new liners for metal gunto saya?

[george trotter]

On another post recently an NMB member recommended that a collector get a new saya liner made for his gunto mounted sword...I have two good gendaito blades that would benefit from new liners in their gunto metal sayas...one saya also has a kink/dent which causes a tight spot against the side of the blade (about at the monouchi area). Is it possible to have a saya straightened and a new liner made? Where/who/cost?

I would be interested to know if this can be done,

Regards,

George.

[GregD]

Im'e gonna give it a shot when my shop warms up in a couple of weeks,i have a few Gunto mounted swords that need to be relined also.Carving an all wood saya to fit a sword nicely can be a little rough let alone trying to fit it into an existing space.Some of the liners iv'e been able to pull out and examine came pretty close to breaking out in some areas.As far as banging out dents,a few yrs back i did some work on one that was banged up near the opening,just took some aluminum bar stock and made a couple of "dollies" that i pushed into the opening and then tapped on the outside to reshape with a wooden mallet.Having seen enough dented Gunto saya i always thought of a freinds father that repaired musical instruments(tubas,trombones etc)He had an assortment of "dollies" that fit down the tubes of these instuments(like short tapered steel mandrels attached to a cable)He would do as i described,push these down to the dented area and tap with a soft mallet til the dent popped out,may be worth my while to make some of these and give it a try too

Greg

[george trotter]

Thanks for that Greg,

I know from experience that none of this is a simple task...especially if the kink in the metal saya is deep or sharp...the hard part is getting the liner out past the kink...usually impossible without destroying the old liner. In the case where I did get the liner out I repaired it as I certainly do not have the skill to carve a new one...hence the question.

I did experiment with kink/dent removal years ago...and you might be interested yourself. I slipped a .410 shotgun "dent removal" tool in...they are on a rod which turns and expands the end to "pop" the dent. The problem can be that even in its unexpanded state, the tool is too wide to get into a dent further down the saya. In this case I used a thickish hardwood dowel (hickory?) or flat sided batten whittled with a long 4 inch tapered wedge end...this could be tapped into the kink/dent and it gently opened the dent as it went deeper in...being wood, it was possible to still get it jammed/broken...but a metal rod similarly shaped might be safer/quicker. This inside expansion method does not require outside tapping or "panelbeating" with hammer and inside dollie, but tends to leave an "imperfectly" popped dent, ie, still visible but not obstructing sword, and may still flake off small paint flakes.

I am thinking it might require too much time/risk of loss/cost to send off a sword & saya overseas, just to get a liner fitted...maybe as sayashi time-cost would be similar, it would wiser to get a shirasaya made and a tsunagi...what do you think?

Thanks for your input.

George.

[drbvac]

George:

 

I don't believe that the liners are adapted to the blades anywhere nearly as accurately as a shirasaya. May be wrong and I don't have any gunto's left to look at but I thought they were just thin wooden slats that basically "lined" the sides of the scabbard to keep the blade off the metal sides.

 

In terms of the dents there are automotive shops that specialize in removals of dings on body panels from the inside with all sorts of weird implements and they don't even need to be repainted afterwards. It is called Paintless dent removal. The other way if you are going to repaint is to weld a small pin on to the dent and pull it out - then cut off the pin and paint.

 

Good luck

 

Dr B

[george trotter]

Hi Brian,

I get what you say about wooden liner strips...in my experience these appear in western sabre scabbards, but in the few gunto saya liners I have pulled out (about 3), they were all completely enclosing the blade, including ha and mune. In section they were like "69" ...that is, the sides had a "right angle" hook on them, one held the ha and the other held the mune. they are quite beyond the usual western handyman to replicate. Thanks also for the panelbeater tips...worth looking into.

Regards, George.

[David Price]

George

 

Check out the "Restoration packages" page on Fred Lohman's site.

 

http://www.Japanese-swords.com/pages/restore.htm

 

He list new liners for $300. I am sure he can also take care of the dents in the outer saya skin.

 

Dave P

[george trotter]

Thanks Dave,

I will drop him a line and ask about this.

George.