kusunokimasahige

guess its allright then.... :lol: ill go ahead with it! KM

with the mei i cant help you, but i do think the seppa have larger than normal pieces between them, maybe to make a better fit ? what is the material of the inserts made of, also copper?? they look the same as the seppa on my gunto but larger...... KM

Hello all... I have a gunto type 98 scabbard with the "masayuki" blade inside.. now almost all the original military paint has disappeared from the aluminium saya, and since to me only the blade really matters, (which will be properly shirasaya'ed or koshirae'd after i get round to having it polished by a proper togishi) i was wondering wether or not i should redecorate the saya with black Urushi and gold-leaf speckles....... I have cleaned all the fittings to a nice shiny gold (copper) look as well as the tsuba, and since the military mountings represent a tachi style (one ring) mounting i probably will use it with my samurai armour. does anyone know if there ever have been military saya which were redecorated at one certain time? and will Urushi hold on metal? any info is welcome.. KM here is a pic of the saya

Most welcome and thank you for your thorough explanation Brian! KM

Hello Brian, I would like to to react to your statement about dredging up weeks old posts. On many forums throughout the world there are non-sense section in which the members can post silly stuff, humour each other and in general add anything the moderators agree with. This is often a very nice part of any forum. Personally I feel that we could do with such a section on this forum too, however I do not know wether the members (maybe apart from Milt) would welcome such a section... Dredging up weeks old posts is in my view inherent to the fact that the messaging system on this forum does not work as it should. Often after reacting to a post, there will be no e-mail notices about other reactions, and when you have a busy life and do not have the time to view this forum every day, dredging up, or even reacting to posts which you have not been able to read up on, is in my honest opinion only natural. so I do not understand the problem here. best wishes, KM

one thing about WD-40, if yu are spraying it on your sword be sure you wrap the nakago carefully since it will take some of the patina away due to some cleaning chemicals in the oil....... and you wouldnt want to ruin your nakago now would you...... KM

Just joined the group! KM

will Milt fly him to Bulgaria for a proper spanking? KM

or make a body of ballistics Gel..... or try to buy a dead Pig....... its all in the mind........ KM :lol:

Thank you very much for that info Darcy! it sure is very helpful! i will see what i can come up with... even though its faint, the trace is definetely there.... KM

Ah i stand corrected!! i was under the impression that in the iaido / katori sports a shinken normally would denote a Paul Chen / Bugei razor....... hence my mistake! KM

why buy a shinken which is NOT a nihonto..? why not buy a Gassan Sadakatsu/Sadatsugu gendaito instead? KM

Hello All....... well you all saw the photos of my "gimei" masayuki in WWII mountings and i have taken good care of it, oiling it from time to time with proper oil for nihonto... now...... i took my masayuki out to a re-enactment to show to some people, and we slept outside, the katana safely tucked away in a car....... on the day we left, i wiped the blade clean with a soft cloth, and being without my cleaning kit, i sprayed the blade with WD-40 oil.......... guess my surprise when i got home and took my blade out..... i all of a sudden can see the Hamon !!!!!! now what happened i do not know, and only in a certain angle with the right light the Hamon stands out clearly.. Since i still dont have the money to go to a good Togishi, i will wipe the blade again (without using the powder ball) and put the proper oil back on it... does anyone of you know what this WD-40 might have brought about? is it the thin ness of the oil which attaches itself to the temper line? i dont understand at all........ but am happy to finally have seen the hamon line.. KM

Thank you very much for these warnings!!!!!!!!! KM

When at a Roman re-enactment event last weekend, a blacksmith i know told me that you could open a window on a nihonto without visible hamon by rubbing a part of it with lemon juice... in his opinion this would bring out the hamon, if at al there, by a mild form of etching... now........... what do you think of such a remark? or action..... safe? or dreadfully unsafe? i must add he knows more about Roman swords than about Nihonto.... KM

i had some dealings with ole po and was very satisfied! he is okay in my opinion KM

yes thats exactly what i meant... :lol: KM

well worth to have fully restored!!! KM

so would a hamon like that be considered as a fatal flaw in appreciation? KM

well at least the kami of the sword was properly fed after many years, and probably will protect your family for another 150 years, before new blood needs to be drawn.... :lol: KM

comes a creepy thought in my mine about swords being truly tested the old way during world war two....... any info on that?? KM

COOL!! helps me a lot in portraying my samurai re-enactment as a westerner!!! KM

ABUNAI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! RUN AWAY!! NOW!!! KM

Curran, It seems top be online again.. however, as I understand it double mon tsuba and pieces of armour often represent inter-clan marriages, alliances etcetera. The problem with Mon often are that nearing the end of the Tokugawa shogunate, even traders and merchants would have their own Mon, often based on the Mon of Samurai they either respected or just simply stolen... the rigidness of Mon wearing for Samurai alone subsided gradually.. That is why in later swords and tsuba you often do not know wether one was owned by a merchant or a Samurai, unless it is clearly stated in the tang or the sword was handed down a single family for generations. KM

first one: three diamonds Sassa and Kamei http://www.geocities.com/kazenaga23/crests3.htm second one: Katsumoto (same page) KM