jblakey
Well-Known Member
Hey guys,
after going to the Ottawa ComicCon in a variety of hot, heavy costumes, I decided this year to go light. Trench coat Highlander looks comfortable, and it involves a sword, so it's a no-brainer.
Let the build begin!
Picked up the finest Masumura sword eBay could supply for under $32 dollars. It was one of those "red-jewel" Highlander replicas. Just bought it for the tsuka. The tsuba is completely wrong, and the blade is terrible (and metal, not good for ComicCon). The saya is some kind of strange metal / plastic combination. Pretty much garbage. But the handle is nicely cast and workable.
First order of business was getting the thing apart. I figured that there was probably a wooden / plastic peg under the jewel on the handle, and I was right. Drilled it out (a little from both sides) after I popped the jewels out, but still no joy. So i got out my trusty blow torch and heated the blade a bit while hammering every so somewhat gently on the tsuba, forcing the tsuka down and off. Little by little the glue they used softened and I was able to pop the tsuka off. This thing was NOT full tang. Maybe 1/5 tang would be more accurate. The tang ended just after the retaining pin.
Took the handle over to the band-saw and removed the bit of plastic that went under the non-cannon fuchi. Then I filed it down until it was clean, even and level. Much more like the movie version.
To replace the crappy blade I'm using a wooden katana blade from ArtsFeng (artsfeng.com). Great source of reasonable quality / reasonable price sword parts. Did some shaping of the nakago and got it to fit the tsuka nicely.
Next up was replacing the terrible tsuba. I'm not sure where the one that it came with was supposed to be from, but it certainly wasn't Highlander. I found some pictures of some originals on Google and then got an artist who I've dealt with before (alexdon) on Fiverr to convert the picture into a nice clean SVG. Took that SVG into Tinkercad, and generated a 3d model of the tsuba in the proper size (about 80mm seems right). Printed it on my MP Select Mini, and it turned out very nice. I was going to make one on my CNC, but the 3d printer is just so quiet, clean and easy. Plus - it's a wood-bladed sword, with a plastic handle - how strong does the tsuba need to be? Actually, the printed one seems plenty strong enough.
Got everything fitted together, and it's looking pretty nice. Lots of work yet to do, but at least it's well-started. I'll post up some pics tomorrow.
Thanks,
jason
after going to the Ottawa ComicCon in a variety of hot, heavy costumes, I decided this year to go light. Trench coat Highlander looks comfortable, and it involves a sword, so it's a no-brainer.
Let the build begin!
Picked up the finest Masumura sword eBay could supply for under $32 dollars. It was one of those "red-jewel" Highlander replicas. Just bought it for the tsuka. The tsuba is completely wrong, and the blade is terrible (and metal, not good for ComicCon). The saya is some kind of strange metal / plastic combination. Pretty much garbage. But the handle is nicely cast and workable.
First order of business was getting the thing apart. I figured that there was probably a wooden / plastic peg under the jewel on the handle, and I was right. Drilled it out (a little from both sides) after I popped the jewels out, but still no joy. So i got out my trusty blow torch and heated the blade a bit while hammering every so somewhat gently on the tsuba, forcing the tsuka down and off. Little by little the glue they used softened and I was able to pop the tsuka off. This thing was NOT full tang. Maybe 1/5 tang would be more accurate. The tang ended just after the retaining pin.
Took the handle over to the band-saw and removed the bit of plastic that went under the non-cannon fuchi. Then I filed it down until it was clean, even and level. Much more like the movie version.
To replace the crappy blade I'm using a wooden katana blade from ArtsFeng (artsfeng.com). Great source of reasonable quality / reasonable price sword parts. Did some shaping of the nakago and got it to fit the tsuka nicely.
Next up was replacing the terrible tsuba. I'm not sure where the one that it came with was supposed to be from, but it certainly wasn't Highlander. I found some pictures of some originals on Google and then got an artist who I've dealt with before (alexdon) on Fiverr to convert the picture into a nice clean SVG. Took that SVG into Tinkercad, and generated a 3d model of the tsuba in the proper size (about 80mm seems right). Printed it on my MP Select Mini, and it turned out very nice. I was going to make one on my CNC, but the 3d printer is just so quiet, clean and easy. Plus - it's a wood-bladed sword, with a plastic handle - how strong does the tsuba need to be? Actually, the printed one seems plenty strong enough.
Got everything fitted together, and it's looking pretty nice. Lots of work yet to do, but at least it's well-started. I'll post up some pics tomorrow.
Thanks,
jason
