Nata WIP

P. McKinley

P. McKinley

Joined
Jan 27, 2008
Messages
2,010
For the past several weeks I've slowly been building a nata for a customer out on the left coast. This is my first go at this style and, so far, I'm liking how its coming along. The dimensions of the blade and handle, including the angle between blade and handle, are all to the customer's specs. The material choice was left up to me. I chose a nice solid piece of spalted Red Maple to go with some wrought iron and copper fittings. The blade is W2 with a hamon. the construction will be quasi nihonto-style.

I thought I'd post a short selection of shots.

The newly forged blade:


de-scaling in pH-down:


ready to profile:


blade is profiled. Now I'm rough grinding the mitsu mune:


A little hand sanding:


Bevel grinding:


Just about there:


here it is rough ground, hand sanded, and ready for hardware fitting:


I forged out a chunk of copper for the habaki:




getting there:




Soldering the habaki:


slotting the seppa and tsuba:


I like the fit:


Blade is clayed and ready for heat treat:


post heat treat:


morticing the tsuka for the tang:


getting the fit absolutely perfect:


rough shaping the tsuka:


making the fushi:


that'll work:


This is where I pick it up again this morning:


I obviously left out a bunch of steps like draw filing the forged blade( I want a semi-forge finish on the blade), the post-heat treat final grinding, and hand sanding. I usually leave the final polish till after all the pieces and parts of the handle have been built and fitted. Today I'll be final fitting the hardware and handle, and possibly polishing/etching the blade.

more coming......

-Peter
 
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WOW! Very cool project Peter. That shot of how you clayed the ashi might be very pertinent for me right now.

Bob
 
That's nata bad looking knife so far D)

I like the thin strip left at suriawashi.
 
JG - Mark^^^ has it. That's the one. I was turned on to this gadget by a friend who builds and repairs stringed instruments. He uses it for inlays and such. It is truly a precision tool. You will not be disappointed.

The bottom of my grinding jig has a thin piece of bloodwood attached with super glue. Surely any wood would suffice, I just had this laying around. I find the wood isn't affected by belt grit as much as the steel base. As soon as I would start a pass, grinding grit would land on the work rest causing it to catch suddenly sending the jig off-line... not good. The wood base seems to just slide over the grit easier. I occasionally lap the base to keep it smooth and flat.

-Peter
 
Very cool Peter. Your WIPs never disappoint me, always filled with good information and lots of photos. That dremel contraption has gone into my bookmarks, I'm sure it will end up in my shop eventually.

Will certainly be following this one!

-Clint
 
P. McKinley said:
JG - Mark^^^ has it. That's the one. I was turned on to this gadget by a friend who builds and repairs stringed instruments. He uses it for inlays and such. It is truly a precision tool. You will not be disappointed.

The bottom of my grinding jig has a thin piece of bloodwood attached with super glue. Surely any wood would suffice, I just had this laying around. I find the wood isn't affected by belt grit as much as the steel base. As soon as I would start a pass, grinding grit would land on the work rest causing it to catch suddenly sending the jig off-line... not good. The wood base seems to just slide over the grit easier. I occasionally lap the base to keep it smooth and flat.

-Peter
Click to expand...

Thank you very much sir! I also concur with everyone else, your WIPs are inspiring.

The router will be added to the list for sure.
 
is the dremel/router hand guided(you just follow a line by eye) or do you have some kind of pattern it follows?

I'll looking forward to this WIP!

DR....
 
Daniel,

The router is guided by eye, free-hand. The manufacturer has a variety of templates/guides designed mostly for luthiers for routing out sound holes and rosettes, etc. I use it mostly for inlays in my wooden sheaths. This is the first morticed tang that I've done and lacking the proper goose-neck chisels this tool does a very fine job. I've used it on natural wood, stabilized wood, antler, and micarta.

By the by, this router base also fit a Foredom machine.

-Peter
 
continued....

Now I need to shape the hardware. I cut out a template and transferred it to the tsuba then shaped on the grinder:


Next, the habaki:


Spacer:




after every small grind I give the piece a swipe on the 180 to remove any burr that would screw up the allignment:


Then the fushi:


All roughly shaped:


I added some small bevels to the edge of the tsuba:


Now to shape the tsuka with files:




Then sandpaper:


A bit of fine tuning still to do:


The butt-end is drilled for a lanyard tube. The reverse side has been taped to reduce the chance of chip-out when the bit exits the work piece:


A length of s.s. tube. I'll fit this up later:


Polishing the hardware to 1000 grit:


Adding a slight bevel to both edges of the spacer, and just the forward facing edge of the fushi:


I like the fit:


Now I need to mask off the contact surfaces of the wrought hardware so they can be etched:


Pre-etch:


etch:


Post-etch:


And, finally hand sanding the blade to 600 grit:


Etching the blade in a weak ferric chloride solution:


Post etch and quick polish to show the hamon:


And the etched hardware that still needs to be polished(Yes, it has a crack. No, it doesn't go all the way through the piece. :D ):


Still more on the way....

-Peter
 
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