Dave R

"Speak of the devil, and he shall appear", and here is another two prong belt.

I see the permanent stitched and shrunk leather tsuka covers as a "quick and dirty" fix for dodgy condition hilts, either old and crumbly or new and damaged. It didn't matter much, as soon as you could you got a more permanent solution, but it did the job at the time.

Beetle wing covers were very popular in India, and early 19thC England, usually as an embroidery highlight. I picked up a small sample of top end Indian work some years ago. A small snippet of a Rajahs sash from 1794. Cloth of silver, Gold and Beetle wing. I am posting a few pics of the piece because of the way the light changes on it as it is moved round.

When needed I buy either an already stripped core, or one so knackered that stripping it would be no loss to history anyway. A quick bath to dissolve the rice glue and then re-cut to fit. Ideally one with the metal mounts, like this one I got from fleabay a while back.

Hot punched or possibly a "bow drill".

A very Japanese take on the typical "drummers and stretcher bearers" sword in the West.

I have seen a few of these leather sets from Afghanistan, and owned one of them some years ago. Afghanistan is very mixed ethnically, think of it as a pyramid, and each side heavily influenced by the nearest neighbour, China, India, Iran and "Kazakhstan". The inverted comma is because I really don't know a better term for this area of northern Asian states, officially Russian but culturally not.

WWII = full auto on the battlefield, lots of bullets, lots of hits.

The upper hole in the flatter section is for the sarute barrel to pass through. I have a set that going by size were made for an old sword "upgraded" to being a shin-gunto, and much the same. The photo is of it as it was when purchased, since cleaned and stabilised. I posted more about it some time ago.

They are reinforces for Tsuka, sometimes applied to new Shin Gunto, more often as a quick and dirty supplement to an older sword refurbished for war. I have a set with the original wood core, that then had Samegawa applied over. Go way back to Edo and you find really nice decorative ones used in place of Same.... These are not them though!

Possibly for handling charcoal or hot coals?

The "chip" is the killer, there may very well be a hagire as well.

My take on this is that most shooters do take care of a gun when it is in use, but once it is laid aside, especially if now obsolete, than it takes its chances. A bit like not buying new tyres for the car you are going to sell or scrap, even if it really needs them.

Any idea of the maker? It looks like either an Amahida mixed metal or a "Han-tan-ren" Showato.

Well the late great Darcy Brockbank had something to say about this, and I was going to link to his words, but his blog seems to be currently unreachable..... I suppose in the end, there is cleaning, and "cleaning". I picked up a wakizashi blade some time ago with a very "clean" nakago, for a very bargain price, but I took a punt on it. Later at one of the Northern To-Ken meetings it was pointed out that it had at one time a Mei, now removed, and this would have been when it was scrubbed. Still a nice blade with a lot of meat on it and a double habaki with traces of gilding where protected. Sorry for the poor pics, my photos tend to be a personal record rather than for display.