My Type 95 NCO sword project.

[Nazar]

First and foremost, I have to thank two members of this board.  I want to thank Sam @Scogg for his monogram on Type 95 swords, that saved me so much trouble and helped pass by some fake NCO swords. And  I want to thank @Marcin, who generously agreed to resell me his freshli bought NCO sword. Without Marcin my chances to get Type 95 were indistinguishable from zero. As it was discussed in another topic on NCO swords, they are rare in Europe and they are even rarer here in Ukraine. What I've seen locally were mostly 100% fakes. The only real NCO sword I have seen was refurbished, which means tsuka and saya repainted which in my opinion is unacceptable.  

Here is the sword itself. It's Variation 3 with Suya Shōten, Tōkyō 1st Army Arsenal Supervisory Section and Kokura arsenal stamps on ferrule. The blade is stamped with Tōkyō 1st Army Arsenal Supervisory Section stamp and its serial number (54285) matches the number on the throat of saya. And as the tsuba of this NCO sword  still has a slot for a leather knot I deem it was made somewhere between 1939 and 1941. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Nazar]

The person, who stamped the ferrule of this sword, deserved a salary raise. 

 

It might not be the perfect example of a Type 95 sword, but I like it immensely. I like how tsuka is worn to bare aluminum, I like those scabbards with remnants of paint and bare metal that blackened with time. I even like the blade with all that spots. The patina on brass and copper parts (except for habaki) is great too. Dunno how to express this feeling I have about this sword:  it looks like a complete picture to me.  Yet, there are some things in this sword that I would like to address so it would be my project for some time. 

 

 

 

[Nazar]

But before I proceed to the issues, I would like to post some info on tsuka. When I was going through Scogg monograph on Type 95 swords, I read that the ito of Variation 3 is symmetrical. And my understanding of this statement was literal. Like one side of tsuka is mirroring another except for menuki. So when this sword got my attention I was slightly confused, because what I saw was not a symmetry but rather similarity of both sides of the tsuka (except for menuki). However, a quick check confirmed that this is a standard pattern for NCO swords with  Suya Shōten stamps and serial numbers around 50K.  I am not sure if this information is of importance, but decided to post it anyway in case someone needs it.  Here is what I mean. As you may see from the photos below, the pattern of ito is identical for both sides. Same is with ito knots. 

 

[Bruce Pennington]

Nazar,

The two sides seem identical to me.  What are you seeing that is "similar" but not identical?

 

Congrats on your Type 95.  Glad to see you really appreciate it!  I know what you mean.

[Nazar]

Bruce,  

I am far from being native speaker, so it happens that I could choose an incorrect word. I mentioned the pattern is identical in one of  the following sentences but forgot to edit the previous one.  

[Nazar]

It's not too hard to notice that this sword, traveling through years and hands, lost some parts:

- the sarute;

- the mekugi nut;

- Saya haikan (torn off). 

 

And while absence of sarute is not of big importance, the absence of mekugi nut and haikan may tell some stories. 

 

So, why is haikan absent? My theory is based on what I could see:  at some stage the sword and saya were bent. And this happened while blade was in saya. Then someone tried to unbend the assembly and eject the sword. Or rather remove saya of the sword. The point of force application was haikan and thus it was torn off. Here is a picture of saya. It's more clearly visible with saya in hands, but even in photos double bending is recognizable. 

 

 

Let's add a straight object to make the picture more clear. 

 

 

Dents on the metal housing of saya are quite prominent too. 

 

 

And here is the sword. As one may see, the point where  the blade is bent corresponds to the bend on the saya. So I believe  that my theory of the blade being bent along with saya is correct. 

 

[Marcin]

I didn’t even noticed blade being bend. But yeah I had it 15 minutes only. Try endoscopic camera inside of saya for rust and possible openings. Great tool for change price.
Fuchi looked like made of amber.

Edited Monday at 03:18 PM by Marcin

[Nazar]

Marcin, as I already mentioned, it's a great project for me. I am enjoying it immensely. It would be too dull to get a sword and just hang it on the wall. 

