My Type 95 NCO sword project.

[John C]

7 hours ago, Nazar said:

habaki.

Nazar:

How difficult would it be to make a habaki using 3D printing for a bare blade? When I make shirasaya, I use the old school method of casting habaki (sand mold and pewter) which works well because the pewter is easy to work, however it's still a bit of drilling, file work and adjusting. I'm looking for an easier method to make a temporary habaki for fitting shirasaya. 

 

John C.

 

[Nazar]

12 hours ago, Matsunoki said:

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. 
 

 

Thank you Colin! It's just how my brains are working. It so happened that I had to improve my skills in 3D modelling and master 3D printing. I am glad I could use these tools to create and  make things better. It keeps me going.  

 

 

9 hours ago, paul griff said:

Well done Nazar, excellent work..

Regards,

              Paul

 

Thank you, Paul!

 

 

5 hours ago, John C said:

Nazar:

How difficult would it be to make a habaki using 3D printing for a bare blade? When I make shirasaya, I use the old school method of casting habaki (sand mold and pewter) which works well because the pewter is easy to work, however it's still a bit of drilling, file work and adjusting. I'm looking for an easier method to make a temporary habaki for fitting shirasaya. 

 

John C.

 

 

John, 

 

It's an interesting idea! Tell you what. The topmost sword on my rack is wakizashi in shirasaya. That shirasaya does not originally belong to wakizashi. And while tsuka sits perfectly, there is some freeplay between habaki and saya. So I'll try to 3D model and print two habaki: one that corresponds to the original part and second that will fit saya tightly. 

 

The only thing, it wouldn't be as fast as I wish, because I have to leave my swords for some time. 

[Marcin]

Nice details, red paint near sarute barrel probably is anti-rust.

This low numbers serie shows some big effort.

[Nazar]

For some time I will be apart from my collection. But I did get with me photos I shot earlier. As I already mentioned, the number on the kuchigane corresponds to the number on the blade. 

 

 

Couldn't resist posting some additional photos of ferrule. 

 

 

[Nazar]

And here are some additional marks I found on parts of my NCO sword.  Curious mark on kuchigane. 

 

 

 

These marks are easier to read. It seems that kuchigane was overgrineded and therefore it fitted the metal shell of saya with some small freeplay. To eliminate the freeplay these slots were chiseled. 

 

 

The ink  stamp on the wooden core of saya was barely visible but after cleaning it stands out quite prominently. 

 

 

 

[Nazar]

So, before I was forced to pause the project, I managed to finish the works on the saya  wooden insert. In another topic here there was a recommendation to tap saya on the table top to get rid of particles that may accumulate in it. My personal choice is to use nylon tube cleaning brushes paper taped to a piece of wire made of mild steel. However in case of this saya both methods would be of little help. Even if I hadn't to straighten up saya metal shell, I had to remove the wooden core for cleaning. The reason was that it accumulated too many wooden particles, dust and rust  to leave it alone.

As you may see from my previous post, the damage to the wooden core wasn't that bad. The reason for this is the construction of saya, which is actually two pieces of wood with very thin ridges that form seats for the mune and the edge of the blade. The impact that damaged saya metal shell also cracked wood and broke off those ridges. Additional damage was done by continuous process of putting the blade in and out of saya. The kissaki grinded its way through one side of the wooden liner.

So when I took out the wooden core of saya, it came along with some splinters (which are actually broken off ridges) and a significant amount of sawdust, rust and wood particles.

 

 

 

 

 

[Nazar]

Ridges that were not broken had cracks along the base. Also the wooden liners were very dirty and stained. In some places the rust formed crusty spots on the surface of wood.

 

 

 

 

 

[Nazar]

 

To clean the wood I used small scrapers from my weapon cleaning kit, Isopropyl and small wire brushes for Deremel. Those brushes I used by hand only and they were very useful when it came to cleaning rusty crust from the wood grain. Cleaning didn't make the wooden core look like new. It was impossible to remove stains that had eaten into the grain. Yet, I believe I cleaned wooden parts enough to prevent further abrasive or corrosive damage to the blade. 

