wannabeswordsmith

Jesus, gorgeous work man!! What was the process...recipe? formula? to get the texture /patina on your tsuba? Is the pitting chemically done or hammered in with tools? As always, super find work.

There is most definitely not enough replies to this post... come on guys.. this thing is awesome. Great job. BEAUTIFUL KNIFE. Scott

F.Y.I. Walters Videos are worth it. They can cut through a lot of Screw ups.. up front. Honestly there are other bladesmiths that don't seem to want to take the time to communicate any helpful hints or take time to "teach" the general collective wannabe's (like me), even though they obviously have a love for the art, they protect their experience with lock and key?? Walters videos are wellll worth it. Great looking piece Walter, glad to see you put out a piece for fun. Scott

jake, how did you get the patina/texture/color on this. I have made a few crude tsuba with modern engravers, that are slick mild steel with gun bluing on them and then let them rust for a while. They are ok, but nothing as artful as this. (Laughing) I work at a truck repair shop with a limestone rock parking lot, old washers and metal lay out here and get a very old look to them pretty quickly, getting run over and rained on, I have thought about just leaving my tsuba in the parking lot and letting mother nature to the work. Just curious how you got it to turn out so great. Looks marvelous. Besides Patrick Hastings and Ford Hallman (sP?) I don't get alot of information on the topic to study by. I love their work. Ford has a few youtube videos, but not many. Looks like I'm going to be admiring your stuff now to. (which have been for a while- your blades). Scott

Walter, glad to see you banging them out. I got out your videos and been refreshing some of the tips you give for my feeble mind that has C.R.S. all the time. I am waiting on the cooler fall, this Damn Mississippi Heat has been too much for me to work in. I hope to bang one out soon and contribute to "show and tell" and credit you for the help. This is gorgeous, BTW. Scott

looks like a beautiful piece of work, should sale for you. I hope so John. Scott

Thanks for the info, but right now, 200 dollars is a little much for me.. wife wants to go to the smokey's. But in the video he torqued it around and it punched a square tang hole in his fittings like "shamwow" .... ok, that dude gets on my nerves on that towel commercial... but at any rate, it was like "pow" and the hole was there, saving mega mega time.

I bought an old Vhs video of Bill Moran and making handles, on it he has an old turn torque punch of some kind that punches the tang hole in the guard, he said a whitney punch (I thought), I can find whitney punches, but nothing like he had, which was a bench mounted looking little unit that punched a rectangular hole that was perferct for starting the tang hole. Beats drilling and then filing out the guts... I WANT ONE! Anyone with any clues where to get one. Scott

AND????........ (UPDATE PLEASE)

The entire video is geared to the anvil and hammer, it has briefly a part of using a press to get down to where you need to be with a sonobe' (preform) with a hunk fo steel, but basically it is all arm and hammer. Walter always does a great job with explaining and making you feel like he is talking to you on his video's, sort of "japanese sword" for dummies like those books you buy in the book stores on what ever topics you want to learn about.

This video is packed with information, anyone needing/wanting to know more, it has great tips. If you are a novice or interested in making blades of any sort, it would be a wise investment. Walter has all kinds of tricks and tips that add up to alot of knowledge needed. From novice to intermediate to experienced smiths could use this video. It is top notch and doesn't leave much to wonder about. Buy it!

Man, that was a good walking through of making a gorgeous knife. I enjoy your blades, but your photo set up was a cool thing to see also. keep it up dude. We all enjoy your work.

Man, I have admired your work for a while. That is one bad looking boy. cool as hell !

Man, I have admired your work for a while. That is one bad looking boy. cool as hell !

Ordered!!!... (can't freakin wait). I want to see where I am beatin myself up and doing it the wrong kinda way.. ha. I'll meet you around Talladega if you will meet me halfway with it.

Well from one Mississippi Boy to another, Yea, I would love to see one. I'm not sure if the fall of the year in the Gulf of Mexico would be a good plan, but you can't live your life planning for the next unknown Katrina. Maybe a good idea to join the MIssissippi forge council and see if the Mississippi blade smiths that you can find would help organize it.

http://www.thejapanesesword.com/polishing.htm http://www.arscives.com/bladesign/hybridpolish.htm www.waltersorrells.com http://www.geocities.com/alchemyst/nihonto.htm here are a few links to help you in your quest. I made a stand out of lumber that is tall enough I can sit on a stool and polish, I tried the sitting on my rear method and my back hurt, my oversized stomach didn't work to well, so I took it upright. I bought Walters Video and learned a ton. I notice that many traditional polishers use long strokes, but walter used little scraping motions that seemd to me to be more in control of keeping your ridge line in perspective and not letting it get away from you. One of the main things is with different grits, each time you go up, to change the direction of the polish slightly to be able to see the last scratches from the previous polish grit, and keep polishing until the last scratches are gone. HARD WORK.

You know when Darth Vader says in Empire strikes back to Luke as he flips backwards from hanging on some cables during their duel..."Impressive"... well dito here. This is impressive, the furniture is gorgeous and the lines and shape is out of this world. Cool blade. I am just staring at it dude. Great work. Scott

Looks pretty good to me. If you are interested in stone polishing, there are a few videos on youtube by John Smith. Walter Sorrells has some quality videos you can buy that is sort of east meets west in hybrid polishing with a section on traditional methods. Also smartflix.com has some videos for rent in the knifemaking sections. There are numerous tutorials on the web if you search under the right topics, use terms like binsui stone, nihonto polishing, tigoshi( I believe that is the right term). really more information out there than you realize. Good luck. Scott

sound a little ambitious eh?

ohhh, I don't know, organizing a bunch of crazy metal heads that like to put on clay on blades and polish our spare timee away into some club with dues, memberships, have a monthly newletter, officers, and such and then having a yearly competition in that associations name , yada yada yahh... etc. etc. etc...

I have only had one blade crack, a 5160 knife blade that I was trying to harden. I thought I was immune from the cracks after not cracking a 1050 blade yet.. this really stung.

i typed DUDE don't know why dud came up... certainly not calling you a dud.

dud, don't leave me out of the loop, I wanna know whats up, if it is sort of what I'm thinking, I wanna help... pm me.

I have searched and there is no Japanese-Style American Bladesmith organization or association, at least I am not aware of, maybe we should form one and develope criteria and standards to help with organization or sanctioning such a type of event. Just an idea.