What can you make a katana out of? Katana manufacturing technology

Katana - long slightly curved two-handed sword, invented and made for the first time in Japan. He was one of the weapons of the samurai. Later in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill, the katana began to excite many. How to do it yourself katana ?

You will need

An anvil, iron sand (special black sand from the coast of Japan, from which iron is smelted), hammer, smelter, charcoal, forge, sandstone powder, water, clay, rice straw, as well as grinding and polishing tools for processing the resulting steel. If you managed to find all this, then let's proceed to the very manufacture of the sword.

Instruction

1. Immerse the charcoal, light it, place the sand in the smelter and at a temperature of 1500 degrees, smelt about four kilograms of steel. Divide the resulting metal into a little - and high-carbon iron. Mild iron is gray-black in color. Place small and large pieces at the bottom of the forge charcoal, then ignite. After that, put high-carbon iron in the forge and also sprinkle some charcoal.

2. Later, spread rice straw ash and pre-crushed charcoal on the bottom of the hearth, place a layer of high-carbon steel and cover it all with charcoal. After that, start pumping the furs rapidly until there is only iron left in the forge. Carefully remove the pieces of steel and begin to forge flat sheets from them. Make sure that they are no more than five millimeters in thickness. Divide iron into high- and low-carbon iron.

3. Place pieces of high-carbon steel on a steel blank with a handle, wrap in paper and apply clay. After that, put it all in the forge and fill it with coal. Heat for approximately 30 minutes until white color. Remove the resulting block, put it on the anvil and hit it with a hammer several times. After that, put it back in the forge, heat it up perfectly and again hit it several times with a hammer. Repeat this procedure five to six times.

4. You have iron, which is called "kawagane". Take the low-carbon iron that you have previously set aside, make a bar out of it by forging, and then roll and forge it 9-10 more times. You have now received the shingane iron.

5. The next step is to prepare the blade. Split the bar and forge a rectangular plate out of it. By stretching the plate perpendicular to the length, you will give the blade the desired shape. File the shank of the blade. The process of making a katana, complete in the following way. From a pair of wood blocks, make a handle, which is first wrapped in leather, and then with a cotton cord.

The aura that surrounds the mythical samurai sword - the katana, has maintained interest and admiration for this type of weapon for more than one hundred years. Katana is a strong, light and elastic sword. It becomes so due to the special materials from which it is forged, the special forging technique and, according to legend, the true heart of the master.

You will need

iron sand
foundry
Hammer
Anvil
rice straw
Clay
sandstone powder
Tools for grinding and polishing steel

Instruction

1. In order to forge a true katana, you need to stock up on special "black sand" from the Japanese coast. These are ferruginous sands from which you have to smelt tamahagane - the traditional Japanese iron used to forge samurai swords.

2. Load the ore sand into the smelter - Tatara - and smelt about 4 kilograms of steel on charcoal. The temperature in the melting furnace must reach 1,500 degrees Celsius.

3. Sort iron into low carbon and high carbon. The high-carbon tamahagane is heavier, clear silver in color. Low-carbon - coarser, gray-black.

4. Coat the bottom of the blacksmith's forge with crushed charcoal, add huge chunks of charcoal, and set them on fire. Lay a layer of mild steel and backfill with a layer of charcoal. Wait until the iron sinks to the bottom of the forge.

5. Cover the bottom of the hearth with rice straw ash, half with powdered charcoal, lay a layer of high-carbon steel in a slide, pour charcoal on top. Start actively pumping mechs. Wait until only iron remains in the forge.

6. Take pieces of tamahagane and start forging them into flat sheets half a centimeter thick. Cool the sheets in water and break into 2 square centimeter plates. Sort iron into high carbon and low carbon.

7. Take selected pieces of high carbon steel, lay on a steel plate with a handle. Wrap with paper and coat with clay. Place in the forge. Cover with charcoal and heat for at least thirty minutes until clear yellow or white.

8. Remove the block from the forge, place it on the anvils and siege with a hammer. Re-place in the forge, heat and forge. Repeat this cycle several times.

9. When your block is ready, poke it with a chisel and roll it over. Heat again and hammer until the top and bottom halves fuse and the bar returns to its original length. Repeat this cycle six times.

10. Before continuing forging, cut the bar into four equal parts. Stack them one on top of the other and weld them together by heating and forging. Repeat folding, heating and forging six more times. You've got kawagane iron.

11. Take the low-carbon iron you set aside, forge a bar out of it, and then roll and forge it ten more times. You have a "shingane" or core iron.

