Custom Fantasy Katana

Big holes at the grip are not easy to pull off. It might warp during he quench, drilling after is hard and time consuming and it might be easy to break or bend over easy along the circle. Wallhanger is easy, something useable not so much because of the big circular hole. Possible, probably, but not easy and probablly will take some trial and error.

You could try some of the smiths at the bladesmith forum. Not sure they would be able to do it, but it's worth a try. It would be very prone to breaking, and difficult to heat treat, as mentioned. $2000 might not be enough, given it might take a few failed quenches to pull off.

You could redesign it a bit, that blade and grip are in line more and one piece. The circular guard added seperately and hides the blade on one side.
Another idea is add the guard over a straight blade and add vantablack (or any other super black like Muosu) to the visible blade part inside the circle (or make the whole inside black). Would make it very hard to see, general esthetics could be more similar than if you moved the circle up or down.

This is a better view of the "offending" parts.

Consider this.
Draw it up as a 3d render and have it metal printed.
It won't be cheap, but it will be exactly what you draw up.
Just a thought.

IMO, I hope this is just for a wall hanger, as what you want does not look sturdy. It might just be the angle.

I'm thinking there's two problems here. One is that the necessary blank would have to be very big. It's not impossible to get a bigger blank, say of 1075 or something, but it's going to be tricky. Definitely no sword manufacturer would tend to have one on hand. I guess you could forge it to shape, but that's also going to be hard. So getting a huge blank is probably the way to go. They make blanks for knives that are wide enough, but not sure if you could find a sword blank that is wide enough. Any smith would have to contact their suppliers.

Next is that it is probably impossible to attempt to heat treat with a large hole in it. You have the different parts of the steel trying to expand and contract at different rates with a big hole, so for sure you'll get at least one crack (probably two) around the hole. So you'd have to heat treat it without the hole. Hardened steel is very hard to cut a hole out of unless you heat it up enough to ruin the temper. So you're looking at hours with one or more diamond drill bits (I think ones big enough to cut once are going to basically be your whole budget), constantly cooling the blade so you don't damage the heat treat.

A complex blade like this, probably the best is to do stock removal with a computerized lathe like Albion does. So you will also have to pay someone to make the file to program the lathe for you, which won't be cheap.

What I would do is contact some smiths that do stock removal to see if they can make it for you within your budget without the hole, but with it marked off. Then buy/rent a drill press, and buy the biggest diamond masonry bit you can afford. Go slowly and cool with water often, drilling roughly around the hole. It should take many hours if you do it right, but eventually you'll get the hole drilled without damaging the heat treat. You'll then need either a carbide file, some ceramic polishing stones, or something like silicon carbide powder on a copper bit (use a mask, gesswein wouldn't sell it to me unless it was dissolved in oil), and again a lot of patience to finish the hole so it looks good. Not counting your own labour, you may be able to get it under budget!

I don’t guarantee the future, but methinks that’ll break the first time you hit anything with it.

If you go with a wall hanger, then a maker should be able to forge the shape without too much trouble. As previously stated, heat treating and tempering might not be reasonably possible.

Maybe go with aluminum rather than steel.

If you go with steel and stock removal, use a milling machine.

I have a custom fantasy sword made with a hole in it. Its a more robust design than the one you posted, but its tough and had withstood a lot over the years. It was made by oldetownsmithy from 5160.
imgur.com/gallery/KUgDBu9



Granted this design is much more rugged snd not as elegant as the design you posted. And it is a beast at nearly 4lbs

I admit, I was think the circle could be treated as largely cosmetic. Start with any longquan blade as a base, 3D print the ring into metal via shapeways or a similar service, and have it functionally replace the habaki and tsuba.

The tang would be visible through the opening, but if blacked out you could achieve a similar look with something that could actually still function.