 

Then it was time to restore the ridges and fix the damage made by kissaki. Alas, the rice glue wouldn't be strong enough to keep such tiny pieces of wood  together. So, to glue ridges back and seal the cracks I was forced to use Titebond Ultimate wood glue. In a couple of places where parts of ridges were missing I had to do some patchwork. I had a small piece of honoki wood for such repairs so I had to use it very sparingly. Working on wood, I used only knives and files. The honoki wood I had was of lighter colour, so my patchwork, well, looks like patchwork. Here are a couple of examples.

Hre you may see the ridge restored from original pieces with a new piece added (the one to the right).

 

 

As I already mentioned, while the blade and saya were bent, the kissaki grinded its way right through the wood. In this place I had to make a cut-out and patch it. Mind, the wooden part of saya is very thin in this place, therefore it was quite a task to make a thin corresponding patch. No wonder I managed to break one of the patch ends while gluing it. To make things even "better", that tiny piece fell on the floor and just disappeared there. With glue applied I had no choice but to make a new end for that patch. Looking back I understand that I could easily avoid that issue just by making that patch thicker and  grinding it after glue is set. Let's call it the process of getting some experience... To reinforce this place I used a "putty", a mix of honoki sawdust and glue. 

 

 

 

[Nazar]

Sure, it is not the best repair possible, yet I did my best. Here are the halves of the wooden part of saya:

 

 

 

 

I couldn't say for sure if they were glued together. With all those thin connecting surfaces it seems impossible to get a joint of decent strength using only rice glue.  Anyway, I put the wooden core back without gluing its halves together. One more thing is worth mentioning. In the process of removing wood from the metal shell this curious strip of veneer fell out too. It broke apart mostly instantly.There might have been at least another one like that but broken in smaller pieces. My theory is that either these veneer strips were used as wedges to fix wooden saya in a metal shell more tightly, or they were used for keeping  halves together (glued?).  

 

[Nazar]

@John C ,

 

I tested the idea of 3D printed habaki. The habaki I took for example is quite small: 21x31.5x12mm. I didn't spend much time on making its 3D model. All in all it's all about measuring and figuring out  things like angle of tapering. Final adjustments took longer though. My printers are not very good with small details. And since it's just proof of concept, I didn't put much effort into  optimizing my model for 3D printing.  So what you may see in the photos is the part as I get it from the printer table.

 

What could I say about your idea: I believe 3D printed habaki for shirasaya would work. It may look butt ugly (this could be partly fixed by some filing and polishing), however it would work as well as a metal one. If I have to transport the wakizashi present in photos somewhere right now I'd go for 3D printed habaki because it eliminates rattling. For the long run  I would  prefer to make some classic  fix of the habaki zone in saya. 

 

I also could see that this 3D printing technique may be used to provide a basic model for cast habaki.  

 

 

 

 

[John C]

Thanks, Nazar.  As a proof of concept, it worked well.

 

John C.

[Nazar]

Yet one small update on the project. As I mentioned, I put halves of wooden saya into the metal shell. But somehow it didn't seem like the right thing to do. So I start thinking on how to join two halves without applying modern glue or without applying glue at all. As it frequently happens with tasks running in the background mode, after some time the solution presented itself. There is paper tape that is used for automotive paint jobs. Personally I prefer brown tape as it is heat resistant and usually has better adhesive properties. I have used it for various tasks in my motorcycle workshop and even these days I find various uses for it. For example, it helped me to glue splinters back to the saya and it's mighty useful when it comes to boxes labeling (and relabeling). Sure, I'd never use it for bonding  saya halves as I believe the adhesive may penetrate the grain of wood and  permanently stain it. However, if one takes such paper tape and folds it along its lengths, gluing halves together, leaving only an adhesive tab on one of the ends, one get strip of tape that looks like this:

 

Then one may wrap this strip of paper tape around the halves of the saya, tighten it and fix the adhesive tab onto the strip itself. In such a way halves of saya will be kept together with a kind of paper collar. Only paper will contact wood, so no harm would come to honoki. And this collar, even tightened around the saya, could be easily removed by pulling it toward the narrower end. So this mod is completely reversible.