12. Forge a flat plate 40 centimeters long from kawagane, fold it into a U shape. Place a block of shingane inside this plate. Heat the workpiece in the forge to a clear yellow color and begin to forge. Achieve complete welding of the plates together.

13. Make a blank for the blade by heating a block in a forge and forging a rectangular blank out of it. Shape the blade by stretching the blank perpendicular to the length. Form a cutting edge, point, side ribs and butt.

14. With the support of a scraper knife, finish the surface of the sword. File the butt and the cutting edge. Using a carborundum stone, pre-grind each blade.

15. Prepare a sticky clay mixture of clay, crushed charcoal and sandstone powder in equal proportions. Dilute with water and apply with a spatula to the cutting edge. A thick layer along the butt and on the side surfaces and a hefty thin layer along the very edge. Wait until the clay hardens. Heat the blade in the forge to 700 degrees Celsius and cool in a container of water.

16. Adjust the curve of the blade and polish it.

17. File the shank of the blade.

18. Finish the production of the katana by making a handle out of 2 halves of wood wrapped first with leather and then with cotton cord.

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Useful advice
It is possible to learn the art of making an ordinary katana extraordinarily personally from a genuine master. There are a lot of subtleties and secrets that are transmitted only from teacher to student.

A real katana, being a samurai weapon, is made from certain types of iron, forged in several layers. But modern katanas, as usual, are forged from spring steel. Consequently, the sharpening of Japanese remake swords has its own characteristics.

You will need

- katana;
- stones for sharpening;
- electric emery;
- marker;
- protective glasses.

Instruction

1. Take the sword in your hands and mentally divide the blade into three parts. The upper part will require especially sharp sharpening (it will cut), the middle part - sharpening at a huge angle (it will be loaded upon impact) and, finally, the lower part, which is closest to the guard, is sharpened minimally (it really is not loaded) . Mark these parts with a marker.

2. First, make the blade a minimum sharpening. To do this, turn on the electric emery, put on goggles, wait about one minute until it is completely unrolled, and bring the tip of the sword perpendicular to it. With a slight movement, without pressing the blade firmly against the emery disk, pass the sword from right to left, then tip it over and move it from left to right. Repeat the procedure until you can clearly feel a sharp corner on the cutting edge with your finger. The same result can be achieved by driving a grindstone along the blade, but it will take much more time and effort.

3. Now sharpen the top of the blade. Bring it up again katana to the emery, lay the blade flat on the disc. Tilt it so that the cutting edge lightly touches the spinning disc. Move the blade from left to right and right to left from the tip to the mark of its middle part. This will reduce the sharpening angle.

4. Sharpen the middle part of the blade. The sharpening angle should be 40-45°. Drive the blade along the sandpaper, pressing it firmly against it - from the middle part mark to the bottom mark as described above, until you achieve the desired sharpening angle. Do the same with the bottom of the blade. Here the sharpness of sharpening is not so significant, therefore, an angle of 50 ° will be enough (but no one forbids you to make it smaller). The sharpening of the lower part should end 2-3 cm from the guard (it will be difficult to sharpen further, and it is easy to peel off the guard).

5. Now bring the sword to the required sharpness with whetstones. First, evenly run them along each length of the blade in order to remove the allowable irregularities. After that, purposefully sharpen each part separately, starting from the bottom, with steep short movements.

Note!
The smaller the angle of sharpening, the smaller the strength of the blade. To cut hard materials, huge taper angles are needed, and to cut soft materials, the taper angle must be much smaller.

Useful advice
Later, cutting on swords on your blade will inevitably leave notches (for its safety, it is better to beat off enemy weapons with the flat side of the blade), so repeat the sharpening procedure with whetstones later than the entire battle or once a week.

The katana is a long, two-handed, curved sword with one sharp edge. Along with the wakizashi short sword and the auxiliary tanto dagger, she was part of the core set of weapons of the Japanese samurai. The katana was the soul of a warrior, a jewel, a family heirloom, and even a philosophy. Today, Japanese culture and martial arts extremely famous in Russia, consequently samurai swords are in great demand. Knowing to positively prefer the katana is also an art that needs to be learned.

Instruction

1. Decide for what purpose you want to buy katana. The size of the sword, equipment and even material will depend on this.

2. If you need a sword for training, get a bokken - wooden layout katanas. Bokken must withstand powerful impacts, therefore it is made of hardwoods (beech, oak, hornbeam) and impregnated with varnish or resin to increase density. With intense training, the sword will last 1-2 years. In Japan, bokken are treated with about the same respect as real katanas.

