Art Nouveau Iaito
Jan 14, 2022 2:39:48 GMT
Post by steveboy on Jan 14, 2022 2:39:48 GMT
Some very kind encouragement in the New Year Event thread has led me to start posting some of my modded/customized katana here. The last two years have been quite a learning curve, and I ask the indulgence of the more experienced members as I post some of my earlier flailing around.
This is one of the first customizations I did. I've always thought the elegant shape of a katana suggested Art Nouveau's trademark curvilinears (unsurprising, since Art Nouveau was heavily influenced by traditional Japanese design), and thought it would be fun to make an Art Nouveau-themed iaito.
It's a $70 ebay sword. I sanded the saya down to bare wood and primered it gray with two coats of Rustoleum 2x. The black was Design Master ubermatte Ink Tinta. I hadn't got an airbrush yet, it was rattle-cans all the way.
I can't draw worth a damn, so I found a Nouveau border I liked, elongated it quite a lot in PaintShop Pro, and printed it onto adhesive vinyl. I cut out the design with an X-acto knife (Santa, Please Bring Me a Cricut Printer) and applied it to the black-painted saya. This may have been my introduction to the unique PITA of the saya shape, when it comes to attempting symmetrical design, straight lines, and applying adhesive stencils.
I wanted a slightly worn, antiqued look, so I brushed Rub 'n Buff Antique Gold into the end-cap stencils, the fittings, and the tsuba.
I polished the 1040 steel blade with Peek metal polish. I was afraid to disassemble anything, so I did all the painting & polishing by masking off areas. Nowadays I know better.
I lacquered the ito with two coats of Minwax gloss polyurethane, , clearcoated the saya with matte spray polyurethane, and was pretty much done.
Over time I discovered that the Rub 'n Buff wears away pretty quickly with handling, and I've since sanded everything down again and repainted, this time using Liquid Leaf Classic Gold.
I'd do a lot of this differently now, but it was an early effort, and I learned a lot. It's been my go-to training iaito for a few years, and I'm very fond of the little guy.
Modifying low-end katana has been a great, low-risk way to learn. I've made a lot of mistakes (still do!), but they weren't $10,000 mistakes that ruined a work of art or piece of history, and they let me learn the hard way without causing much damage.
It's a $70 ebay sword. I sanded the saya down to bare wood and primered it gray with two coats of Rustoleum 2x. The black was Design Master ubermatte Ink Tinta. I hadn't got an airbrush yet, it was rattle-cans all the way.
I can't draw worth a damn, so I found a Nouveau border I liked, elongated it quite a lot in PaintShop Pro, and printed it onto adhesive vinyl. I cut out the design with an X-acto knife (Santa, Please Bring Me a Cricut Printer) and applied it to the black-painted saya. This may have been my introduction to the unique PITA of the saya shape, when it comes to attempting symmetrical design, straight lines, and applying adhesive stencils.
I wanted a curvilenear shape on the ends of the saya, and realized that the shape I wanted was basically a bell curve, if you unrolled and flattened it. I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that the graphic I found that best fit this was the CDC bell-curve graphic that was everywhere at the beginning of the pandemic when we were supposed to be flattening the curve. I printed it onto adhesive vinyl, cut out the shape, and applied it to the saya.
I lacquered the ito with two coats of Minwax gloss polyurethane, , clearcoated the saya with matte spray polyurethane, and was pretty much done.
Over time I discovered that the Rub 'n Buff wears away pretty quickly with handling, and I've since sanded everything down again and repainted, this time using Liquid Leaf Classic Gold.
I'd do a lot of this differently now, but it was an early effort, and I learned a lot. It's been my go-to training iaito for a few years, and I'm very fond of the little guy.