Sometimes things go smoothly, sometimes they don't. This work log is about the latter.
'Every adventure requires a first step. Trite, but true, even here.'
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So, it turns out you can patina brass fairly easily. I basically experimented as I am getting terribly bored with the cheap brass hardware that you get with most production katana. The thing is, Im pretty sure its because they can cast the habaki whereas with copper its more complex. Nonetheless, this is how to do it.
Well, I'm no Togishi, however I have certainly polished more than my fair share of both my creations like the kitchen knife and tanto, as well as my own swords.
It's just one of those things. My friend runs a business that deals with Japanese swords and high quality, premium ones at that. He is constantly busy and sometimes i think he would rather be doing other things than polishing.... especially when you take a look at the blades he wanted me to polish back up.
As I've mentioned before, this O-Tanto was gifted to me by a friend and I decided to change the look and feel of it quite radically and in an almost entirely non traditional fashion :)
This was the original, unaltered article.
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A while ago, a good friend of mine donated 2 swords to me. This O-Tanto is one of those swords.
For those that don't know, the "O" prefix is simply the way we designate the weapon as being larger than it is usually. This tanto is quite large. With the addition of this new tsuka core I carved, it's now massive!
OK, so this is probably one of the shortest articles I've written but it needs to be said so I'll keep it short and sweet as I said.
Theres going to come a time when you need a burnishing tool and your first instinct is to open a browser and see if you can get one on Amazon or something.
Don't bother. Take a piece of steel, some scrap carbon steel from whatever will do, at least 2mm thick mine is just under 3mm. cut it to a nice rounded shape, bring it to a broad point and make sure thats sanded to a polished and rounded tip.
Heat til non magnetic, quench in hot water, repolish, add a handle and there you have it. quick and dirty burnishing tool. Perfect for polishing up the shinogi-ji on a katana for instance ;)