3. If you choose to train with a real sword, pay the main attention when choosing a katana not to decor, but to size and shape. Take the sword in hand: it should be comfortable and nice to hold it. The length of the katana varies from 95 to 120 cm. In order to positively choose the length of the sword for yourself, stand up straight and take it by the base of the blade near the round guard (tsuba). The tip of the blade should actually touch the floor. The length of the handle of the katana (tsuka) should be approximately three of your fists (about 30 cm on average).

4. When purchasing a weapon as a present, as an interior decoration, give preference to a set of 2 swords (katana and wakizashi) or 3 (katana, wakizashi and tanto). It will look more significant and rich. Unlike European sabers, daggers and swords, japanese katanas do not hang on the wall, so you will certainly get a special stand.

5. In order for the katana to take its well-deserved place in the interior, take care of the accessories. Distinctive specifics samurai swords is the probability of disassembling them into combined parts. From the fact that the handle was usually made of wood and covered with leather or fabric, it quickly wore out and needed to be replaced. Choosing katana, purchase an accessory kit for her frame (soroi-mono). It includes tsuba (guard), menuki (handle ornaments), kashira, and fuchi (handle head and sleeve).

6. Remember that a samurai sword, like any other weapon, must be positively looked after. Be sure to purchase a special katana care kit. It includes powder natural stone for polishing, rice paper for cleaning, oil for lubricating the blade, as well as mekugitsuchi - a tool for extracting wooden nails (mekugi) that fasten the handle.

Related videos

Note!
If you want to buy a katana as a present not as a piece of furniture, but for martial arts, be sure to come to the store together with the future owner. Of course, there will be no surprise, but only the warrior himself will be able to determine whether the sword has a positive length and whether it will be convenient to work with it.

The Japanese katana sword is created within a few months. The process is so difficult because the weapon must be sharp, strong and not brittle at the same time. In order to achieve this, craftsmen combine several types of metal in one blade. If you choose to draw katana and if you want the drawing to be believable, consider the features of the device of this weapon.

You will need

- pencil;
- paper;
- eraser;
- paints / colored pencils.

Instruction

1. Draw a straight line. It will serve as the basis for the essay. If there are other objects or people in the picture besides the katana, determine their proportional relationship. Consider the length of the weapon - about 70-100 cm.

2. Divide the line into three equal parts. The top line indicates the length of the handle. From the fact that the sword should be curved, slightly bend the drawn segment. The most "convex" point is located in the middle of the segment.

3. Mark the width of the katana. The width of the blade is about 30 times less than the overall length of the weapon. Make the handle slightly wider than the blade. The edge of the blade should be beveled - "cut off" the end of the sword at an angle of 45 °.

4. Draw a guard on the border of the handle and blade. This is a metal nozzle that guards the warrior's hand. Its diameter is on average 8 cm, and its thickness is 5 mm. You can choose the shape of the guard as you wish - it can be round, oval, quadrangular, polygonal, divided into parts. On the surface of this part of the katana, it is allowed to depict carving or edging with non-ferrous metals. Above and below the guard is attached with washers - draw them in the form of thin strips.

5. Draw a strip under and above the guard, make the top more tight. These are couplings made of brass or bronze.

6. Delete the auxiliary construction lines and draw in detail the surface of all parts of the katana. It is allowed to make a watercolor background in advance, and add pencil strokes to the dried paint.

7. The handle of the katana should be covered with leather. It is wrapped with tape on top. Think of a winding pattern or copy it from a photograph of a genuine weapon. Between the turns of the braid it is allowed to add three-dimensional decorative elements. Closer to the guard, draw a small pin with which the handle is attached to the blade.

8. A katana blade can be made from one or more metals. The most solid specimens are made of strong metal along the edges and more soft metal in the center of the blade. Draw the boundaries of these "layers". When cutting the blade, determine where the light source is, and mark the highlights and shadows on the blade.

9. Draw the sheath for the katana in the form of a curved rectangle. In its upper part there should be a cord threaded into a loop.

Japanese weapons have long since won fame in every world. The katana long sword even got into the Russian weapons state standards of edged weapons, where it was called a two-handed saber. A well-made katana seems to be solid, but in fact it can be taken apart. For example, it is recommended to disassemble it during transportation. You may also need to replace the handle. In addition, collectors are often allowed to see individual parts of this sword.

You will need

- a small hammer;
- brass tongue:
- gloves.

Instruction

1. The scabbard is an integral part of the katana. In Japan, they were most often made from stingray skin. Now this material is used mainly in expensive models, and for the rest, the scabbard is made of any kind of leather, including unnatural. Katana in the scabbard, they are traditionally placed behind the obi belt. This fashion originated in the 17th century and has survived to this day. Before removing the hilt, remove the sword from its scabbard.

