PC Shinto Blade Mounting Project
Dec 21, 2008 14:33:11 GMT
Post by Deleted on Dec 21, 2008 14:33:11 GMT
(At the beginning I would like to ask you about something - please keep in mind а few things: first - this is my first time of full blade customization; second - my photos are bad and the most important - my English isn't good too. So please excuse all my errors!)
Recently I finished my first customization project of Paul Chen's Shinto Blade in shirasaya. And I'm very glad that I could share with you what I've done.
Little pre-history:
Everything began more than an year and half ago. Back then I had the opportunity to purchase Hanwei Shinto blade in shirasaya on a very low price (actually only paid for the international shipping) like a compensation for a retailer's mistake. I think if this wouldn't happen I never would dare to purchase blade in shirasaya and start a project. When I received it I found that this was actually very good blade - 27" nagasa, small ko kissaki and even it has some niku. So it naturally became one of my favorite blades and as such I wanted "dress" it as good as it was possible. I knew if I want a good customization I had to send this blade to one of the american customizers but in this case it would costs me times more than I paid for the blade itself and even more because the final price will increase cause of the shipping and custom taxes (I'm living in Europe). It was too obviously that my one and only option was to customize this blade myself. If I have to honest back then I hadn't even the slightest idea how much work and time this would consume. I thought that just reshaping the shirasaya's tsuka and saya, putting some same panels and doing the tsukamaki will be enough to make some acceptable looking katana (or at least functional). I know, I know - it was quite naive:-) It takes more than an year to buy fittings I need - fuchi and kashira, same, ito and sageo (plus two planks of yellow poplar). The reason this purchase took so long was that every time I put aside some money for the project some new sword tooks my attention and "eats' my money. So you could imagine what kind of inner struggle was the last time when I had the money. But right now I'm very happy that this time I didn't bought my next sword!
OK, here is shortly description of what I've done and some pics of the results:
- new tsuka core - yellow poplar
- single bamboo mekugi
- copper Higo fuchi kashira
- Higo tsuba
- full same' wrap
- gold brown silk ito
- freen/brown sageo
- horn koiguchi, kurikata and kojiri
- light brown with grey, black and brown speckles saya
You may notice one of the errors is my not very good tsukamaki - here I admit that I choose katate maki style only because it is much easier (for me) to make than hineri maki which was my initial choice (I really hate those little scoundrels - the hishigami - they always shift and it was very hard to put them in place especially in the final knots). The other mistake I made was that I used very thick hishigami and they swell the ito.
I have to confess I didn't think this project would ever ends so I didn't take pictures of every step of the process. That's why I'll try to make a short explanation about the things I've done. At first I messed up very bad the original (shirasaya's) tsuka when I tried to shape it to match the sori (curvature). But the more I came nearer to the right shape the more I got closer and closer to the nagako ana (tang's hole) and this continued 'till a thin oblong hole appeared on the ha surface. So it was obviously that I had to carve a new tsuka (but even if I didn't mess it up I had to make a new one because I noticed that the wood grains of the two halfs were in one direction like this "\" not like they have to be - "^"). I realized if I make a new tsuka for with this tang it wouldn't fix the problem with the sori extension. Following the Erick Nelson's "Construction Of The Shinken In The Modern Age" I cut the tang (the ha side) and it helped me to make the a better tsuka shape.
I didn't keep the pieces that I cut but I think you could imagine the original tang's shape - straight and little wider.
Regarding the chiseling the core and shaping the tsuka I followed the steps in the Erick Nelson's guide (this thing is irreplaceable for every DIYer). I choose his style of tsuka making (where the tang fully lies in the one half of the tsuka and the other just covers it up). Here I found something - if I separate the "bedstead" of the tang that I have to chisel with four - five cross lines (to make a few separated sectors) it will be more easy to chisel and the results would be much better. I end up with tight but easily dismountable tsuka.
With the same wrapping I had some problems. I wanted to make full wrap but till this moment I didn't realized how hard and tricky this process could be (now I clearly understand why even the high end production swords have panels). I found the important thing here is to precisely measure the right length. I started with the width and thought to correct the length when I do the test wraps but this end up with slightly short peace of same which I correct with a small epoxied piece of ray-skin. Here are two threads at the SFY which help me a lot too:
forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php?s=032390c1af0030732b907e4461ff094e&t=86186
forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php?t=81561
and of course it worths to check out the information about same wrapping styles at the Kashima sisters' website too:
www.ksky.ne.jp/~sumie99/samewrapping.html
After I wasted the whole same sheet (I hoped I could safe the rest for panels) I finished with the full same wrapping. For my first try it wasn't that bad - at least it can execute its main functions (to keep the tsuka core tight) and the best thing was that there were no bubbles. When the full wrap was done I lacquered it and wiped the knots.
Here I prefer to skip the shameful fight with the tsukamaki. Just to note - because of the same colour (which I like very much) I wanted to make the hineri maki but unfortunately I choose the wrong menuki (too big for my tight tskua) and this leds to more than five attempts and after every time my ito became shorter and shorter:
After all this suffer I end up with this katate maki:
But once again the menuki weren't suitable for comfortable grip so I had to unwrap the ito of other katana's tsuka to take the menuki, unwrap the ito of the tsuka again, replace the menuki and rewrap it once again (for the final time - I hope!!!):
When tsuka was finished I started with the shaping of the saya. I used the original saya. Here is one useful advice considering saya fittings - buy ready-made horn parts . I decided to buy a piece of horn and to make myself the koiguchi, kurikata and kojiri. This costs me a lot of time and a lot of filing, drilling and sweating.
So when the horn parts were ready and on epoxied their places, I started with the saya painting. Here again I had some trials and errors but at the end I think I found the right (at least for me) color.
