Naginata Koshirae
Oct 4, 2024 0:38:16 GMT
Post by larason2 on Oct 4, 2024 0:38:16 GMT
I looked online for a good place to learn more about how to make naginata koshirae, in particular how to carve the wood to go around the nakago, but I couldn’t find any. The “naginatas” that are sold by the mainline Chinese smiths all have some sort of standard elongated katana tsuka, which I know isn’t correct. There’s been questions on various forums asking about this, but they never seem to get answered. So I did the next most sensible thing, and purchased an antique naginata koshirae. It was only $200 USD, which is as much as an inexpensive sword, but I didn’t like the thought of just making another elongated katana handle copy if that wasn’t right. It looked a bit rough, but I figured it would be good enough for my purposes!
When it arrived, I found that it had been extensively termite eaten. Not a problem for me, as I’m not going to use the wood! In a way it’s good it was termite eaten, because otherwise I would have felt bad cutting it up to get the koshirae off and figuring out how it was made. I thought it would be young oak, but in fact it turned out to be quite a dark wood, that I think is most likely old ho wood (magnolia), though I suppose it could also be keyaki or some kind of Japanese ebony. It does have some light coloured heart wood, which confuses me as to what it is.
It turns out, at least for this naginata, that they carved a channel in the wood on the back side all the way to the end of the nakago, then filled the hole with carved aged bamboo. Rather than use rice glue or anything like that, they then wrapped it with twine, and lacquered everything together with urushi. That all makes for a very comfortable handle (based on what the termites left me!).
Another surprise is that they carved the very end of the nakago crooked (at a slant to the rest). Not sure if this is to help keep the blade in there, or for some other reason, but I figure it probably does help to keep things in there to some extent.
The koshirae were all native copper, which was also a surprise, but I’m happy because I like doing rokusho/niage. I would have assumed them to be brass. I accidentally bent one ring, but that shouldn’t be too hard to fix. The rings were all loose, but were not able to be easily removed, since they would get stuck on the parts of the handle that had the twine. The top and bottom cuffs were made to be removable, the top one coming off easily, and the bottom one held in place by many wraps of thicker twine and then held together by urushi (it had to be cut through to get the bottom one off). They completed the urushi of the handle so that there was urushi where the inome (boar’s eye) hole in the bottom cuff was, but the bottom cuff was still removable, until they put on the twine and urushi for the bottom of the handle.
The koshirae also came with a fuchi, a wooden naginata “blade,” and a naginata saya. It didn’t look like it matched the pole, since the top sleeve and the fuchi are totally different sizes, but at least the fuchi is quite a nice, possibly shakudo dragon one (possibly just dirty copper!).
I found inside and below the bottom sleeve, it was solid wood, but the lowest ring was still in some way around the nakago (about 4 cm from the end).
The pole was 3 cm wide and 2.3 cm thick. It feels like a good diameter in my hands, and since that’s what the koshirae needs, that’s what it will get! It’s hard to tell how long the original naginata pole was, since the other end was totally eaten by termites, but the portion that was left to me was 60.6 inches in length. I’m planning to use hickory, because that’s a great material to make poles out of (I love my hickory bokken and bo from kingfisher). I have a board already that I think will do nicely. Since I’m on the taller side, I’ll make it as long as the board I have. The whole thing looks like it was coated with urushi, with a thin coat for the wood before the handle was put on.
I won’t use the fuchi that came with it, since it’s the wrong size, and the sleeve works as a fuchi in a way. The traditional ones I’ve seen just have a sleeve, not a separate fuchi, so that should be good enough (with the seppa). I like my naginata with some kind of bigger tsuba (but not katana size), so I’ll probably use one of the antique iron wakizashi tsuba I have (this koshirae didn’t come with a tsuba). If none of them are a good fit, I’ll fabricate one from wrought iron. The naginata came with a brass habaki, so I’ll probably fabricate custom seppa from brass plate (which I’ve done before). It didn’t come with the fitting that goes at the bottom of the pole (I think what’s called a foot in English). At the moment, I don’t know if I’ll make one out of brass, copper, iron, or just leave it as it is!
So overall, I think this was a helpful experiment (I hope to others as well). The carving is quite different from standard Japanese practice, but I think I can handle it (sorry about the pun!), and I already have all the materials. I just hope I don’t postpone it for too long like my other projects! If I hadn't bought this, I think making everything out of copper pipe would have worked just as well. It's nice to have originals to model off of though. Here are the pictures:
Here we see the bottom sleeve, and the twine wrap that is stuck together with urushi. The sleeve looks black, but it's native copper that was patinated with rokusho/niage. It looks so black because of dirt! Original patina would have been brown.
Here's everything I got off. The fuchi is not original, and in no way matches, but at least it is nice!
Here you see the spine at the end where the nakago ends. It's a bit hard to tell in the photo, but it's two different species. I believe ho wood for the pole, and aged bamboo for the strip they put back in the spine. I cut this portion off with a draw knife to see how long the cut was made relative to the nakago.
It's a bit hard to tell, but you can see here that the hole they carved wasn't straight down at the end of the nakago. (forgive my lazy cutting). They carved it curving to one side. As I said, I suspect this is to help hold the nakago in more solidly, but I suppose it could be the tang itself was crooked and they didn't want to straighten it (maybe because it held better that way).
