too precise to be accidental, I had no idea what it was until I held the habaki upright, I think it might be the character 小.
Also the part of the nakago under the habaki is the only part of the sword that is relatively rust-free, giving me a nice look on how the sword could've looked in the past.
Appears the habaki was this hard to remove because there was some superglue that had seeped in there as well.