Theres one problem with the Hanwei Raptor (I have the shobu zukuri version) and thats the tsuka. Its very big. Very big. its also tree trunk thick so I decided to tailor mine so its actually more useable. I mean the blade itself is made of a decent and very forgiving 5160 spring steel and therefore, with a new core, this would be awesome and pretty.
So I set to it. Heres the newly shaped core.
and here it is actually attached to the sword.
It actually follows the curvature of the sword which is nicer than what Hanwei did to it originally. The steel is nice, the tsuka is just too damn big. A real pity. I wont review the sword here because there are countless reviews on the web, but be it suffice to say that the blade cuts well, it's very robust and with the change of tsuka and the shift in balance, it's going to be a monster cutter :)
Oh, heres the original "straight from factory" core..
This picture shows the wakizashi as well but obviously it's the katana I'm pointing at. Anyway, once this is all wrapped in same and properly bound, she'll be amazing.
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