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Kai gunto secrets


J Reid

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So I start refinishing a Kai gunto saya yesterday. Someone had painted it fairly recently with a rather crude layer of black paint.. So I decided to strip the whole thing to the bones and start fresh. After about 20 minutes of wiping this thing down with paint thinner, I decide that I could only get the recent paint job to come off and the original lacquer (for whatever reason) wasn't affected by the chemical. So I take this down to the work bench and start sanding the saya. I get through the next layer of paint and it turns out it wasn't paint at all!!!! The black lacquer Kai gunto saya was originally wrapped in a super fine leather underneath the lacquer. The leather had been dyed black and then lacquered over originally. It peeled off like thick paper. Definitely leather though. I know the Japanese wrapped their saya in leather for WW2. But i have never seen this before. It was like a stealth layer- nicely tapered to a thin saya. Did anybody else know this?! I sure didn't..

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that is very interesting and neat to know.

 

I only ask because I once had a gunto that had a "leather" cover over the saya. When I took a closer look, it was actually made of some sort of compressed paper. looked like leather, but when you felt it, it was much thinner and lighter. I'm surprised they would use leather and then lacquer over it....sorta takes away the purpose to conserve precious materials IMO....

 

looking forward to the pics!

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  • 2 months later...
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