Todashi

Thanks everyone. That's really helpful.

Hi all, Thanks in advance to anyone who can help translate this Mei. It's not a particularly old or valuable sword, but it would be nice to pin down some more details on it

Thanks everyone. I'll update this thread in a few weeks when I get a chance to fit this tsuba

Hi Ford, yes of course you're right! I absolutely love this piece, and was grateful to get a few of them back when they were offered as left overs. As I recall, your design but made by a student? (If you'd made it, I wouldn't fit it. But I'm also pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to afford to buy it if you'd actually made it!) I would love to fit it to a sword so it gets used for practice. But . . . I'm painfully aware of the limitations of my own knowledge. In particular I don't want to damage it while clumsily trying to fit it. Any advice?

Hi there, I have a couple of modern-made tsuba that I would love to fit to one of my iaito or nihonto. They're not hugely valuable art piece - in fact their value is mostly sentimental but they are properly made. Because they're new, they've never been fitted to a nakago before. Now, my experience with nihonto stops at appreciation and mild collecting. I'm a budoka primarily, so while my interest leans towards the artistic, I'm mostly concerned with the practical. As a result, I've never taken a file to a tsuba before and before doing that I thought it might be prudent to ask some advice. So, what should a clumsy amateur know before attempting to fit their first tsuba to a sword?

Thanks for the replies. I've used an epoxy putty to do a repair, as it *should* improve the fit a little of the semegane. We'll see how it sets. Curing up now.

I had a saya made in Japan many years ago, and subsequently, part of it has come loose. It's in handachi/tachi style, and is otherwise perfect, but there is a metal collar (apologies, I can't remember the proper term for it) that is meant to be stuck to the saya approximately six inches up from the end. But it's come loose and is sliding freely up and down. I suspect that the saya is actually a tiny bit too thin for it, but it was stuck on when I first got it. Anyone got any suggestions on how best to repair this? What's the best way to bond metal to lacquered wood. Is something like superglue the way to go, or is there a better way to do this, short of sending the saya back to Japan.

That would be great, thank you Uwe. The connecting cords on my suit have been replaced with paradors(!), presumably because the original cords weren't good quality. I would like to identify what they should be made from so I can get new cords of the right material to fix them in place. Thank you for your help.

I own a couple of sets of repro armour, including one that was bought second hand, and had been quite battered. It was used for martial arts purposes. One issue is that the original Sode are missing whatever ties they originally came with to attach them to the shoulders/top of the dou section. There are a few websites out there where you can buy parts, such as Iron Mountain, Marutake, Namikawa etc, but I don't know what I'm missing, because they were there to begin with, if you know what I mean. So does anyone know how these should be attached? It's the same suit as pictured in this book cover. IMG_2650.HEIC

My understanding is that this kind of hidden chamber on saya were used for hiding small documents. I've seen a few of them and own one very similar. This feature is something found on supposed 'ninja-to.' You can kinda say there are two kinds of ninja weapon or tool out there - those it's suggested were historically used by ninja, and then anything else that's a bit ninja-esque which gets labelled with the word ninja even if there's no actual historical connection at all. I'm not suggesting this particular set of mounts were owned by a real ninja, but rather someone at some point wanted to be able to hide a small folded piece of paper in a place where it wouldn't be easily found. An interesting find regardless. Congratulations.