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loempe
July 24th, 2010, 07:35 AM
HI everyone

I had a day off from the familys low budget holliday at home. We have great fun...but I got the urge to do something new in wood.

I have an old japanese red oak bokken and it was severely worn out along the mune and ha from many years of training. It also suffered greatly from my early days of chopping and clumsy sparring :blackeye:

This bokken has sentimental value to me, since it was my first, some 20 years ago. So I was thinking of a way to give this piece of 'demolished' wood a new life.

This is what I ended up with from a days work in the 'custom shed' - a new kodachi in tensho/Katori Shinto Ryu style.

I used power tools and all sorts of abrasive paper and finished burnishing the wood grain with a piece of the old tsuka - wood against wood gives a nice even shiny surface. After the final soak in linseed oil I polished the grain with a cotton cloth. Dimensions: 'nakago': 15cm, 'nagasa': 42, 'Motohaba': 4cm, 'motokassane': 2,5cm, 'sakihaba': 3cm, 'sakikassane': 1,8 cm.

I quess all of you gyus have an old bokken laying somewhere in a corner. My hope is that this thread will inspire you to revive your own - in your preferred style and show it :)

the blade master
July 24th, 2010, 10:36 AM
you know that would nice handle scales for a full tang khukuri:ohyeah:

Ichiban
July 24th, 2010, 01:42 PM
You really brought out the beauty of the wood in that one! I really like the "tsuka" shaping too, nothing's like a nice rikko tsuka. :D Awesome job.

goose710
July 24th, 2010, 03:26 PM
loempe

When ever some one works a nice piece of wood it's simply amazing whats actually there !! Nice job there dude!

da gooseman

wolfhound
July 25th, 2010, 01:15 PM
Well thats the first hand made Shoto/Kodachi I've ever seen, well done!

Caliper
July 25th, 2010, 11:33 PM
mmm....nice =P~
what happened to your folded katana?

loempe
July 26th, 2010, 05:24 AM
Thanks all, for the nice comments ;-)

mmm....nice =P~
what happened to your folded katana?

Thanks for asking Caliper ;-)

I've made this proto type kodachi partly in order to practice shaping the tensho/rikko style tsuka for my bare blade project, partly because I needed a new kodachi. But what happened to my bare blade is as follows:

A five months old son happened ;-)
A new job happended ;-)
A search for a new home (looking to buy a house) ;-)
A properly dryed substitute wood for honoki is hard to find in DK. (I found some, but haven't bought it yet) ;-)
A lot of beautiful ideas for tensho koshirae (too much time to think, too little time to get the blade done)

I'll continue the 'bare blade' thread once I have any progress to show or questions regarding materials. In the meanwhile, enjoy the works of Ichiban...I do ;-)

...So after the fabulous 'Kogarasu Maru Endavor', do you have any broken bokken to remake?