Thread: Japan Fighter
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Old 01-01-2005, 07:49 AM
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bullet101 bullet101 is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Germany
Posts: 61
Talking Japan Fighter

It's me again .

Finished something else today.
Encouraged by your positive feedback I advanced a love hate project once more.

Love and hate, because on the one hand I really like the blade, which worked out great during grinding and heattreating (first time HT myself) and because the fit of the guard is also very thight.
On the other hand I had massive problems getting out deeper grinding and filing scratches in the guard by hand. Thats probably because of my lacking knowledge of the craft, because it was the first time I rounded the guard sides and because I took the guard to close to final dimensions before assembling the handle.
So it was quite tricky to get a clean transition from the guard to the wood.

Next time I'll leave some more meat on the guard and grind it down after epoxying everything together.

A big time thanks goes out to Nick Wheeler, who explained me in several mails, that probably took quite some time to write, how he rounds his guards. So :thanx: Nick .

The fit of the guard is actually a thing I'm quite pleased with, one could nearly say it's a hairline fit . If anyone would have told me a year ago that I could achieve a fit like this only with files and my skill, I wouldn't have believed him. I hope it'll be the same with finishing guards in a year .
On this one I used JB weld to seal the joint and I really love that stuff, no comparison to bubbling epoxy. Another big thank you goes out to Terry Primos for his great tutorials on fitting guards and the mortised tang construction.

As you can see in the pics I did it "the mortised way" for the first time. I have to get me one of those disc sanders to get everything dead flat for the perfect fit.

Now just some specs and then I'm looking forward to your opinions:

Lenght: 28 cm
Blade: 16 cm
Steel: 1.2842 (O-2) differentialy clay hardened
Handle: SS, ebony, red mallee and SS Pin













Regards Marcus
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