2. The tsuka (handle) of a cool katana is attached with the help of one or more pins - mekugi (in a different transliteration - mekugi). The pins were usually made of bamboo and were not glued. Now mekugi is made from other materials, and for inexpensive models, the handle parts are repeatedly put on glue. It is consequently that when buying a katana, you need to ask the seller to disassemble it. Put on gloves before removing the handle. It is allowed to do with one - on the hand with which you will hold the blade.

3. Lay the katana on a horizontal surface. If you are not too sure that the pins will come out easily, you can carefully fix the sword in a vise. But usually this is not done. Attach the brass tongue with the tip to the pin. Carefully hitting the head of the brass part with a hammer, knock it out. That's right, knock out the rest of the mekugi in the same way. It is rare when it is larger than 3 pins, traditionally one or two are enough. Set the mekugi aside or in a small box so they don't get lost. Tsuku was usually made from magnolia wood. Now often different plastics are used.

4. With a gloved hand, take the sword by the blade next to the guard. Pull the handle firmly. It must be removed from the shank, the one called nakago, with some effort. Remove the futi sleeve located between the handle and guard.

5. The next detail to be removed from the cutter is the seppa, the original washer, which makes the connection stronger and does not allow the handle to split. It is true that the same seppa is located on the other side of the guard.

6. Remove the guard, which is called a tsuba in a katana. Later, it remains to remove another washer and another clutch, which is called habaki. Occasionally it is allowed to disassemble the handle by removing some decorative elements from it. But in modern working swords, these decorations are traditionally not removed.

Useful advice
A short Japanese sword is disassembled similarly and with the help of the same simple devices. The hammer doesn't have to be huge. They do not need to knock powerfully, brass is a rather soft material, and the tongue can be deformed. Katana care items can be purchased at the same store as the sword itself.

Charcoal is one of the combustion products of wood. Black porous substance, which is composed of carbon and hydrogen with a small number of mineral impurities in the form of carbonates and oxides of various metals.

You will need

- wood to be turned into charcoal
- wood for the fire
- steel container
- scoop

Instruction

1. Charcoal is obtained by thermal decomposition of wood without air flow. This process is called pyrolysis. Depending on the combustion conditions, a product with different properties is formed. The main parameter affecting the quality of coal is the pyrolysis temperature.

2. When wood is charred, moisture and oxygen are removed from it, leaving only combustible substances - carbon and hydrogen. The pyrometric indicators of the obtained product increase in comparison with starting material. To purchase coal, the heating of wood must be carried out slowly, and the process temperature should be about 400 ° C. Rapid heating to high temperatures will lead to the formation of tar and volatile combustion products.

3. It is also possible to get charcoal at home by building an analogue of a charcoal furnace. For this, a steel barrel with an airtight lid is suitable. Prepare a place and firewood for a fire, as well as wood prepared for transformation into coal. Set the barrel on a stand, say, on stones or bricks. Fill your makeshift charcoal kiln with wood that has been sawn into small pieces ahead of time. Close the lid tightly. Provide small openings for combustible gases to escape. Light a fire under the barrel.

4. After a few hours, when gases stop coming out of the holes, heating is allowed to stop. But the barrel should not be opened until the resulting coal has completely cooled without air access. Otherwise, the combustion process in air can resume, and the coal will completely burn out.

5. It is allowed to easily burn firewood in a stove or in a fire until red coals form. After that, collect the coals with a scoop in an iron container, close it tightly and leave without air flow until it cools completely.

Note!
Attention! When working, take precautions! Work with gloves in cool lighting.

Useful advice
Don't start making a katana until you have all the right components ready.

Japan at all times was famous not only for martial arts masters, but also for craftsmen capable of making striking examples of edged weapons. One of these masterpieces is the usual samurai two-handed sword - katana. To make a real katana for you, for example, at first it will not be so easy, but to make it from wood training option absolutely allowed to try.

You will need

- birch board;
– tools for working with wood;
- sandpaper;
- varnish for wood.

Instruction

1. Prepare a dry birch board or bar. Hazel or oak deadwood is also suitable. The main requirement for the material for the sword is the absence of wood imperfections, especially knots. The length of the workpiece should be about a meter or a little more. The overall dimensions of the upcoming wooden samurai sword are determined by the growth of its owner; usually the handle of a katana is about 25 cm long, and the working part (blade) is no more than 75 cm.

2. Plane a straight, wide workpiece with a planer. Remove excess layers of wood; if you are using a solid trunk of a shrub, you should remove the bark in advance and dry the workpiece a little. After the initial processing, you should get a strip with a thickness of 10-30 mm.

