DSweet

I still have a lot of work to do on it. And since i recently moved and have yet to find where i put my Japanese style plane... I was planning on doing a chisel tipped aikiken. Making it from White Oak. Not really the strongest wood for a bokken, but it is EZ to find good white oak as apposed to something like purpleheart or ipe. *Edit* I have too many hobbies. Silver smith, Wood worker, soon-to-be Blade smith, and about a billion other that i won't list -Donovan

Balsa wood is a great idea for making a template. So soft that you could easily see the impressions of where it isn't fitting right. For the actual tsunagi i would pic something hard, but still EZ to carve, and cheap. Maybe white oak. Remember though, with any wood carving you want to make sure the wood is well "seasoned". Needs to be completely free of water, and not just dry to the touch. It is also good to store wood in a similar humidity to where it will be displayed/stored once carved ahead of time. This will ensure that you have minimal to no warping after you have done all of the hard work carving and getting it to fit just right. You can easily get good wood for carving from another woodworker, or woodworking club in your area. You could easily use stuff from a home improvement center, but i would store that stuff for awhile in the house before carving. -Donovan

I would think it could be done, but it would take patience, skill, and a lot of trial and error. Without the sword, it sounds like it would be a pain... If i was in your position, i would probably make a careful attempt at it. Though i like wood carving personally, and have always liked doing things with my hands. I am currently in the process of carving my own bokken atm. Though that is probably easier then what you are asking. -Donovan.

Wish i could be of some help in determining the smith/school, but i do not have the knowledge or the books. But i am glad to see that you got your picture posted George. GL -Donovan

There is no substitute for a good photo editing program. Even when just trying to resize/crop images. Crap sw = loss of resolution You could always email the photo to someone here on the boards and have them resize it. It would be a 5min, probably less, crop and resize in photoshop. I would gladly help you out after 6pm est. Not much i can do here at work

The koshirae and fittings seem rather nice. The yokote and lack of activity seem to be indicative of a showa era or gendaito mass produced sword. Though a bad polish could be obscuring what might be a nice sword. Hard to tell from these pictures -Donovan

As far as "value" goes. Well it has been said on here before... A sword is worth what someone will pay for it. Value, to you of course, is EZer to determine IMO. Looks like a really nice sword. I love the O-kissaki, and i can see nie, and what might be kinsuji in your photos. It looks as if this sword would show some nice activity upon close inspection, and if it were mine i would probably put myself on someone's list to get it into full polish. I have not studied enough hands on to even take a guess at time period on this. Well i could guess, but it would be just that, a guess. -Donovan

Michael, i haven't seen anyone say this yet. Please don't attempt to "Clean up" the sword yourself. If it is worthy of spending $$ on to get it into new polish, which it looks like it might be, you could ruin any chance it has at becoming a nice collection piece. -Donovan