Once a project is started it is never truly finished. I live for projects and I always have-- If I am not building something I am planing to build something. Almost all of my hobbies and professions date back to childhood interests. You name it: steam engines, robots, Jeeps-- even my career as an exhibit builder has roots in my early exposure to The Science Museum of Minnesota.
In 1989 I had just entered high school and I was somewhat disillusioned with religion and government-- I had not yet really "found" myself. It was at this point that I began writing down the things that I truly could say I believed. What I found through this process of self discovery was that my personal system of beliefs was based on learning through experience. By learning through experiential means I felt that I could say that I had a true understanding of that body of knowledge.
Roughly one year later, in 1990, I took an Eastern Civilization class and began learning the basics of eastern religion. I discovered that there were many similarities to my beliefs and many eastern religions. More like philosophy than religion-- these codes of ethics and belief had an immediate appeal. I identified on a deep level with these ideals.
Being an obsessive personality I began researching Taoism, Shinto, Buddhism-- I also became intensely interested in Bushido. Bushido is the code of beliefs to which the Japanese Samurai adhered. Bushido revolves around seven fundamental principles which include compassion, loyalty, honor and truthfulness. Parallel with this research, I exhaustively studied the construction methods of Japanese arms and armor. As I mentioned in my Toy of the Week entry on the Mini Katana, I spent many hours trying to replicate these techniques using only basic tools and materials that I had available to me.
Fast forward to today: I now build exhibits that, every year, allow thousands of children and adults to learn through actual experience. My fabrication skills have become more refined and I now have access to tools and materials that I never could have imagined before. As a result I decided that it was time to re-visit a Japanese sword project. So I don't bore my few blog readers to death, I will post about this project in installments. Lets get started!
Step 1, Selecting a blade:
In ancient Japan, a single sword could be made through the combined efforts of as many as 14 different artisans. Needless to say I have identified my abilities as best suited to make the koshirae or sword mountings and not the blades themselves. so I decided to search for a commercial blade to use as the basis for the project. Due to the fact that I do not have a tremendous amount of space to display a full size katana I decided to fabricate mounts for a tanto. In western terms, a tanto is essentially a dagger or very short sword.
Finding a suitable tanto blade was tricky. I wanted a blade made of layered steel so it would have beautiful surface characteristics and contribute to the overall beauty of the piece. A differently clay tempered blade would also be desirable. There are very few tantos on the market that have folded and clay tempered blades. Most of them are Chinese made and cost around $500. Of course, you are also paying for mountings such as the hilt, guard, pommel and scabbard-- all of these parts I intended to fabricate myself. Eventually I settled on a short tanto blade of modern design. The blade is hand made in India from 500 layer Damascus steel in a raindrop pattern. The blade was attractive, economical-- and it was just a blade, nothing else, which would allow me to fabricate every fitting by hand.
If you look at this photograph, you get an idea of how the modern tanto differs from a more traditional blade. The modern blade (bottom) has a squared off chisel shaped point which actually makes for a very strong blade. There is also a much stronger curvature-- this carries through to the tang (handle) of the blade. The raindrop pattern is also a bit more flamboyant than was traditionally found in the subtle polished surface of true folded Japanese blades. Despite these differences, the blade I chose had it's own unique appeal and I liked the idea of making authentic and traditional koshirae for a modern blade.
With the blade selected the next step in the process is to make one of the metal fittings called the habaki. Stay tuned...
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