[Nazar]

 

One may notice interesting geometrical shadows in some photos. As I mentioned In Walking thread in Izakaya I had to remove part of the shutter in my camera. So that's how the remnants of shutters look like. There is no chance I will buy a new camera any time soon, so at the moment I am slightly limited in my photography. 

 

Jumping a little forward, I already addressed the issues of the bent saya metall shell and blade. The idea wasn't to make things "like new". Those bends and dents are part of the history of this sword. Yet they are unacceptable as they are, so I had to do something about them.  Here are the results. I still have to repair the wooden core of saya though. Also, later on, I could do some further adjustment to the blade.  I'll post on how I straightened the blade and saya metal shell later, as at the moment I have some other things to do .  

 

 

 

[Marcin]

You bring results. As You work not with nihonto here You could and should describe process.

It’s better to learn from You then end with a blade in stomach as one seller in television once did.

[Scogg]

7 hours ago, Nazar said:

Here is the sword itself. It's Variation 3 with Suya Shōten, Tōkyō 1st Army Arsenal Supervisory Section and Kokura arsenal stamps on ferrule. The blade is stamped with Tōkyō 1st Army Arsenal Supervisory Section stamp and its serial number (54285) matches the number on the throat of saya. And as the tsuba of this NCO sword  still has a slot for a leather knot I deem it was made somewhere between 1939 and 1941. 

 

Hi Nazar, nice sword, congrats!

So I am encountering some outdated information within my monograph; that I hope to remedy here very soon with my second edition (or sooner with an updated edition). Some of this information is carryover from previous publications, that I have since discovered through cataloging are not entirely accurate. Part of the reason I began this project, is because I encounter similar inaccuracies across almost all sources. I need to do better on my own material, and make sure it is accurate. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. 

An April 23, 1941 document revises the brass tsuba design by removing the sword knot slot. Although, no confirmed production examples of this revised unslotted brass tsuba have ever been observed. So I need to make an edit to my document in the Variation#3 chapter. I make mention of this in the Variation#4 section; so this is an oversight on my part. My sincere apologies for letting that slip. I would date your sword to between April 1941 and March 1942.

Let me explain the asymmetrical ito versus symmetrical ito. I suspect we're encountering a little language barrier here, (nothing wrong with that). I've attached a photo that better highlights this change (please click on the image to make it larger for viewing). I do not mean literally a mirror image of both sides of the tsuka, but rather that the ITO wrap pattern was made to be the same on both sides; in respect to the ito knots and open diamonds.

You will see this difference most clearly where the ito meets ferrule (fuchi). If you continue to count the diamonds starting with my arrows, you will also notice the difference. 

Hope that helps, and apologies for my errors. Some of these differences are very challenging to articulate clearly, and I am still trying to find the best verbiage for describing them.
I will work on these edits ASAP, and get it into the download section.
Best,

-Sam


 

[Conway]

3 hours ago, Nazar said:

Jumping a little forward, I already addressed the issues of the bent saya metall shell and blade. The idea wasn't to make things "like new". Those bends and dents are part of the history of this sword.

 

You did a great job straightening out the blade and saya, Nazar. It will display nicely with the rest of your collection on those sweet custom racks you shared in the Izakaya!

[Nazar]

20 hours ago, Scogg said:

Hi Nazar, nice sword, congrats!

So I am encountering some outdated information within my monograph; that I hope to remedy here very soon with my second edition (or sooner with an updated edition). Some of this information is carryover from previous publications, that I have since discovered through cataloging are not entirely accurate. Part of the reason I began this project, is because I encounter similar inaccuracies across almost all sources. I need to do better on my own material, and make sure it is accurate. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. 

An April 23, 1941 document revises the brass tsuba design by removing the sword knot slot. Although, no confirmed production examples of this revised unslotted brass tsuba have ever been observed. So I need to make an edit to my document in the Variation#3 chapter. I make mention of this in the Variation#4 section; so this is an oversight on my part. My sincere apologies for letting that slip. I would date your sword to between April 1941 and March 1942.

