Rai Kunifusa restored

[JH Lee]

A heavily rusted/pitted Rai Kunifusa, with combat damage (edge chips) was restored.  It is made from some kind of homogenous, unfolded modern steel (hence the not fully traditional polish) but was water-quenched in the traditional way.  There is an abundance of nie/nioi everywhere, with billowing clouds rising into the shinogi-ji in parts.  The hamon/yakiba rises from the monouchi and fully hardens the kissaki.  Very interesting and unique piece among WW2 era blades.

 

There are a couple of spots where the nioi is less dense (like ashi?) but the hamon/yakiba does not actually fall off the edge and follows the rest of the nioguchi.  Very interesting visually.

[JH Lee]

New two-stage habaki by Josiah Boomershine.

[JH Lee]

Last two pics.  Just thought I'd share.

[ribendao]

Very nice blade! Always great when these can be rescued. Do you have any pictures from its pre-restoration days? 

[JH Lee]

Thank you!  Sorry, I just have one close-up photo of edge damage (which is not very interesting).

[vajo]

Great job John. Its allways a pleasure to see one restored.

[JH Lee]

If someone could please help me figure out what this means (on the mune of the nakago) I would really appreciate it.

[Michaelr]

Looks Great. Thank you for sharing   

    MikeR

[Bruce Pennington]

Gorgeous John!  Gives the old blade new life, doesn't it.  Do you have the gunto fittings?  How do they look?

 

Hope someone can help with the mune kanji.

[BANGBANGSAN]

14 hours ago, JH Lee said:

If someone could please help me figure out what this means (on the mune of the nakago) I would really appreciate it.

It looks like 時

[JH Lee]

Fascinating.... So, the sword's name is "Time."  What a name for a sword!

 

And Bruce, the original mounts were basically disintegrated and not salvageable, unfortunately.

[BANGBANGSAN]

1 hour ago, JH Lee said:

Fascinating.... So, the sword's name is "Time."  What a name for a sword!

 

And Bruce, the original mounts were basically disintegrated and not salvageable, unfortunately.

Not sure if it's the swords name, it could be some kind of inspection mark.

[JH Lee]

According to what I have read, Rai Kunifusa was quite fond of naming his swords along the mune of the nakago.  In fact, another of his swords posted here on NMB had a different inscription meaning something like "Warmth."  And there was another named "Shanghai Neck Cutter" and so on.