- Joined
- May 14, 2009
- Messages
- 69
Hello:
Well I just finished installing my new lathe (now I can do my PW gun barels a whole lot easier) and my studio cleaned up from all the moving and adjusting I had to do and then I got busy and finally finished up a project I have been playing with for a little over a year now......Here it is in all its gold leafed glory.
The blade is 28" long, a bit on the long side for one of these things... with two short bo-hi (Naginata-Hi) on each side on the bottom 1/3 of the blade that I hand scraped in..Hand scraping can be a very boring thing to do but it does work very nicely and it doesn't take as long as you'd think to do either..why they weren't forged in is beyond me but....oh well...The blade is San Mai (three piece) construction with the sides laminated from 1050 and L-6 and shows the centre plate of 1060 on the Ha and the Mune in the blade's Hada. Still need to do the final polish after I get the siya done.
The habaki is solid copper (I had to forge the copper down cause all I had was some 3/8" thick bar..but it worked out OK in the end) as are the hand hammered finished mounts. I used the "age old copper pipe technique" for the copper sheet source. You can get some decent sized pieces using copper pipe and the thickness is just about perfect for fittings like these..(besides I am a cheapskate at times and I just didn't want to have to spend more $$$ when the pipe I already had left over from some past project). I tell ya hand peining all that copper sheet took a while...all that little tappity -tap- taps with a 32 oz ball pein hammer gets old real quick. You have to anneal repeatedly cause it work hardens like crazy and then it starts to crack..NOT a good thing.
Now the shaft is covered by white samegawa (ray skin) for the first 15" or so and wrapped in my favourite chevron pattern combination of black/gold silk ito in what I call a "modified battle wrap". There are three mekugi (pins) holding the blade into the shafting. There are two gold guilded swan menuki under the tsuka maki, one on each end of the grip on opposite sides.
The shafting is laminated from some 3/16"ish thick oak door skins that I glommed onto from a friend of mine who owns a furniture/cabinet making business here in Henderson. These were his "rejects" due to grain "problems" that I sliced into strips and then laminated up using that "Gorilla Glue"..Boy that was a mess..gets all foamy and gooey but is worked great. (Even though if you get it on your skin it really turns your skin black and well, you have to let it wear off...and it does get EVERYWHERE you don't want it too for some reason...)
The shafting cross section is a "tear drop" shape so I can tell which way the edge is oriented in my hand (wider at the back..narrower on the front) so you know which "side" to cut with. Comes in handy whan you use it... The shaft is flexible but not to the point where it would hinder proper use.
The wood finish was a bit of a pain: 22K gold leaf embedded in clear lac under black cracked lacquer and then all that sealed over in three coats of clear lacquer to protect everything underneath. Sealing the oak was an adventure as the sealer just kept getting sucked into the wood..took three coats before it was smooth enough to gold leaf.
The butt spike on the opposite end is not all that "correct" as far as "tradition" goes but what the heck..I am not exactly all that "traditional" myself....I hammered that out of some left over 1060 scrap and left it "forge finished"..no sense in polishing a butt spike that is going to be the "down side end" on a pole weapon...it is held in place by one mekugi. All the copper fittings except for the fuchi are pinned in place with german silver studs so they will stay put and not move around in use.
The overall length is just a tid bit over 93".. Now I have to figure out how to make the siya for this thing...Will be finished the same as the shafting so it all matches. I will be doing that this afternoon after I clean up from the lacquer work...All in all I think it came out pretty good for an old man working in his back yard. The wood work was more of a pain to do than the blade!
Hope the pics work...
NVHammerHead
Well I just finished installing my new lathe (now I can do my PW gun barels a whole lot easier) and my studio cleaned up from all the moving and adjusting I had to do and then I got busy and finally finished up a project I have been playing with for a little over a year now......Here it is in all its gold leafed glory.
The blade is 28" long, a bit on the long side for one of these things... with two short bo-hi (Naginata-Hi) on each side on the bottom 1/3 of the blade that I hand scraped in..Hand scraping can be a very boring thing to do but it does work very nicely and it doesn't take as long as you'd think to do either..why they weren't forged in is beyond me but....oh well...The blade is San Mai (three piece) construction with the sides laminated from 1050 and L-6 and shows the centre plate of 1060 on the Ha and the Mune in the blade's Hada. Still need to do the final polish after I get the siya done.
The habaki is solid copper (I had to forge the copper down cause all I had was some 3/8" thick bar..but it worked out OK in the end) as are the hand hammered finished mounts. I used the "age old copper pipe technique" for the copper sheet source. You can get some decent sized pieces using copper pipe and the thickness is just about perfect for fittings like these..(besides I am a cheapskate at times and I just didn't want to have to spend more $$$ when the pipe I already had left over from some past project). I tell ya hand peining all that copper sheet took a while...all that little tappity -tap- taps with a 32 oz ball pein hammer gets old real quick. You have to anneal repeatedly cause it work hardens like crazy and then it starts to crack..NOT a good thing.
Now the shaft is covered by white samegawa (ray skin) for the first 15" or so and wrapped in my favourite chevron pattern combination of black/gold silk ito in what I call a "modified battle wrap". There are three mekugi (pins) holding the blade into the shafting. There are two gold guilded swan menuki under the tsuka maki, one on each end of the grip on opposite sides.
The shafting is laminated from some 3/16"ish thick oak door skins that I glommed onto from a friend of mine who owns a furniture/cabinet making business here in Henderson. These were his "rejects" due to grain "problems" that I sliced into strips and then laminated up using that "Gorilla Glue"..Boy that was a mess..gets all foamy and gooey but is worked great. (Even though if you get it on your skin it really turns your skin black and well, you have to let it wear off...and it does get EVERYWHERE you don't want it too for some reason...)
The shafting cross section is a "tear drop" shape so I can tell which way the edge is oriented in my hand (wider at the back..narrower on the front) so you know which "side" to cut with. Comes in handy whan you use it... The shaft is flexible but not to the point where it would hinder proper use.
The wood finish was a bit of a pain: 22K gold leaf embedded in clear lac under black cracked lacquer and then all that sealed over in three coats of clear lacquer to protect everything underneath. Sealing the oak was an adventure as the sealer just kept getting sucked into the wood..took three coats before it was smooth enough to gold leaf.
The butt spike on the opposite end is not all that "correct" as far as "tradition" goes but what the heck..I am not exactly all that "traditional" myself....I hammered that out of some left over 1060 scrap and left it "forge finished"..no sense in polishing a butt spike that is going to be the "down side end" on a pole weapon...it is held in place by one mekugi. All the copper fittings except for the fuchi are pinned in place with german silver studs so they will stay put and not move around in use.
The overall length is just a tid bit over 93".. Now I have to figure out how to make the siya for this thing...Will be finished the same as the shafting so it all matches. I will be doing that this afternoon after I clean up from the lacquer work...All in all I think it came out pretty good for an old man working in his back yard. The wood work was more of a pain to do than the blade!
Hope the pics work...
NVHammerHead
