I will try to answer as best I can,
Blade 747, actually I just spent a few minutes taking the shots of the Onimusha and many hours trying to load them, thats why I have a I surrender! thread in the asian and australian community. I just uploaded shots of the handle and scabbard so you can catch some sleep tonight.
Koji Hara san just finished doing a Mini Show of his handmade and production pieces in Singapore at one of the Knife shops here. we sent him off at the airport Sunday night. Have much respect for him, for taking the time and trouble to bring his creations here.
Richard, from what I understand from the guys at the shop, Onimusha is the model name and the #227 is the sub group. My Japanese is non-existant and the maker's name pronounced in chinese style is "chor tze".
Wulf, I'm really sorry but everything is in Japanese, I ordered the piece from a couple of really small pictures because I always wanted a handmade, three layered, damascus piece in traditional form. Have added maker's advert from the 2002 Knife Catalog so you'll understand.
Here's what I can tell you.....the Onimusha is Made in Japan, its hand made. san mai (three layered steel like the CS Tanto range). Of the three layers the two outer ones are damascus just like the kitchen knife I put up, only the patterns are more bold.
The handle is rayskin wrapped and so is part of the scabbard which is wood(traditional style). I have to learn to insert the blade with the spine pressing "topside" because I cut up the edge receiving groove quite badly by just pushing the blade in(there is no"protective" liner in the groove) .
Fellow forumnites Keninshiro and Samo could do better than me at describing the detail.
Regards Bernard
BTW its 12 midnight over here, so I'll be dozing off soon. Gotta wake up to earn money to buy more knives.