Here's the lower sleeve section after cutting off the urushi/twine knob. You can see the termite damage a bit better here, it extended along the entire length of the pole. You can see where they applied the urushi so that it would be visible under the sleeve. I actually think they applied urushi over the whole section, then carved away what they needed to so the sleeve would look perfect. The hole you see at the top of the sleeve is a termite hole! You can see a bit of the lighter heart wood here (or maybe fungal damage to the wood).
When it arrived, I found that it had been extensively termite eaten. Not a problem for me, as I’m not going to use the wood! In a way it’s good it was termite eaten, because otherwise I would have felt bad cutting it up to get the koshirae off and figuring out how it was made. I thought it would be young oak, but in fact it turned out to be quite a dark wood, that I think is most likely old ho wood (magnolia), though I suppose it could also be keyaki or some kind of Japanese ebony. It does have some light coloured heart wood, which confuses me as to what it is.
It turns out, at least for this naginata, that they carved a channel in the wood on the back side all the way to the end of the nakago, then filled the hole with carved aged bamboo. Rather than use rice glue or anything like that, they then wrapped it with twine, and lacquered everything together with urushi. That all makes for a very comfortable handle (based on what the termites left me!).
Another surprise is that they carved the very end of the nakago crooked (at a slant to the rest). Not sure if this is to help keep the blade in there, or for some other reason, but I figure it probably does help to keep things in there to some extent.
The koshirae were all native copper, which was also a surprise, but I’m happy because I like doing rokusho/niage. I would have assumed them to be brass. I accidentally bent one ring, but that shouldn’t be too hard to fix. The rings were all loose, but were not able to be easily removed, since they would get stuck on the parts of the handle that had the twine. The top and bottom cuffs were made to be removable, the top one coming off easily, and the bottom one held in place by many wraps of thicker twine and then held together by urushi (it had to be cut through to get the bottom one off). They completed the urushi of the handle so that there was urushi where the inome (boar’s eye) hole in the bottom cuff was, but the bottom cuff was still removable, until they put on the twine and urushi for the bottom of the handle.
The koshirae also came with a fuchi, a wooden naginata “blade,” and a naginata saya. It didn’t look like it matched the pole, since the top sleeve and the fuchi are totally different sizes, but at least the fuchi is quite a nice, possibly shakudo dragon one (possibly just dirty copper!).
I found inside and below the bottom sleeve, it was solid wood, but the lowest ring was still in some way around the nakago (about 4 cm from the end).
The pole was 3 cm wide and 2.3 cm thick. It feels like a good diameter in my hands, and since that’s what the koshirae needs, that’s what it will get! It’s hard to tell how long the original naginata pole was, since the other end was totally eaten by termites, but the portion that was left to me was 60.6 inches in length. I’m planning to use hickory, because that’s a great material to make poles out of (I love my hickory bokken and bo from kingfisher). I have a board already that I think will do nicely. Since I’m on the taller side, I’ll make it as long as the board I have. The whole thing looks like it was coated with urushi, with a thin coat for the wood before the handle was put on.
I won’t use the fuchi that came with it, since it’s the wrong size, and the sleeve works as a fuchi in a way. The traditional ones I’ve seen just have a sleeve, not a separate fuchi, so that should be good enough (with the seppa). I like my naginata with some kind of bigger tsuba (but not katana size), so I’ll probably use one of the antique iron wakizashi tsuba I have (this koshirae didn’t come with a tsuba). If none of them are a good fit, I’ll fabricate one from wrought iron. The naginata came with a brass habaki, so I’ll probably fabricate custom seppa from brass plate (which I’ve done before). It didn’t come with the fitting that goes at the bottom of the pole (I think what’s called a foot in English). At the moment, I don’t know if I’ll make one out of brass, copper, iron, or just leave it as it is!
So overall, I think this was a helpful experiment (I hope to others as well). The carving is quite different from standard Japanese practice, but I think I can handle it (sorry about the pun!), and I already have all the materials. I just hope I don’t postpone it for too long like my other projects! If I hadn't bought this, I think making everything out of copper pipe would have worked just as well. It's nice to have originals to model off of though. Here are the pictures:
Here we see the bottom sleeve, and the twine wrap that is stuck together with urushi. The sleeve looks black, but it's native copper that was patinated with rokusho/niage. It looks so black because of dirt! Original patina would have been brown.
Here's everything I got off. The fuchi is not original, and in no way matches, but at least it is nice!
Here you see the spine at the end where the nakago ends. It's a bit hard to tell in the photo, but it's two different species. I believe ho wood for the pole, and aged bamboo for the strip they put back in the spine. I cut this portion off with a draw knife to see how long the cut was made relative to the nakago.
It's a bit hard to tell, but you can see here that the hole they carved wasn't straight down at the end of the nakago. (forgive my lazy cutting). They carved it curving to one side. As I said, I suspect this is to help hold the nakago in more solidly, but I suppose it could be the tang itself was crooked and they didn't want to straighten it (maybe because it held better that way).
Here's the lower sleeve section after cutting off the urushi/twine knob. You can see the termite damage a bit better here, it extended along the entire length of the pole. You can see where they applied the urushi so that it would be visible under the sleeve. I actually think they applied urushi over the whole section, then carved away what they needed to so the sleeve would look perfect. The hole you see at the top of the sleeve is a termite hole! You can see a bit of the lighter heart wood here (or maybe fungal damage to the wood).