High Quality Gunto Field Repair

[Bruce Pennington]

Just picked up a decent Type 95, ver 2, with a very good spot just aft of the kissaki where some damage had been repaired. It was a very good job, slightly difficult to photograph. By the quality of the job, I feel like it was probably done by the Japanese during the war.

[Bruce Pennington]

Here's more pics of the gunto:

[lonely panet]

Looks like light pitting from rust

[Bruce Pennington]

Looks like light pitting from rust

Yes, it's tough to get pics that show it but I think I've got some better ones here. You can't see it, but running my finger along the edge, it gets concave right there, and very rough. The color is different. In these pics, you'll see a half-teardrop shape. Different texture, different color.

 

The blade is in great shape, but there are 2 other nicks and dings in the edge with a few perpendicular slash marks across the surface.

[Shamsy]

Hi Bruce,

 

it is quite difficult to tell from the photos. It couldn't be an area of cleaned pitting like Hamish suggested or perhaps sharpening? I've seen plenty of NCOs with rough field sharpening.

 

A repair is perfectly possible though. It occurred for commissioned officers so why not noncom? It could be post war to and I'm no metallurgical expert so not much help. It probably doesn't really matter, it looks like a nice sword.

[Bruce Pennington]

Rather than start a new thread, I thought this one would work to continue a discussion of items that might be examples of field repair.

 

I now have 2 gunto - one a Type 95, and the other a kyugunto - with large brass/copper "after-market" fittings. I got the Type 95 first, and assumed it was a Bubba-fix to a loose tsuka. But after seeing this habaki extension created for this kyu, I'm starting to wonder. Both the 95 and the kyu were missing seppa, and it appears these "fixes" were made to tighten the tsuka of them both.

From the 95 - I removed the fat seppa and replaced it with correct ones. I don't have original pics of how it looked on the blades:

 

The kyu. It's missing the chuso as well as seppa. And the width of the habki addition is too wide to fit into the saya opening:

I suppose it's quite possible they were both post-war made by crafty buys to tighten the tsuka. But I wonder if they could have been field repairs.

 

Thoughts?

 

Any more examples out there?

[BANGBANGSAN]

kind of look like corrosion from the blood.

[PNSSHOGUN]

Even in the field they would not make something so crude, post war IMO.