Dave R

I think you will find the cardboard cut out version that runs up and down both sides of the tsuka difficult to manipulate the ito around, and the same with the double width type hishigami. I found the single width (actually just under the width of a single strand of stretched ito) the easiest to work with for hineri-maki , being able to tuck it in from the centre line after putting in the twist, rather than having to manipulate the ito over and under the hishigami while putting the twist in. I use Washi paper for preference, because if something goes wrong it still looks right! If you use an "original" material for hishigami and it ends up being visible it looks even worse. I am giving thought to using honoki shavings as hishigami for the gunto re-wrap I am doing in the near future as it was used on an original gunto tsuka in my collection. If going for hira-maki then a double width will probably be as easy or even easier than the single.

Best photo I could find on my files. Btw they often have one screw and one peg. Lots of variations, and a good search of this site will turn up better pictures and more information.

I have done a couple of wraps without hishigami, which looked about as good as the Chinese repro's. I have done another without hishigami but had a paper core in folded cloth Ito, trying for a Satsuma type tsuka. I had evidence for such and it worked out not too badly. My most recent effort was with a decent but not too posh Ito and using hishigami made from folded Washi paper, and that was better by far than the previous three efforts. My next foray will be with hishigami as well because I think it does make for a better job. Sometimes the hishigami are not that evident, but are there nonetheless. I have a damaged Gunto tsuka, and at first sight you might doubt the presence of hishigami, but they are there, each one made out of a wood shaving.

However they were made, they certainly seem to have been a very desirable sword... http://www.ryujinswords.com/koaisshin.htm

Suddenly realised my post was not really relevant to this thread.

Koa-Isshin are not low alloy carbon steel.......

For me the question is, why? There is nothing wrong with gunto mounts, they are the last functioning avatar of this blade, all you are doing is stripping away its history. The dealers tables are littered, and I use that word deliberately, with swords that went to war in Gunto mounts and are now in improvised, and miss matched Buke-zukuri, If you want a project, buy a decent unmounted blade, or one in shirasaya.

You would probably do better asking here...http://www.warrelics.eu/forum/Japanese-militaria/

Always easier to shorten a blade than get a longer one. However two scenarios I can see, 1) special order, as you surmise, 2) the blank fractures during manufacture and so is finished as a wakizashi. Looking around, I see quite a few high quality wakizashi gunto. Speaking from personal experience, a shorter blade is easier to use for an untrained person... especially if you have a pistol in the other hand.

Or perhaps this! (Used a cut-paste I had on file to save time hunting for the original post).

Were these under the Same or on top of it and under the Ito? I have also seen references (might even be on this forum) to these re-enforces turning up as retrofits to an old sword gone to war. Fragility does seem to have been a problem with them.

More likely an officer who expected to use his sword in combat! The team that went out to China repairing swords there found that it was Saya and Tsuka that most often needed repair. Face it, having this happen in the field would mean "game over"!

I came across this old post while looking something up, and here's my "two pennyworth". A wrecked and stripped gunto tsuka, with the two iron/steel reinforcements mentioned above....

Personal opinion, yes it would be ok provided you then removed the oil afterwards with Isopropyl alcohol or similar. However perhaps wait for some others to weigh in with their opinion.

Have you tried "Break Free" or other penetrating oil?

To me this looks very like an old blade altered for use in WW 2. Ohmura san shows similar on his site, titled as "crew gunto". http://ohmura-study.net/977.html

Very nice. I make my katana bukuru out of vintage obi. The formal ones can go quite cheap on Ebay because they are so rarely worn in modern society. They are usually in "new" condition as well having often never been worn! There is also supposedly a belief that a sword sleeps better when wrapped in such.

Alas, not so, and I wish it was. I have 215 Mb of photo's of Shin Gunto and variations thereof. Mainly from dealers and some from collectors and museums. Very handy when I want to check up on something, especially details of construction. .

A more detailed view of the sword on the above right.

Here.... two examples for you.

Fairly representative of the type and nicer than some I have seen.

The shortages started to bite from before the Pacific War. Summed up neatly in this US propaganda piece.

Hamfish. I got very interested in the railway track story, and did some digging. The trouble is it seems to get contentious very quickly when they are mentioned, and discussion rapidly descends into argument. I am in fact looking for such a blade to collect, but I want it documented or otherwise confirmed. They would be one hell of a cutter.

From what I have been able to make out, "Koa Ishin" are the swords with the softer core and harder skin, and the others a Maru blade made of one piece of steel. However, I would not put money on it, so to speak. Mantetsu made a big feature of their new method. Very refined steels with the skin made initially as a tube and the softer core inserted and the two electrically welded together before rolling and forging to shape. Once upon a time Mantetsu blades were thought to be the ones made of obsolete rail-track, but I think that theory is now debunked.... Though such swords are on record as made at Seki and in occupied Beijing.

A difference in construction. Best answer is found here . http://ohmura-study.net/998.html