Tsukamaki first attempt: harder than it looks

[Jeff fromNYC]

[ChrisW]

A very solid first attempt regardless! I've been told it becomes easier with practice, just like tying knots.

[nickm]

Well done! For a first attempt impressive 

[MHC]

Jeffrey,

 

Wow, that looks really good, congratulations.

Did you use a tying stand?

Did you insert the swords Nakago into the Tsuka, to insure that it did not collapse too much during the tying?

 

Mark

[vajo]

Well done Jeffrey! 

[IanB]

Chris,  Sadly it doesn't really get much easier. First you have to get a tsukamaki ito that is the right width so that it reaches the kashira exactly and that the two ends are pointing to the back of the tsuka at that point. You can do a bit to squeezing up to get this right but not too much. The width should also be such that the major nodule of the rayskin is revealed between the upper two twists. I've just spent weeks doing a hilt with 0.7mm jabara, using 10 strands (or really 5 pairs with an S and a Z twist in each strand). I thought I had it right, doing fancy plaiting to hold the menuki and everything, and feeling dead smug when it worked out right with the kashira only to find that the last twist is exactly over the main nodule!!!! Back to square one and try again. 

Ian Bottomley

 

 

[Dave R]

Well done, everyone thinks it's easy until they do it. I have done a couple of tsuka, but frankly it is so hard on the hands that I won't do any more.

[Jeff fromNYC]

Mark - I didn't use a stand, but I did have the sword in the tsuka mostly. I didn't make the ito as tight as I could because I wanted to have the correct (odd) number of wraps. Specifically I had 192mms and 25 wraps, and making it as tight as possible landed me on 24. 

[Jeff fromNYC]

Ian - had exactly the same experience until I got out the calculator and stuck to the lines I drew..

[IanB]

Jeff, Lines drawn on the tsuka work well for braid, but you cannot squeeze up jabara much. The other complication is that you have to sew all the strands together where they need to form a twist, making sure the sewing thread will be on the underside of course. All in all using jabara for binding a tsuka is a long tedious job but it looks really good when complete. 

Ian Bottomley

[Jeff fromNYC]

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