 

 

I made five of these paper collars and  distributed them more or less evenly along the length of the saya. In this way I ensured that wooden saya provides correct accomodation for the blade.

 

 

[Lareon]

You are right, those stamps are so crisply stamped. they did a very good job stamping them! this has been a very informative thread!

[Nazar]

Thank you Tony!

 

 

So, the project is mostly finished. As I mentioned, I liked even the state of the blade because it made the picture wholesome. Also, not much could be done to the blades in such a state. The black iron oxide, if completely removed, will reveal caverns in steel and making it shiny will even make things worse. Someone already cleaned the blade, but luckily for me, they didn't go too far with it. So I give the blade a touch, with the main aim to make the surface look more even. Most of the large black spots were in the kissaki area. Here are some photos before/after. As one may see, I left the surface quite dull, because it suits this sword very much.  

 

 

 

 

[Nazar]

Another side:

 

 

 

 

[Nazar]

Machi area:

 

 

 

 

And a couple of photos with habaki, tsuba and tsuka back on the sword. 

 

 

[Bruce Pennington]

Was that your chogi oil and baking soda treatment?

[Marcin]

I will hunt some kyu gunto next and will go for vinegar addition too - dunno how will work soda with choji solution and vinegar as booster.

I wonder how vinegar bath or wet towel would work, also real copper/brass brush afterwards.

This NCO shouldn't be polished to look as factory new - especially with these new high grade replica.

[Nazar]

5 hours ago, Bruce Pennington said:

Was that your chogi oil and baking soda treatment?

 

The choji oil and soda is a Marcin solution. I was thinking of trying it, but with a sword at hand it was obvious that it wouldn't work. So I used a solution I worked out during my other project. Long story short: last winter I bought a rusty and falling apart Saxonian dress sword for the project. 

 

It was with its metal scabbard I first used my 3D printed inserts to remove dents. The scabbards and blade were originally  nickel plated but got rusty at the places. So I had to find a solution to clean the rust without further damage to the plating.  I was thinking about using a mix of diamond powder and oil to clean out the blade and scabbard. That thought  was inspired by uchiko powder.  

 

At that time we were stationed not far away from my parents place and it was a great time. The best time I had during all 4+ years of war.  But back to the subject.  My stepfather is a machinist, he has a lather, milling machine, grinding machine and other machinery and tools in his shed. It's a small town so he does jobs like turning parts, planning cylinder heads, fixing parts for agricultural machinery and so on and so forth. So I asked him if he had something like diamond powder mixed with oil. Turned out he had such a thing. Actually it was a compound for grinding valves, but unlike compounds largely available on market that one was not a paste like substance but actually the mix of diamond powder and engine oil. By look and smell it was clear that the oil already was used in the engine. It was of local manufacturing and came into two small plastic containers with powder of different grit in each. 

 

According to the words of my stepfather it was no use for valves as even the coarse grit was too fine.  So I decided to give it a try with a sword and it worked. It still works slowly, but faster than uchiko. At the same time leaving the surface of steel sufficiently dull. And even coarser compound is still very fine and leaves no visible scratches. The best thing about it is that unlike chemical processes this one is completely mechanical and one has complete control over it, especially when it comes to when to stop.  Like using uchiko powder, I use it with paper towels and different kinds of microfiber fabrics. To work on kissaki I used a thicker and harder kind of fabric. 

 

Here are photos of Sacsonian sword scabbard before and after. It was a pure pleasure to work on that sword. It's not Japanese made, but maybe I should create a topic in Izakaya? 

 

 

[Nazar]

2 hours ago, Marcin said:

I will hunt some kyu gunto next and will go for vinegar addition too - dunno how will work soda with choji solution and vinegar as booster.

I wonder how vinegar bath or wet towel would work, also real copper/brass brush afterwards.

This NCO shouldn't be polished to look as factory new - especially with these new high grade replica.

 

 

Agree, I like this sword as it is. 

Marcin, be very careful with chemicals. I am not very good at chemistry, but in the past I have made some small experiments with brass buckles and found out that things may turn for worse very easily.