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Post by JH Lee on Mar 25, 2022 19:44:01 GMT
I wonder if katate-uchi would make nito easier.
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Post by shepherd214 on Mar 25, 2022 23:16:31 GMT
Oh man, you messed up real bad having such a short tsuka with a 24 inch blade................ Not for a katateuchi. You don't use them like you do a katana, because they are inherently one-handed. Yea but are you really gonna trust hanbon to balance it and shape the geometry like it should be for a sword like that? Lol they probably just took a katana blade and shortened the tang.
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Post by naue on Mar 26, 2022 2:10:12 GMT
Not for a katateuchi. You don't use them like you do a katana, because they are inherently one-handed. Yea but are you really gonna trust hanbon to balance it and shape the geometry like it should be for a sword like that? Lol they probably just took a katana blade and shortened the tang. I bet that's exactly what Hanbon did lol.
I guess the question that's still nagging at me, though, are the average lengths/balance of original katate-uchi one-handed swords. Maybe some were actually pretty close to my repro, and I just happen to get lucky with how Hanbon made it? Cmon I can hope
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Post by naue on Mar 26, 2022 2:28:45 GMT
Pretty damn sure those are in uchigatana koshirae from the muromachi www.nihonto.com/uchigatana-koshirae/ technically what we call katana are uchigatana in uchigatana koshirae but that sure looks sengoku, so yeah, could be katateuchi. As for the one I had, it was only 2 shaku and had about 1.6cm of sori, Nagasa was quite thick at 3.1cm motohaba and 2.1cm sakihaba. It was one of Mino’s blades from the sengoku. It felt fat to me and not light for it’s size, I have a pre sengoku katana from mid muromachi or something and that one is 11cm longer but thanks to it being very tapered weighs about the same or at least feels like it weighs the same. So my impression is katate uchi are stout but perfectly wieldable 1 handed. And it gets confusing since uchigatana from the muromachi come in three flavors: thin and tapering from before sengoku, katateuchi, and then terminal muromachi that look like the katateuchi I posted but much longer with a longer nakago too www.fujibi.or.jp/en/our-collection/profile-of-works.html?work_id=10117 those end up influencing your standard Edo period katana. Oh and some katateuchi indeed have long cutting edges but many got machi-okuri in the Edo period to make them like normal two handed katana. I guess you could try adding a kashira. I wouldn’t worry too much about the breakage since it needs to be a lot of empty wood space and it seems the Japanese people using them to cut were really reckless. And thanks! I was wondering how long it would be before someone picked up the reference.
Great info. Thank you!
Do you happen to have any numbers on weight, point of balance for your katateuchi? I found it very difficult to get this information searching online, since original nihonto museum examples and auction listings all seem to be geared towards artists/collectors and don't give the measurements I'm looking for.
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Post by Drunk Merchant on Mar 26, 2022 13:00:36 GMT
Unfortunately I gave it away so I can’t give you POB but the weight was 0.98kg (it was in shirsaya so could have been heavier in fittings), and the blade had a distinctly sakisori curvature. Like every Japanese sword I’ve held the weight was closer to the tsuka than kisaki but I forget just how much.
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Post by MichaelRS on Mar 27, 2022 18:58:05 GMT
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Post by naue on Mar 27, 2022 19:14:39 GMT
Unfortunately I gave it away so I can’t give you POB but the weight was 0.98kg (it was in shirsaya so could have been heavier in fittings), and the blade had a distinctly sakisori curvature. Like every Japanese sword I’ve held the weight was closer to the tsuka than kisaki but I forget just how much.
O wow that's actually even heavier than my repro. Earlier in this thread you mentioned that for your antique the nagasa had a 3.1cm motohaba and 2.1cm sakihaba? I measured the motohaba and sakihaba on my repro by Hanbon and...it's actually exactly the same.
Thank you also for the link MichaelRS. I did see that thread when researching about the katate-uchi. I'll send Jussi a PM since he has a repro of a katate-uchi too and seems to know a good bit about them.
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Post by Jussi Ekholm on Mar 28, 2022 13:55:17 GMT
It is quite complicated subject, and there are no easy answers.
The style of kashira you are thinking is called kabutogane, the problem with just adding one would be that there is nothing to support it. So you will need to make a new tsuka if you would like to use that kind of kashira.