After the saya dried up I put the sageo and sheathed the blade inside the saya. So my first project was finished:-)
Some more pics:
Thank you for the reading!
Recently I finished my first customization project of Paul Chen's Shinto Blade in shirasaya. And I'm very glad that I could share with you what I've done.
Little pre-history:
Everything began more than an year and half ago. Back then I had the opportunity to purchase Hanwei Shinto blade in shirasaya on a very low price (actually only paid for the international shipping) like a compensation for a retailer's mistake. I think if this wouldn't happen I never would dare to purchase blade in shirasaya and start a project. When I received it I found that this was actually very good blade - 27" nagasa, small ko kissaki and even it has some niku. So it naturally became one of my favorite blades and as such I wanted "dress" it as good as it was possible. I knew if I want a good customization I had to send this blade to one of the american customizers but in this case it would costs me times more than I paid for the blade itself and even more because the final price will increase cause of the shipping and custom taxes (I'm living in Europe). It was too obviously that my one and only option was to customize this blade myself. If I have to honest back then I hadn't even the slightest idea how much work and time this would consume. I thought that just reshaping the shirasaya's tsuka and saya, putting some same panels and doing the tsukamaki will be enough to make some acceptable looking katana (or at least functional). I know, I know - it was quite naive:-) It takes more than an year to buy fittings I need - fuchi and kashira, same, ito and sageo (plus two planks of yellow poplar). The reason this purchase took so long was that every time I put aside some money for the project some new sword tooks my attention and "eats' my money. So you could imagine what kind of inner struggle was the last time when I had the money. But right now I'm very happy that this time I didn't bought my next sword!
OK, here is shortly description of what I've done and some pics of the results:
- new tsuka core - yellow poplar
- single bamboo mekugi
- copper Higo fuchi kashira
- Higo tsuba
- full same' wrap
- gold brown silk ito
- freen/brown sageo
- horn koiguchi, kurikata and kojiri
- light brown with grey, black and brown speckles saya
You may notice one of the errors is my not very good tsukamaki - here I admit that I choose katate maki style only because it is much easier (for me) to make than hineri maki which was my initial choice (I really hate those little scoundrels - the hishigami - they always shift and it was very hard to put them in place especially in the final knots). The other mistake I made was that I used very thick hishigami and they swell the ito.
I have to confess I didn't think this project would ever ends so I didn't take pictures of every step of the process. That's why I'll try to make a short explanation about the things I've done. At first I messed up very bad the original (shirasaya's) tsuka when I tried to shape it to match the sori (curvature). But the more I came nearer to the right shape the more I got closer and closer to the nagako ana (tang's hole) and this continued 'till a thin oblong hole appeared on the ha surface. So it was obviously that I had to carve a new tsuka (but even if I didn't mess it up I had to make a new one because I noticed that the wood grains of the two halfs were in one direction like this "\" not like they have to be - "^"). I realized if I make a new tsuka for with this tang it wouldn't fix the problem with the sori extension. Following the Erick Nelson's "Construction Of The Shinken In The Modern Age" I cut the tang (the ha side) and it helped me to make the a better tsuka shape.
I didn't keep the pieces that I cut but I think you could imagine the original tang's shape - straight and little wider.
Regarding the chiseling the core and shaping the tsuka I followed the steps in the Erick Nelson's guide (this thing is irreplaceable for every DIYer). I choose his style of tsuka making (where the tang fully lies in the one half of the tsuka and the other just covers it up). Here I found something - if I separate the "bedstead" of the tang that I have to chisel with four - five cross lines (to make a few separated sectors) it will be more easy to chisel and the results would be much better. I end up with tight but easily dismountable tsuka.
With the same wrapping I had some problems. I wanted to make full wrap but till this moment I didn't realized how hard and tricky this process could be (now I clearly understand why even the high end production swords have panels). I found the important thing here is to precisely measure the right length. I started with the width and thought to correct the length when I do the test wraps but this end up with slightly short peace of same which I correct with a small epoxied piece of ray-skin. Here are two threads at the SFY which help me a lot too:
forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php?s=032390c1af0030732b907e4461ff094e&t=86186
forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php?t=81561
and of course it worths to check out the information about same wrapping styles at the Kashima sisters' website too:
www.ksky.ne.jp/~sumie99/samewrapping.html
After I wasted the whole same sheet (I hoped I could safe the rest for panels) I finished with the full same wrapping. For my first try it wasn't that bad - at least it can execute its main functions (to keep the tsuka core tight) and the best thing was that there were no bubbles. When the full wrap was done I lacquered it and wiped the knots.
Here I prefer to skip the shameful fight with the tsukamaki. Just to note - because of the same colour (which I like very much) I wanted to make the hineri maki but unfortunately I choose the wrong menuki (too big for my tight tskua) and this leds to more than five attempts and after every time my ito became shorter and shorter:
After all this suffer I end up with this katate maki:
But once again the menuki weren't suitable for comfortable grip so I had to unwrap the ito of other katana's tsuka to take the menuki, unwrap the ito of the tsuka again, replace the menuki and rewrap it once again (for the final time - I hope!!!):
When tsuka was finished I started with the shaping of the saya. I used the original saya. Here is one useful advice considering saya fittings - buy ready-made horn parts . I decided to buy a piece of horn and to make myself the koiguchi, kurikata and kojiri. This costs me a lot of time and a lot of filing, drilling and sweating.
So when the horn parts were ready and on epoxied their places, I started with the saya painting. Here again I had some trials and errors but at the end I think I found the right (at least for me) color.
After the saya dried up I put the sageo and sheathed the blade inside the saya. So my first project was finished:-)
Some more pics:
Thank you for the reading!