3. Give the sword a slightly curved look by removing the excess. So that the dimensions and shape are not distorted during processing, the silhouettes of the future weapon should be applied to the workpiece in advance, and then, using a planer, remove the excess material in steps.

4. Grind the sharp edges of the workpiece, giving the section of the katana a slightly rounded or oval shape. Pay special attention to the hilt of the sword, because the quality of its processing will depend on the convenience of handling training weapons. It will be impeccable if you make the handle of a round or oval section. Make sure that its thickness is identical for each length.

5. After giving the working part of the katana the desired shape, process it with a file, and then with sandpaper. This will save your hands from splinters. First, use the "sandpaper" more large, little by little moving on to more fine grinding. For safety reasons when handling the projectile, make the tip of the katana rounded and also grind it.

6. Cover the finished sword in steps with two or three layers of varnish in order to protect the wood from the harmful effects of the environment. For the comfort of holding the training weapon in your hand, carefully wrap the hilt of the sword with electrical tape. Now you can bravely start mastering the art of combat with samurai swords.

You will need

iron sand
foundry
Hammer
Anvil
Charcoal
rice straw
Clay
sandstone powder
Tools for grinding and polishing steel

Instruction

1. In order to forge a positive katana, you need to stock up on special "black sand" from the Japanese coast. These are ferruginous sands from which you have to smelt tamahagane - the traditional Japanese iron used to forge samurai swords.

2. Load the ore sand into the smelter - Tatara - and smelt about 4 kilograms of steel on charcoal. The temperature in the melting furnace must reach 1,500 degrees Celsius.

3. Sort iron into low carbon and high carbon. The high-carbon tamahagane is heavier, clear silver in color. Low-carbon - coarser, gray-black.

8. Remove the block from the forge, place it on the anvils and siege with a hammer. Re-place in the forge, heat and forge. Repeat this cycle several times.

11. Take the low-carbon iron you set aside, forge a bar out of it, and then roll and forge it ten more times. You have a "shingane" or core iron.

13. Make a blank for the blade by heating a block in a forge and forging a rectangular blank out of it. Shape the blade by stretching the blank perpendicular to the length. Form the cutting edge, point, side ribs and butt.

14. With the help of a scraper knife, process the surface of the sword. File the butt and the cutting edge. Using a carborundum stone, pre-grind each blade.

16. Adjust the curve of the blade and polish it.

17. File the shank of the blade.

18. Finish the production of the katana by making a handle out of 2 halves of wood wrapped first with leather and then with cotton cord.

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The katana is the weapon of the samurai in Japan. The art of owning a katana has not lost its relevance to this day. But waving a real katana in training, capable, according to legend, of cutting steel rods, is primitively unsafe. It is allowed to consider damask steel as an analogue of the material for a genuine samurai sword, or more recently, in our time, the newly discovered special technology of the so-called "Anosov" steel. If you decide to explore the ancient art of the samurai, put the "genuine" blade aside. Let it be an excellent interior detail.

Instruction

1. In comprehending the art of owning a katana, its full analogue of the blade, called “bokken”, has long been used for its properties.

2. Bokken in form is entirely consistent with katana, but, because. it's made from tree, then a little easier. Bokken, as usual, is made from strong rocks tree such as oak, beech, hornbeam and similar. In Japan, bokken is usually made from white oak (Shiro kashi), red oak (Aka kashi), chestnut or black oak (Chaironuri kashi).

3. From the fact that the custom of owning a sword in Japan dates back more than one hundred years, training bokken swords also have their own canonical sizes, weights and names, depending on the schools using them. For example, Bokuto bokken (iaito) is made of white or red oak, with 102 cm long, its weight is from 580 to 620 g, depending on the material.

4. Bokken Casey-Ryu is the most significant of all, with a length of 102 cm, it weighs 730 g. The guard (a transverse overlay that protects the hand from the enemy’s weapon sliding down the blade) is not used in bokkens, as usual.

5. To give a characteristic whistling sound with the correct location of the weapon upon impact, a shallow groove called “hi” is made along the “blade” of the bokken.

6. The blade of the bokken (like a real katana) is beveled at an angle of 45 degrees at the end. The bokken profile, depending on the type, can be flattened-oval or round.

Sword samurai - his pride, a symbol of courage. The first samurai swords were made of hardened iron plates, shaped like a blade. But little by little the iron displaced steel swords. An authentic samurai sword combines the elasticity of iron and the hardness of steel. However, experts say that the uniqueness of the Japanese sword lies not in the alloy of materials, but in the method of its manufacture.