Let me explain the asymmetrical ito versus symmetrical ito. I suspect we're encountering a little language barrier here, (nothing wrong with that). I've attached a photo that better highlights this change (please click on the image to make it larger for viewing). I do not mean literally a mirror image of both sides of the tsuka, but rather that the ITO wrap pattern was made to be the same on both sides; in respect to the ito knots and open diamonds.

You will see this difference most clearly where the ito meets ferrule (fuchi). If you continue to count the diamonds starting with my arrows, you will also notice the difference. 

Hope that helps, and apologies for my errors. Some of these differences are very challenging to articulate clearly, and I am still trying to find the best verbiage for describing them.
I will work on these edits ASAP, and get it into the download section.
Best,

-Sam


 

 

Thank you, Sam! Great news on the new version of monograph! Will be waiting for it. 

 

Thank you for putting a date on my sword and additional explanation on the ito! My literal understanding of the word indeed got me confused. 

 

If you need any additional photos of the sword for your monograph I'll gladly shoot them for you. For example, to straighten the saya metal shell I had to remove its wooden core. To my amazement, the damage all that bending did to the wood wasn't that bad. Still, it gave me some headache. Here are photos of saya.  

 

 

 

[Nazar]

Also shot some additional group photos of tsuka, tsuba, seppa, ferrule and habaki: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 02:31 PM by Nazar

[Nazar]

19 hours ago, Conway said:

 

You did a great job straightening out the blade and saya, Nazar. It will display nicely with the rest of your collection on those sweet custom racks you shared in the Izakaya!

 

Thank you, Con! The place for this sword on that stand is, indeed, already reserved!

[Nazar]

Now let's return to the issue of blade and saya straightening. 

The main issue with blade was that someone already attempted to straighten it (along with saya I believe). So in fact it was like one bent that consisted of smaller ones. To address this issue I designed and 3D printed the jaws for vises. It's simpler to show the photos, than explain their concept in words.  

 

 

As you may see from the photo,  the working profile is similar to that of the blade itself. Being 3D printed with 100% filling, these jaws are sufficiently robust to bend the blade at the point where it is necessary, but they couldn't make any damage to the steel surface. And, as you may see from the photo, during the work plastic just got more compacted around the fuller and did the job as it was designed.  

 

[Nazar]

It was slightly more complicated with the saya metal shell. I already worked out a technique that allows me to work on dents of metal scabbards. I wrote about it in my other topic. The princip is simple and based on application of 3D printed inserts (let's call them chasers) from inside of saya. And as scabbard usually is narrower to the end of the blade it means that a series of chasers has to be designed to chase out all dents. The cross section of the chaser has to correspond to the cross section of the scabbard. Here is an example of a chasers I used for my Type 95 saya.

 

As you may see from the picture, the chaser is to be put on a 6mm threaded rod and fixed with a counter nut. The rod allows both to hammer a chaser into the saya and to remove it using some washers and a nut. One may notice a round dimple on the end of the chaser. In this way I marked its narrower end which has to go into saya  first. Yet, in this case chasers weren't enough. They do straighten the shell to some extent, but some amount of force has to be applied from outside. And this force has to be controllable and predictable. So again, I designed 3D printed jaws for vises.

 

 

In case of saya their profile corresponds to the outer profile of saya. The curvature of the jaws allows it to apply some bending force to the saya in places where it is necessary. I considered it crucial to use these jawas only in combination with chaser. With chaser inside and aligned at the point where saya has to be unbend, there is a little (if none) chance to damage saya.  To not damage the remnants of paint I put some fabric between those plastic jaws and saya shell.

[Conway]

Did you happen to take any photos of the nakago when all the fittings are removed? Those of us who would never dare to disassemble a Type 95 for fear of it not going back together the same, like to see these types of pictures. It should have a 東 “To” stamp. 

