Friday, June 24, 2016

 

Restoring a Wakizashi

I found this wakizashi at a flea market in Arkansas.  The handle was a little loose and had Chinese motifs on it.
I cut the handle and tsuba off with an angle grinder and found this to be all the tang that I had to work with.

I used some of the extra magnolia from my previous katana handle build and cut it down with a draw knife.

I made a spacer out of black kydex plastic and wrapped the handle in white athletic tape.


# posted by Akimoro @ 10:40 AM 0 comments
 

New Katana handle

I started with a Magnolia branch.  I cut out a length that suited my grip.
I began shaping it with a draw knife.  Once it was roughed out, I moved it to the belt sander for clean up.

After splitting the handle lengthwise, I routered out a groove for the tang.  For this I used a Dremel with a cutout bit.  Holes were drilled for the pegs, which are one inch steel round stock.

The stain was a "natural" color Minwax polyurethane. It turned it from an off-white to more of a rotten banana color.

Three layers of epoxy, dried, sanded, and steel pegs put in.

First layer of handle wrap is sissel twine.

Second layer is leather from a cow's belly.  It is very soft but holds a grip.


For the scabbard I used a piece of PVC pipe and made it look like bamboo using a LARP tutorial. 





Shikomi-zue (sword cane), 14th c, tachi shortened to wakizashi size. Tokubetsu Hozon attributed to the Nio School, cutting length is 21.25 inches.

# posted by Akimoro @ 10:37 AM 0 comments

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