Instruction

1. In order to make an authentic samurai sword, purchase a strip of puff Damascus steel. Instead of Damascus steel, any other one, belonging to the spring-spring or tool type, and certainly with a huge carbon table of contents, will do. The best option would be high-alloy iron.

2. Using a huge file, give your strip of steel a diamond-shaped section, respecting all the usual proportions of a Japanese sword. Cut the edge of the sword from the tip to the tip of the shank. File the hangers only after the final formation of the blade from beginning to end. Thickness cutting edge don't make it too thin. It must be at least 1 mm.

3. Sharpen the surface of the blade with 2 files: one huge and another smaller. Both files must be new. Move the file perpendicular to the axis of the sword, on the contrary, bumps will appear on the surface. If you do not plan to put clay on top, then at the end go over the blade with a needle file in order to give it a gloss.

4. In order to bring the line of the back to the ideal, make a special device. Attach sandpaper to a twenty-centimeter wooden block. One of the sides of the bar must be convex in order to match the deflection of the sword. With such a device, similarly to a jointer, align the arc of the back.

5. To heat treat your sword, you will need a huge muffle furnace with a meter deep chamber. Immerse your sword into the oven in a virtually horizontal position, blade down. The same procedure can be done in a forge using coke. Annealing is strictly carried out in a layer of ash. To do this, make a tight pencil case along each length of the strip and heat it to an orange glow. Take out the sword in a hot structure for 2 hours, after which you will sue.

6. After complete cooling, proceed to the final stage of grinding. Using industrial abrasives, slowly reciprocate the bar over the sword to give it the look of a Japanese samurai sword.

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You will need

- katana;
- stones for sharpening;
- electric emery;
- marker;
- protective glasses.

Instruction

4. Sharpen the middle part of the blade. The sharpening angle should be 40-45°. Drive the blade along the sandpaper, pressing it firmly against it - from the middle part mark to the bottom mark as described above, until you achieve the desired sharpening angle. Do the same with the bottom of the blade. Here the sharpness of sharpening is not so important, therefore an angle of 50 ° will be enough (but no one forbids you to make it smaller). The sharpening of the lower part should end 2-3 cm from the guard (it will be difficult to sharpen further, and it is easy to peel off the guard).

Note!
The smaller the angle of sharpening, the smaller the strength of the blade. To cut hard materials, large taper angles are needed, and to cut soft materials, the taper angle must be much smaller.

The katana is a long, two-handed, curved sword with one sharp edge. Along with the wakizashi short sword and the auxiliary tanto dagger, she was part of the core set of weapons of the Japanese samurai. The katana was the soul of a warrior, a jewel, a family heirloom, and even a philosophy. Nowadays, Japanese culture and martial arts are extremely famous in Russia, and therefore samurai swords are in great demand. Knowing how to correctly choose a katana is also an art that needs to be learned.

Instruction

1. Decide for what purpose you want to buy katana. The size of the sword, equipment and even material will depend on this.

2. If you need a sword for training, get a bokken - a wooden model of a katana. Bokken must withstand strong blows, therefore it is made of hardwoods (beech, oak, hornbeam) and impregnated with varnish or resin to increase density. With intense training, the sword will last 1-2 years. In Japan, bokken are treated with about the same respect as real katanas.

3. If you choose to train with a real sword, pay the main attention when choosing a katana not to decor, but to size and shape. Take the sword in your hands: it should be comfortable and encouraging to hold it. The length of the katana varies from 95 to 120 cm. In order to positively choose the length of the sword for yourself, stand up straight and take it by the base of the blade near the round guard (tsuba). The tip of the blade should actually touch the floor. The length of the handle of the katana (tsuka) should be approximately three of your fists (about 30 cm on average).

4. When purchasing a weapon as a present, as an interior decoration, give preference to a set of 2 swords (katana and wakizashi) or 3 (katana, wakizashi and tanto). It will look more significant and rich. Unlike European sabers, daggers and swords, Japanese katanas are not hung on the wall, so you will definitely get a special stand.

5. In order for the katana to take its well-deserved place in the interior, take care of the accessories. A distinctive feature of samurai swords is the ability to disassemble them into combined parts. From the fact that the handle was traditionally made of wood and covered with leather or fabric, it quickly wore out and needed to be replaced. Choosing katana, purchase an accessory kit for her frame (soroi-mono). It includes tsuba (guard), menuki (handle ornaments), kashira, and fuchi (handle head and sleeve).

6. Remember that a samurai sword, like any other weapon, must be properly looked after. Be sure to purchase a special katana care kit. It includes natural stone powder for polishing, rice paper for cleaning, oil for lubricating the blade, as well as mekugitsuchi, a tool for extracting wooden nails (mekugi) that fasten the handle.