Unfortunately Chinese manufacturers do not pay too much attention to historical examples, they just rather keep on selling the stuff that sells. So your average Chinese made katana will be quite close to specs with other Chinese made katana. Same thing applies to their customs, they just generally tweak few things rather than make whole custom stuff.
Also given how there are thousands and thousands of authentic antique Japanese swords from 1500's surviving to this date you can very well find one which would be quite similar to yours.
In general nakago length is measured from the munemachi to the tip of nakago. Many of the historical katate-uchi have by modern production sword standards extremely short nakago. Chinese katana manufacturers usually do long and narrow nakago. Historically something like 13 - 16 cm (roughly 5 - 6,5 inches) would be quite normal range for nakago length. Now for modern production swords it would be extremely short.
I personally shortened the nakago on the custom I had as I was not satisfied with how it was from the factory. I cut mine to 15,5 cm, as I wanted to keep the 2nd hole too. I can attach a picture of how it is now. It is now much more closer to historical originals. Of course due to limitations from it's original form from manufacturer. The tsuka is 20 cm or roughly 8 inches.
I don't think you will find point of balance listed anywhere, I feel it is a stat that western practicioners are more concerned. However on those shops that are geared more towards martial artists you can find weights listed. Tōken Hataya is one such site with quite large inventory of items. You'll see that they have bare blade & in koshirae both listed. www.toukenhataya.jp/goods/sword/sword.html
For reference now after my modifications the sword of mine weighs 675 grams bare blade and 950 grams in koshirae (it is 61 cm [24 inch] blade). Point of balance on this is bit over 5 inches from the tsuba.
Even though these are later in history than my own collecting focus, I think I should have info on several hundred of these scattered across my books.
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Post by naue on Mar 28, 2022 19:04:09 GMT
It is quite complicated subject, and there are no easy answers.
The style of kashira you are thinking is called kabutogane, the problem with just adding one would be that there is nothing to support it. So you will need to make a new tsuka if you would like to use that kind of kashira.
Unfortunately Chinese manufacturers do not pay too much attention to historical examples, they just rather keep on selling the stuff that sells. So your average Chinese made katana will be quite close to specs with other Chinese made katana. Same thing applies to their customs, they just generally tweak few things rather than make whole custom stuff.
Also given how there are thousands and thousands of authentic antique Japanese swords from 1500's surviving to this date you can very well find one which would be quite similar to yours.
In general nakago length is measured from the munemachi to the tip of nakago. Many of the historical katate-uchi have by modern production sword standards extremely short nakago. Chinese katana manufacturers usually do long and narrow nakago. Historically something like 13 - 16 cm (roughly 5 - 6,5 inches) would be quite normal range for nakago length. Now for modern production swords it would be extremely short.
I personally shortened the nakago on the custom I had as I was not satisfied with how it was from the factory. I cut mine to 15,5 cm, as I wanted to keep the 2nd hole too. I can attach a picture of how it is now. It is now much more closer to historical originals. Of course due to limitations from it's original form from manufacturer. The tsuka is 20 cm or roughly 8 inches.
I don't think you will find point of balance listed anywhere, I feel it is a stat that western practicioners are more concerned. However on those shops that are geared more towards martial artists you can find weights listed. Tōken Hataya is one such site with quite large inventory of items. You'll see that they have bare blade & in koshirae both listed. www.toukenhataya.jp/goods/sword/sword.html
For reference now after my modifications the sword of mine weighs 675 grams bare blade and 950 grams in koshirae (it is 61 cm [24 inch] blade). Point of balance on this is bit over 5 inches from the tsuba.
Even though these are later in history than my own collecting focus, I think I should have info on several hundred of these scattered across my books.
Jussi, thank you so much for your response. Turns out I didn't even have to pm you after all!
Based on your replica and what DrunkenMerchant said about the nagasa proportions it seems mine isn't too far off (if at all) from (at least some) historical examples, which is of course what I was hoping for in the first place.
As for the kashira, I originally thought to use something along the lines of the big kashira on cheap swords like these:
But on a closer look, I think those are meant to be cheap, solid versions of kabutogane kashira that would still need more wood underneath to be sturdy as you said. Unless there are other similar options that don't require as much wood underneath??
Side note: Might I ask what tools/methods you used to cut down your nakago?
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Post by Jussi Ekholm on Apr 5, 2022 19:35:02 GMT
Sorry for the late reply as I had quite busy last week.
Unfortunately I lack power tools and space to use them, so I just sawed it by hand with hacksaw.
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