Geraint

It's looking very good James. Bookshelves, always more book shelves. All the best.

Oh yes! An accidental arrival but it is a Mino den katana/tachi with an iron tsuba, clearly battle damaged in WWII and mounted as a Burmese dha. Worth almost nothing but can't ever let it go. It started me on a journey of discovery for which I will always be grateful. All the best.

Dear Rob. The blade is o suriage so the nakago you see now is a part of what was originally the blade itself, hence the rather smooth surface and the clean cut nakago jiri. New mekugi ana are drilled and the surface looks quite different as you observed. All the best.

Dear Ciro. What Ken was asking for is a picture of the whole blade without the koshirae, something like this, Also, please describe what you can see in the hamon and boshi. All the best.

Dear Eric. The fittings are not standard WWll ones but it is not that uncommon to find swords in simple civilian mounts with the addition of a hanger for use in the war. Your sword might have had a leather combat cover over the saya. Personally I would leave them as they are. All the best.

Well this one is signed tachi mei, which makes it interestng. Yoshi something. Again condition, lack of sizes and so forth make it hard to say more. Enjoyed seeing them Georg and I am sure others will add much more information for you and your friend. All the best.

Hi Georg. Not naginata naoshi but a standard hira zukuri ko wakizashi, assuming that it is more than 30 cms nagasa. I can see why you like the koshirae. All the best.

Hi Georg. Well the blade is signed Kiyonobu, again quite a pleasant koshirae. I don't think this is katana length, is it? Might be worth looking up Mino Kiyonobu, from memory he sometimes does a hamon that looks like what we can see of this one. All the best.

Hi Georg. This one also appears to be suriage and possibly Koto, can't see much and dimensions would be a real help but, again, quite nice koshirae. Tsuba signed Shoami I believe. All the best.

Dear George. I think all of use are screaming internally about those nice finger prints near the kissaki. We are lacking dimensions and a full picture of the bare blade but from what little we can see this looks like an o suriage koto blade in what looks like very pleasant koshirae. The tsuba is signed Yamashiro no Kuni Fushimi ju Kaneiye. All the best.

Dear George. That's a sweet Kaigunto! All the best.

Dear James. Looking great! As a matter of interest why did you scrap the idea of the low stand for your armour? I think it would look good and if you are canny you can have some low concealed drawers underneath it, just right for swords......... Looking forward to the rest. All the best.

Dear Grev. For your last two images I think both are folded and then etched. With a properly forged plate very little grain would be visible unless an etchant is used. For the first image I would really like to see a view of the whole tsuba. Often a piece of raised metal is inlayed into the plate and then the whole carved, if well done then no visible joint would be apparent. I'm sure others will chime in . All the best.

Ooooohhhh!.. That would upset me every time I used them. All the best.

Dear Glen. I'm sure that pictures would help but here are some thoughts. I wouldn't file the menuki at all, much easier to enlarge the hole in the tsuka slightly, especially if the tsuka is lacquered wood rather than same. While Chris is correct that rice glue is used for saya and tsuka cores the more usual glue for metal fittings is based on pine resin. A thread here, The kozuka is often secured to the kogatana by nothing more than a paper wrap to provide enough thickness to make the blade fell firm. again, I wouldn't use any glue here. The blade itself is sometimes replace with a bamboo tsunagi, this allows the kozuka to display well in the koshirae and because it is small bamboo is more resilient than the usual timbers. And lastly, yes, working backwards to make a tsunagi fit a koshirae is tricky. I've just done one and it is much more interesting than making one to match a blade so well done for that bit. Hope some of that helps. All the best.