Related videos

Note!
If you want to buy a katana as a present not as an interior item, but for martial arts, be sure to come to the store together with the future owner. Finally, there will be no surprise, but only the warrior himself will be able to determine whether the sword has the correct length and whether it will be convenient to work with it.

You will need

- pencil;
- paper;
- eraser;
- paints / colored pencils.

Instruction

5. Draw a strip under and above the guard, make the top more tight. These are couplings made of brass or bronze.

9. Draw the sheath for the katana in the form of a curved rectangle. In its upper part there should be a cord threaded into a loop.

You will need

- a small hammer;
- brass tongue:
- gloves.

Instruction

2. The tsuka (handle) of an excellent katana is attached with the support of one or more pins - mekugi (in a different transliteration - mekugi). The pins were usually made of bamboo and were not glued. Now mekugi is made from other materials, and in inexpensive models, handle parts are often put on glue. It is consequently that when buying a katana, you need to ask the seller to disassemble it. Put on gloves before removing the handle. It is allowed to do with one - on the hand with which you will hold the blade.

3. Lay the katana on a horizontal surface. If you are not too sure that the pins will come out easily, you can carefully fix the sword in a vise. But usually this is not done. Attach the brass tongue with the tip to the pin. Carefully hitting the head of the brass part with a hammer, knock it out. That's right, knock out the rest of the mekugi in the same way. It is rare when it is larger than 3 pins, usually one or two are enough. Set the mekugi aside or in a small box so they don't get lost. Tsuku was usually made from magnolia wood. Now different plastics are often used.

4. With a gloved hand, take the sword by the blade next to the guard. Pull the handle hard. It must be removed from the shank, the one called nakago, with some effort. Remove the futi sleeve located between the handle and guard.

5. The next detail that needs to be removed from the knife is the seppa, the original washer, which makes the connection stronger and does not allow the handle to split. It is true that the same seppa is located on the other side of the guard.

Useful advice
A short Japanese sword is disassembled similarly and with the support of the same simple devices. The hammer doesn't have to be huge. They do not need to knock hard, brass is a fairly soft material, and the tongue can be deformed. Katana care items can be purchased at the same store as the sword itself.

We present our achievements in video fencing on katana, machete knife. After watching our films, you may discover some new aspects of history, weapons, culture. This section presents the techniques of fencing, the technique of their implementation, the technique of movement during execution. Knife fight videos of developments in techniques and techniques - will please anyone who is seriously involved in knife fighting. We pay a lot of attention to technique, all our lessons are designed so that you can see not just a quick execution of techniques, but understand how this technique is performed. Therefore, the display is often performed in a slightly slowed down format, which does not negate, of course, its fast execution during running time. Separately, there are sparrings - a video of a knife fight. Here you can see the real application of the techniques shown earlier in other videos.

Small feature films related to weapons, the history of samurai, the manufacture of samurai swords, traditions, old photographs and much more stand apart. We sincerely hope you enjoy these films.

Another aspect of our knife fighting videos is the testing of punches and weapons on real flesh - on pieces of meat - on pork knuckles, pork bokeh. This is necessary in order to understand HOW a particular weapon strikes, what passes and what does not, and often common myths are dispelled during such testing. We do not want to become like Discovery or Cold Steel, not at all, but we like their format and we have adopted it for ourselves.

We sincerely hope that our videos of knife fighting, katana and machete tricks will not disappoint you and you will find something useful for yourself in them.

DIY katana sharpening

Sharpening a katana with your own hands is not as difficult as it might seem.

In ancient times in Japan, there were special craftsmen who sharpened water stones for weeks. There were always very few such masters, and the services were insanely expensive. Not only the cutting edge itself was processed, but the blade itself was polished - all this was part of the understanding of sharpening a katana. Today, sharpening is understood as processing only the cutting edge of the blade and bringing it to a razor-sharp state.

Contrary to popular belief, this is quite easy to do today and at home with your own hands. The standard cost of a single blade sharpening is from 1500 rubles. But what can you do yourself at home - how to sharpen the blade so as not to spoil it? Well, firstly, you need to understand why you are sharpening your katana. For chopping makiwara from rice straws - this is one thing, for chopping let's put not too thick tree trunks - this is another, for chopping all sorts of meat items such as sausages - this is somewhat third.

We will carry out a real sharpening of a katana at home with our own hands.

A Chinese katana was taken as a weapon, hardness up to 52 - 54 units, monosteel, spring, nothing unusual, a fairly cheap sample.
For sharpening, a musat, a fiscars-type grinding device with rotating stones, and a bottle of oil were taken.

