Greetings from Cuba

[CubaMasamune]

Hello, I'm just registered but a long time visitor this wonderful forum filled with great information and photos. I must say I'm not an expert in sharp-edge weapons, or any other weapons at all, but just a hobbist messing around with metal in my free time; actually I'm a graphic designer and website developer but I feel very attracted to work my own pieces. I live in Havana, Cuba.

I literally work with garbage, with trash: I mainly use structural steel from very rusted construction beams to build my blades, copper and brass from old pipes, any wood scrap I can find, etc. It is not an exclusivity of mine, nor my homage to recycling, it is simple I don't have access to much more! but then I won't feel discouraged about that. So my pieces are many that, garbage turned into shiny objects, resembling swords and knives, with the only purpose of being hanged in my studio walls and to let me fly once in a while...no real sharping edge (because people nowadays tends to grab a katana by its blade!), no real foundry stuff, and until two or three pieces ago, not even real rayskin! My pieces are just ornamental craftmanship I do as escape valve from so many graphics and code I do daily. It is a personal hobby, I don't think I would be able to sell anything and it is not my primary intention.

In my metal work, I don't use powertools so I try to make things by hand.

So, thank you for your warm welcome to this forum, and I let you with my first posted photo of my work...as I guess this is not the right place to post lots of photos, I'll just put one here and the rest in the gallery.

Best,

Aram

This is a close up to the tsuba in the katana I just finished. I made it with contruction steel.

 

[JTC]

That looks very nice. I think Cuba is a fascinating country. I look forward to seeing more of your work.

 

[untamed]

Bienvenidos y hola senor!

Wow! Even though those are only replica swords, it still takes a skilled artisan to make such pieces and from discarded "trash" no less!

 

[zcd]

Wow, it takes a lot ingenuity to make pieces like that out of trash. I suppose leaf springs are hard to come by in Havana?

 

[CubaMasamune]

Wow, it takes a lot ingenuity to make pieces like that out of trash. I suppose leaf springs are hard to come by in Havana?

Thank you guys. I'll certainly post a few photos showing the process of making a tsuba from trash

Dear zcd...ehm, well it is not complex to get leaf springs here and actually a friend's workshop has many of these from old cars, trashed in his backyard...but I'm scared about using that kind of steel I mean, aren't they superhard to work with? The myth here is that they are very hard, that files won't eat it, that the angle grinder will cry with it, etc. Do you guys have experience working with this steel? Is it true that it can't be straighten without heat? I don't have a heat source, perhaps only the oxy/acetylene torch of my friend...

 

[CubaMasamune]

Ah oh, sorry...when I post parts of a same project, but that are mostly subprojects, ie, a tsuba is by its own a whole new and different project than the blade it will fit in...should I add the photos and comments to the main piece? Or can I create a new thread just for it?