This blade forged from a single piece of forge-welded cable has a 23 inch (59.7 cm) nagasa. Blade is tori-zori with chu-kissaki. Well-controled gunome hamon with usturi.
Mr. Nakajima referred to similar swords as “castle swords”, because the somewhat shorter length could be more easily wielded in confined indoor combat. A blade of this size would also have been similar to those carried by merchants and others not of the samurai class, who were legally allowed to carry one sword shorter than a katana during the Edo period.
The blade in mounted in black koshirae, also by Michael Bell. Tsuka of full-wrap same, wrapped with black silk ito. Dragon menuki of shibuichi. Silver shitodome. Buffalo horn kurigata, koiguchi, and kojiri. Black silk sageo. Copper habaki and seppa.
Tsuba is a collaborative work by Michael, Anna, and Gabriel Bell of Dragonfly Forge. It is forged antique wrought iron, pierced and carved in an openwork floral motiff.
Other measurements:
nakago nagasa: 9 1/4” (23.5 cm)
sori: 1/2” (1.27 cm)
kasane at habaki: 1/4” (64 mm)
motohaba: 1 3/16” (3.02 cm)
sakihaba: 7/8” (2.22 cm)
$8,600
oh, now i remember… this was the “spec” piece i remember being in production. who did the polish on this one?
Joe,
Michael actually decided to do the polish on this one himself. Since he hadn’t done a final polish in some time, he kept thinking that his polishing was a bit weak only to realize what he was seeing was utsuri.
Another amazing sword! What is the tsuka length?
It’s great to hear from you, Louie. The length of the tsuka is 9.5 inches.
Thank you for taking the effort and time to produce something that is effective
I wish to ask if you use modern style forge or the edo times
Although my father, Michael, has built and used a traditional charcoal-fired forge with manual-powered bellows in the past, today we use a modern propane gas forge with an electric “squirrel-cage” blower for the reasons of cost-efficiency, cleanliness, and convenience.
So do you use tamahagne or other metals
Although we generally specialize in blades of forge-welded steel cable (wire rope), for the traditionalist collector we do forge swords of handmade oroshigane (produced from carburized wrought iron and electrolytic sponge iron, denkaitetsu)
Tamahagane from Japan is prohibitively expensive for us to import.