New Swords, Part One

I didn't get as many good shots of the new swords as I would have liked, so I took some more and we'll see of these aren't a little better. I'm going to start with the katana, but if you'll forgive me I am going to forgo the Japanese terms in favor of using English because I want people who don't know the terms to be able to follow along without having to run to google every three words.

Sword in scabbard on stand.

Basic. Actually I've deliberately set it up sort of backwards, the other side of the stand has the company name and logo on it and who wants to see that?


The scabbard is wood, covered in gold paint and then lacquered.



These little gold flowers have also been placed on the scabbard before the clear layer was laid down, adds something I think.


For such a nice looking sword, I'm a little surprised at what I think is a nylon wrapping. I would have thought you'd use cotton, but they didn't. It still looks nice though.

The two sides of the handle with the furniture featured. Oddly, these are in reverse of where they'd normally be. Instead of resting your finger tips on them (if you're right handed) they sit against the inside of your knuckles.



See, that one on the bottom there would normally be up at the top. This isn’t necessarily an error though. At one time the fashion was for the bits to be placed like that, then they swapped them.


They look nice though.


Pommel cap. It's a bit loose but not a problem.


Side view of it. You can see where there was a bit of flash on the casting of the accent pieces, a bit of work with a file could solve that though.


The hand guard is nice, sort of antiqued looking.


Mirror imaged on both sides.




The steel has been folded several times to create this layered effect.


I'll try to post some better pictures of the layering later.



And I'm just throwing this in for flash.