[Scogg]

Indeed, would love to see the nakago for my notes.

Many nakago I have seen on Variation#3 swords are not stamped; so do not worry if yours is unmarked. Although, every Variation#1 copper nakago that I have seen has the 東 stamp.

Like Conway says, we don't see the nakago very often, so sample size of my observations is small.
Best,
-Sam
 

[Conway]

2 minutes ago, Nazar said:

The princip is simple and based on application of 3D printed inserts (let's call them chasers) from inside of saya.

So those little inserts are plastic and they have enough strength to punch out the dents in the saya without breaking? I have a saya with some damage caused by the U.S. postal service and I was thinking of making something similar. I wasn’t sure it would be strong enough to get the job done. 

[Nazar]

Sure, there they are. Nakago is stamped with  東 “To” stamp and also has number 2 stamped on mune side. 

 

 

 

 

[Nazar]

Some additional photos. Nakago jiri is painted with red paint. 

 

 

 

[Scogg]

Fascinating, thank you for sharing those.

A couple firsts for me! Never seen a number on the nakago-mune, or paint like that. 
Very interesting,
-Sam

[Nazar]

19 minutes ago, Conway said:

So those little inserts are plastic and they have enough strength to punch out the dents in the saya without breaking? I have a saya with some damage caused by the U.S. postal service and I was thinking of making something similar. I wasn’t sure it would be strong enough to get the job done. 

 

Yes, 3D printed plastic (PETG, printed with 100% filling) is quite tough when it comes to compression. I made some experiments, not sword related, and I pressed 4mm copper plates using a hydraulic press and 3D printed forms. Later on that experiment gave me the idea of using 3D printed inserts to remove dents on saya. Depending on dent you may need inserts of a couple of sizes to chase it out step by step.  I have never tried to achieve 100% dent removal  to make it look as if it has never been there though. 

Edited Tuesday at 03:53 PM by Nazar

[Conway]

Thanks for the tip. I just need to pop the dent out enough for the blade to sheath more easily. 

[Nazar]

14 hours ago, Scogg said:

Fascinating, thank you for sharing those.

A couple firsts for me! Never seen a number on the nakago-mune, or paint like that. 
Very interesting,
-Sam

 

 

Thank you Sam. The pleasure was mine. 

 

There is also some kind of ink stamp on the wooden part of saya and something like an additional mark on the kuchigane. I'll post them later. 

[Nazar]

Next part might be a bit controversial, but I had to do it. The only thing I didn't like about this sword was habaki. Someone at some stage tried to remove tsuka. This person unscrewed the mekugi nut, removed the mekugi bolt and tried to pull tsuka off. The hatome was still in its place, so no wonder the attempt was unsuccessful.  So this person just tried to pry tsuka off and put something metall and sharp  between habaki and foremost seppa. Some hammering was applied too. Seppa was lucky enough to get away with only minor scratches while habaki received a lot of damage. 

 

And if it was only about scratches, I could put up with them. However,  I couldn't stand those  unnatural vivid colours habake was featuring. Either someone applied the heat to it (yet I found no signs of heat on other components or tsuka wooden core) or these colours are the result of some chemicals applied to cover fresh scratches. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Nazar]

There was no way to remove those scratches and dents without altering habaki greatly. So I only removed protruding ridges with a small file. I was careful and I was working only along the lines of the original habaki finish. Then I put some patina on habaki. What I learned from working on WWI brass belt buckles is that there are  no two brass alloys alike when it comes to reaction to "aging" chemicals.  Therefore they all have to be treated differently and with great care. I believe I have more or less succeeded with the aging of this habaki. 

 

 

 

[Matsunoki]

Nazar, Putting a few emojis on your posts on this thread doesn’t really say enough for me. I’ve greatly enjoyed trying to understand the power of 3d printing (and failed)  and how you have creatively used your knowledge and ability to solve the problems that you faced. Amazing. 
 

[paul griff]

Well done Nazar, excellent work..

Regards,

              Paul