What to do with this Chinese knife.

[blue lander]

I'm not going to lie, this was an impulse buy from my iPhone while I was at a bar many months ago. It finally arrives a few days ago. The hilt and scabbard are wood but very cheaply made. However, the blade is a very nice and thick piece of carbon steel. It's shaped like a Japanese tanto. Quite sharp too. It's sloppily made by nihonto standards but by "cheap handmade knife" standards it's quite good. The auction description says it was edge hardened but I haven't tried to etch it yet.

I pulled the cap off the pommel and found a nut screwing the tang into the hilt. I removed the nut and disassembled the whole thing. The tang is actually quite wide and almost the entire length of the hilt. It's wide enough to put pins through. They welded a small threaded piece of metal to the end so they could assemble the thing cheaply.

So I'm thinking saw off the threaded part, drill a hole or two in the tang and mount it with a proper handle. The tang isn't wide enough to put scales on, but it's wide enough you could run some pins through it. The current handle is mostly hollow so it wouldn't be suitable for hard work, and the thing is too tacky looking to be a decoration piece

Any suggestions?

 

[Bawanna]

To maintain the sheath and keep that matching look you'd have to find some similar wood. No telling if you could remove and reuse the decorative metal on each end of the handle.

What is the main point of tackiness. The nut on the end or the metal furniture or what.

If a person was to fill the handle it would probably make it very grip heavy. I'm wondering about foam or something of that nature.

Or as you suggest kind a sorta, abandon the handle all together, lose the decorative metal and just have wood but up to the mouth of the sheath?

Don't look all that bad in the pictures.

 

[blue lander]

Just from me groping it the finish on the wood is wearing off, and the furniture on the handle doesn't match the furniture on the scabbard color wise. Plus Itfeels cheap in the hand due to the hollowness of the handle which also makes it useless as a tool. I think with a little cross guard, a solid wood handle and a leather hilt you'd have a totally useable belt knife.

Long story short: this thing has a nice blade that I think the factory modified to be a wall hanger. I'd love to put this blade to good use. I think it was made for it

 

[blue lander]

The tang

 

[Shavru]

Are the Fuchi, Kashira and Kojiri functional like on a Nihonto? How about the Habaki? Or are they just stamped foil type stuff? Perhaps you could buy a Tsuka sized for a Tanto (e-pray maybe), cut off the threaded part and drill some Mekugi-Ana in the tang for pinning it. (Use bamboo Mekugi for the traditional feel) If you wanted you could probably turn it into a nice semi-traditional Tanto. Or if you want something unique then you could mount it with just about any style handle material you wanted. Might look good with some Stag. but then I think EVERYTHING looks good with Stag

 

[blue lander]

All the metal furniture is made from what appears to be brass. Not super thick metal but thick enough. They're nice enough to be reused.

The more I look at it, everything is pretty nice except for the wooden hilt and scabbard. The blade's shape is definitely not up to Japanese standards, but judged as a regular knife it's not bad at all.



Edit: I found some similar knives being sold by a company called Zhiswords. They appear to manufacture their own Katanas/Wakizashis/etc, and they seem to have a decent reputation for their price point. Here's one with a pattern welded blade:



And here's one from their website, this one with a properly pinned hilt. Apparently the material is Padauk wood.



Won't link to their site because of forum rules but it's easy enough to google.

 

[Steely_Gunz]

I dunno. Sarge used make Po-boy knives out of files where he drilled out and epoxied the tangs into the wood. Maybe a stepped down hole for the tang? Bore out one for the rod as it's not hurting being on there then counter bore out a larger one for the fatter part of the tang. Epoxy it in and maybe set some pins through the wide part of the tang for peace of mind?

 

[blue lander]

I think I might be able to get away with just filling the hilt with epoxy and leaving the rest as-is. Between the epoxy and the nut screwed into the end of the tang, I don't think the blade would fly out of the hilt unless the hilt split in half length wise. Even if the epoxy comes loose you'd still have the nut keeping the blade from flying off at least temporarily.

The auction description said the blade was clay tempered but I haven't been able to produce a hamon. I'd be very surprised if it was considering what it cost but I figured I'd check anyways. I chopped at some wood with it and it actually cuts pretty good. It'd cut better if the edge profile wasn't so thick. I wasn't too tough on the thing considering how I have no confidence in that hilt, but I checked the edge when I was done and it didn't chip or roll. Now I'm thinking about mounting it like a Japanese hunting knife. Like I said the blade isn't ideally shaped for that use but I think it'd do an okay job as a camp knife.

 

[Shavru]

I like the idea of keeping some of the brasswork if you can. Maybe mount it similar to a kanetsune field knife.

 

[Kismet]

There's an entire country which fastens its traditional knives' blades into the handle with a mixture of heated tree sap, ashes, and powdered dung! They say it works just great.

justathought.

 

[ndoghouse]

I mix epoxy with milled fiber, perlite, or just chop up a bunch of parachord and mix it with epoxy. Rabbit turds work well to. If you worry about weight mix crushed perlite from your local garden center and pour it in. We use that for surfboard repairs to keep things light without losing strength.
That looks like a Tako Hiki (octopus knife)? Is it single grind or ground on both sides? I made one from a file a while back very similar to that one but much thinner for finer work.

Traditional Japanese knives have octagonal handles with resin or some kind of black bolster integrated into the handle. They are drilled and filled and plenty strong.

 

[Bookie]

Kamidog, the black on your traditional japanese knife is probably water buffalo horn. It is also found on sayas and sometimes as fuchi on Edo period katanas when they are worn for formal attire. The tsukaito is tied across the top of the kashira to secure it. I have thought about remounting my katana like this. No, it is not nihonto. I'm not that rich to be able to afford one of those!

 

[kronckew]

i'd fill the handle with epoxy & skip the pins, & reassemble. with that length/width of tang it's not going anywhere. the nut on the end is just gravy & all it need to do is hold everything together while the resin cures. most scandinavia knives as well as khukuris have shorter tangs than that held in with resin and last under extreme use. refinish the wood as suits you.

i use a high strength titanium filled epoxy, or std. epoxy mixed with chopped & shredded paracord to improve the tensile strength.

i bought a midrange miao dao sword from zhiswords, a couple years back, they communicated well, was not in stock and had to be 'custom' made and tho it took a while longer than expected, it eventually arrived in a sturdy silk covered light wood box with a silk sword bag, box was filled with a block of cheap foam cut to fit the sword & covered in silk. blade is nice pattern welded, fullered, & sharp as heck, decent polish. grip is solid, well wrapped in the chinese style with about 1mm cord, full length tang pinned near the end with a hollow brass tube with ends rolled back over flower petal shaped keepers, cheap-assed brass acorn nut on the end with a hole for a tassle is a bit tacky, but otherwise nice. nice thick brass chinese guard. engraving is fairly shallow & scabbard fittings thin sheet metal, not cast with deep patterns. the owner or manager contacted me a number of times in good english. he advertised on etsy for a while too. he also makes some cheap swords that look a bit tacky. caveat emptor. ive since added a proper chinese sash hook, braided up a new suspension and moved put a tassled lanyard thru the grip rather than the acorn nut. (which i'd replace if i could find a decent replacement.)

i've heard a number of the chinese sword makers are suffering from the current recession and are going under...

miao dao



tarted up a bit now