HyakkiHei

Yeah, I've looked up a bunch of two piece habakis online, and that's how they all appear to be like. It's true that the lip is banged up, when I disassembled it, the guy who worked on it before had forced the fuchi OVER the lip, so I initially assumed it had been bent and crushed flat to the mune. But looking inside the habaki i can't really see any ridge having been there. Of course, like this it can't perform its function as a habaki, so I think I'll have little choice than to replace it then. Thanks for your insight, George. EDIT: Well, I just found out why it looked like it didn't have a ridge there spacing it from the blade, it's because there was like a 1mm thick layer of superglue in it, with the same color as the habaki, so it was hard to tell. Managed to scrape it away to reveal there's indeed a very small space inbetween there, but also that it's also quite damaged, material rolled over. At least this puts me at ease a bit, it was bugging me so much that I couldn't figure out how it was supposed to function if it wasn't like how two piece habakis are supposed to be.

I am loath to make a new thread when it's still about the same sword, so my apologies in advance for necro-ing this thread again. The habaki I posted earlier ( will post again for clarity ) was what I assume to be a typical two piece habaki, albeit very damaged, as the part towards the edge is missing that I see in all images of these types of habaki, and the second piece that slides over it is missing. I assumed that the lip at the mune side of the habaki must've been bent at some point, because in all the images I see of two piece habaki, the second part actually fits between that and the nakago. But no matter how I look at it, i can't seem to see any evidence that it has been bent out of place, as it's not visible on the inside. Are there different kinds of designs for two piece habaki that just work differently? It does nothing but confuse me. I'm inclined to think that this habaki survived the ordeal it was in before my grandfather found the sword, as it does fit the nakago like a glove, and whoever "restored" the sword previously didn't get anything else right, which just makes me all the more confused in what was supposed to be on it as the second piece of the habaki.

Not having a lot of luck finding a matching kashira for the fuchi, but I did come across a fuchi and kashira set with a nice landscape theme that seem to fit with my tsuba, problem is that they're incredibly rusty, to the point where I'm not sure how I'd even get them in a presentable state. I'm not entirely sure how rough I could be with a fuchi and kashira in my endeavors to remove rust from them, because man is that a lot of rust. And no, I haven't bought em yet, because they do look incredibly weathered.

That was an absolute treasure trove of information, thank you very much, George! This makes it a lot easier to attempt to find something that would match, however using a horn kashira might work just fine as well. I want to try and keep as many of the original parts ( or at least original to when it was found ) on it as I can, so if I can't find a matching kashira I'll most likely opt for getting a horn kashira instead. After hearing that the design was a roof tile earlier, I did try and look if there were menuki with similar designs as well, and in my search came up two variants of a menuki with a similar tile as in your image, with crows.

Oh no, of course. I wouldn't be doing this without any research to it, I want to make sure to do it properly. @k morita Thank you! Now I know what to look for.

Have an orphaned fuchi that I'd like to find a matching kashira to. But also, would like to find out if anyone knows what kind of design this is, since I can't seem to figure out what it's supposed to be. 38mm long 21mm wide hole 28mm x 8mm

Ah, yeah, I left out some information that I did post about on SBG when talking about the sword. My grandfather found it buried on a farm in the 70's, and it didn't get "restored" until a good 10-15 years later, but supposedly the entire thing was rusted and rotted. The guy who put the sword back together had no idea what he was doing, as you can clearly see from the handle not looking anything like it should, being way too long for a wakizashi, and him mounting the fuchi and tsuba in the wrong order ( and the tsuba being backwards too ). And from what I can tell, I'm almost sure he took a belt sander to the blader to get rid of most of the rust. Underneath the habaki is like 2cm is almost pristine looking sword, giving me a small taste of what it might've once looked like. @vajo Yup, looks awful doesn't it, heh. @rokujuro I've looked around for professional polishing options, but I think it would be well over 2000 dollars to get this polished and restored, the blade itself I mean. I seem to be having a hard time finding experts in the Netherlands for this however. As for the tsuka and saya, I sincerely doubt I could do worse than the previous attempt Thank you for that link btw, I'll try that!

Hey there, I've recently received a wakizashi from my grandfather, which was previously "restored" in to a terrible state of being. I'm looking to try and restore at least the tsuka and saya myself, but a bunch of parts are simply missing. The kashira is not present, but the fuchi is, now I'm not sure I'd even be able to find a kashira to match the fuchi, but even so, I'd like to know what kind of design this even is, because while I like how it looks, I just can't figure out what it's supposed to be. The fuchi is slightly bent on the inside on one side as well, dunno how safe it would be to attempt to bend it back. It was quite a hassle removing it from the sword, as the guy who "restored" it had superglued all of it together. A few bonus images while I'm at it, it's where I got so far taking all of it apart: And what the sword looked like after that guy restored it some 30 odd years ago.

Hello and nice to meet you guys, I got referred here from the SBG forum, was looking for places with Japanese sword collectors, enthusiasts and the like. I'm generally more of a lurker on forums, so I can't say for sure how much I'll post, but I'll do a bunch of reading at least! Ludo