First, from the blade - a completely working one, with which they had just chopped in a multitude plastic bottles with the help of musat, all small roughness and burrs are removed.
Then, a fiscars-type grinding device sharpens the knurling of the cutting edge of the katana.

The result is checked on a sheet of paper. As a rule, one pass is not enough for normal paper cutting and razor sharpness, and therefore the blade is lubricated with oil and again rolled into sharpeners.
Slowly, a katana blade can be sharpened in three to five steps.

As you can see from the video, a sharpened katana cuts paper like a razor.

They have survived to this day and do not lose popularity. Since ancient times, katana has been made from damask steel - "Anosov" steel, but it is dangerous to fight with such a tool, so the original samurai weapon for now, let's put it aside, let it decorate the interior.

If you decide to study the ancient art of the samurai, then the bokken, a wooden analogue of the blade, is perfect as a training weapon. "How to make a katana out of wood?" - many people asked themselves such a question, but only a small number of samurai mastered the technique of wooden bokken.

Features of a wooden katana

Japanese culture is rich in traditions. For hundreds of years, training swords have been used in samurai art. In the East, there are many schools that study martial arts. Depending on belonging to a particular school, the bokken sword has its own parameters and name. For example, for the manufacture of Bokuto bokken, a white tree is used or The length of such a blade is 102 cm, and the weight varies within 580-620 grams. As for the Casey-Ryu bokken, such a weapon is more weighty and, with its length of 102 cm, weighs 730 grams.

bokken - exact copy a katana made of wood, which has been used since time immemorial to learn the samurai craft. When you learn how to make a katana out of wood, you will be surprised, because this process is not laborious.

The shape of the bokken completely duplicates the shape of the katana, but due to the material used to manufacture the weapon, it weighs less. How to make a do-it-yourself katana from wood and get a quality product? Choose the right material. For the manufacture of bokken, wood of such species is mainly used:

oak: white, red, black, brown;
hornbeam.

The blade of a wooden bokken, like a real katana, is beveled at an angle of 45 ° at the end, and the blade profile has a flattened oval or round shape. It depends on the type of weapon.

A distinctive feature of the samurai bokken is the absence of a guard, a transverse lining that protects the hand from the enemy's weapon sliding along the blade. A shallow cut is made along everything - “hi”, due to which the bokken makes a characteristic whistling sound when struck.

How to make a wooden katana

Today you will learn how to make a katana out of wood by following a simple instruction.

Possession training takes place with the bokken, which is why the need to make or buy this instrument is so common.

Walkthrough

To get started, you need a drawing. You can draw an approximate drawing of a katana or download ready template from the Internet.
Having made the workpiece, proceed to processing, starting with the handle. Process the place under it with a file and a planer.
Give the blade a shape by removing excess wood according to the template with the help of tools.
Round the tip and smooth the corners of the handle.
Sand the handle and blade with sandpaper.

If desired, you can cut out and attach the guard, but most bokken are made without this element.

Now you know how to make a wood katana. It turns out that this is not as difficult as it might seem. Even a beginner in this business can cope with such a task.

Today we will learn how to make a wooden samurai sword katana (bokken) at home with our own hands.

How to make a wooden katana at home

The bokken is used for practicing samurai swordsmanship, and it will also be a great decoration for your room.

So let's get started. If you intend to use our product for training, then it is better to choose the material for the workpiece hard rocks wood - oak, beech, hornbeam.

On the beam, draw with a pencil an approximate outline of our future katana. Let's start with the handle - we process the place under it along the contour with a file or planer.
Next, in the same way, we give a contour to the blade, removing the extra tree to the lines that we have drawn.
Next, with a file, we give a rounded shape to the tip of the blade and smooth the corners of the handle, giving it an oval contour in the cross section, remove the bumps with sandpaper and make it smooth.
We also smooth the blade with sandpaper so that it is flat, with effort leading the sandpaper along the entire length of the blade.

It remains to make a tsuba - the guard of a samurai sword. We draw the outline of the tsuba on a sheet of plywood, cut it out with a jigsaw. The dimensions of the center hole can be determined by placing a blank guard against the handle and making marks where the edges should be. We connect the marks along the ruler with a pencil, make a hole with a drill and cut out the center of the tsuba with a jigsaw, round the edges so that they fit the handle along the radius, put the tsuba on our katana, fix it, for example, with superglue.

Photo scheme for making a katana

Making a samurai sword from wood video

So we made with our own hands in ordinary home conditions the likeness of a samurai sword made of wood. After it is done, it is advisable to impregnate it with wood resin or varnish. The video provides instructions for making this product, after watching it, even a beginner can make a bokken.

Genre of the article - Japanese weapons