A2 Wakizashi Build along

BenR.T.

BenR.T.

Tanto grinder & High performance blade peddler
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Apr 18, 2011
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Hey guys! In theme with some of the fullered fixed blades I have been making lately, I thought it would be fun to try something a bit...larger. ;)
I figured I would snap some pics along the way to share with those who are interested.

I decided to go with a 15" blade wakizashi. Oal will be just over 23". The steel is .250" A2 tool steel.
This is merely my interpretation of a hard use modern blade. It is heavily inspired by some of Dan Keffelers beastly blades.

At this point I am mostly done with it, so I will share all the pics I have up until now.

Laying out my design



Milling in the main fuller. I like to this before the blade is profiled, as it is easier to get everything lined up.



I also milled a false edge on the top of the blade.



Here I have the bevels roughed in.



Squaring up the shoulders for the Guard.



Truing up the bevels by hand. Since this is an air hardening steel, I can get the blade 95% before heat treat.



Had to pick up some new quench plates for this big guy. Not cheap!



So here is the blade post hardening. It was sealed in a high temp stainless pouch and clamped between the aluminum plates to cool.



A2 likes a nice soak in Liquid Nitrogen immediately after hardening, here it is after the soak, coming up to room temp.



Normally surprises during HT are bad. Much to my delight though I got a nice one.
The blade actually developed a bit of Sori during the quench. Pretty cool!

 
The blade all cleaned up and ready to mark.




Nice deep mark.




Another shot of the blade all cleaned up and marked.




I decided to go with a titanium Guard on this guy. Laying out for slotting.




Milling the slot in the guard.




Squaring up the opening on the slot. I like to use a file that I have smoothed the faces on. This way I only remove material where I want to.




Thanks to Steven kindly pestering me everytime I post a Japanese inspired piece without a habaki, I decided this would be a good piece to try my hand at making one. I wanted to do it a little different though. I decided to machine the habaki from a solid piece of copper.



Milling the slot in the top. This will slide over the ricasso and rest against the blade shoulders, just like a guard.




Here is the habaki and guard rough fitted.




Here is the guard all contoured and being Titanium, I decided to give it an orange peel finish.




Here is the copper Habaki all shaped. I decided to give it a nice heat coloring.




So if you thought I was going to leave the blade all shiny, you don't know me very well. ;)
Here I am antiquing the blade.




While the blade was aging, I decided to make a couple titanium menuki's. I figured I would give them a hammered texture and a "diamond" shape reminiscent on of stingray skin.




Here are all of the fittings ready to install. The menuki and Guard are Titanium and heat colored.

 
Last edited:
Well, well. Here we go with another fine thread by Ben.
So far... amazing!
rolf
 
Beautiful work Ben. Looking very nice.
Just in case you want to know, I think you called the habaki a menuki in your last habaki photo. The photos are great also.
Thanks for taking the time to make this build along thread. I always enjoy them immensely.
Looking forward to seeing the final steps. Mike
 
Ben,

Looking forward to more, very nice work and the menukis are a cool idea.

Doug
 
Sweet! I love your work, so being able to watch you do a WIP, especially on a blade like this is a big ol' juice treat for me :cool: :thumbup: I love how all the fittings turned out, can't wait ta see how they'll all look together once this is finished :D

-Paul
My Channel Lsubslimed
 
duuuude....
 
Hey, not trying to hijack this thread, but I just now remember (due to this awesome WIP) reading a WIP of Dan Keffeler making his cpm3v version wakizashi with titanium fittings and wrapped turotuff handle etc. I thought I had it saved but I guess not, and I can't find it when searching. Anybody have the link to that by any chance?

-Paul
My Channel Lsubslimed
 
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