Carved Flame Katana (Walk-Through)

I didn't take Before pix, but here are some shots of its matching wakizashi, to give you an idea:

So there's this kid in my Batto class who's too big for a wakizashi and not quite big enough for a full-size iaito. He really needed a ko-katana, but he couldn't afford one (and would probably outgrow it in a year anyhow). I think he's got great potential, but the size thing was hampering him.

I realized that the mall-ninja sword might work for him. It's lightweight and a bit short. I brought it to class and he practiced with it and it worked great for him.

Okay, then. Pig makeover time!

Sean is an anime fan, very hyper, very smart. He kind of goes to 11. I wanted to design something that suited his character, something that stood out and had a lot of motion, but wasn't too loud or over-the-top.

The sword has a plastic insert at the koiguchi. I have no idea what the saya is made of, but it ain't wood. It has cheesy metal endcaps, and a kurigata with a 1/4" hole drilled in it. The tang ends in a threaded bolt and the tsuka is bolted on. The same is plastic. No seppa.

The blade was severely rusted. I covered it in Naval Jelly, cleaned it off, and went at it with a palm sander and 220, 400, 800, 1500, 2500, and 5000 grit, then Peek & Mother's Aluminum polishing compounds. Considering where it started from, I was pretty happy with the outcome:

I widened the hole in the kurigata with a Dremel. I sanded the saya, sprayed with Krud Kutter, and hoped for the best because I had no idea what material I was trying to paint here. I primered with black Autoborne Sealer and painted a base coat of Createx Wicked Dioxazine Opaque Purple. Man, it was like LA Lakers purple. Wish I'd taken a picture.

I wanted the whole saya to look like fantasy granite, so I used an airbrusher trick where you spray with a popsicle stick next to the airbrush needle. The paint bounces off the needle and spatters; you can vary the size and density by moving & angling the popsicle stick. (I documented this on my River Koi Tanto project.

I spattered black, white, gray, and light purple till I was happy with how it looked. It toned down the bright purple a lot.

I taped off a hotrod-flame design with striping tape. I wanted the flames on the omote side to look carved, and the flames on the ura side to look beveled.

For a carved look, you have to mask the flame's negative space (the parts that aren't flame):

For a beveled look, you mask the flame itself:

You airbrush white highlights on top and black shadow on the bottom on one side, and black on top and white on bottom for the other. Then you say a prayer, offer rum to the Airbrush Gods, and pull the tape:

It didn't pop the way you'd normally want chiseled flames to, but that's good: I wanted it to stand out, but I didn't want it to yell.

I primered the fittings and put down a metallic gold base coat, then sprayed them with candy deep purple until it was fairly dark -- almost black cherry. It's very gleamy-metallic in sunlight.

I sprayed two coats of automotive 2K clear, buffed with Meguiars rubbing compound & polished with Nu Finish. Reassembled, attached a crappy sageo that was still better than the one it had come with, and presented it to Sean in class. He loved it, so yay!

It also made me happy that something I'd considered throwing away got turned into something he liked that would help his training.

Thanks for reading!