DIY Koshirae for Nihonto. What do you think?

[JunS]

Hi, I bought a Nihonto last year which had a split saya and broken tsuka.

The pictures below are how the state was when I bought the sword.

I first built a new tsuka from scratch. By the way, I am no woodworker, and this was my first real woodworking project.

Later I build a new saya due to the cracked saya, which is not airtight anymore. The wood is honoki wood I bought from Namikawa.

Picture below shows the old cracked saya

Below is a photo with almost finished koshirae

The last step I have to make is to add a Kurikata. I know you normally carve the place for the kurigata out before painting, but the material was too thin to make it that way.

The original saya is also very slim, and I made it like the original.

I choose to paint it black and still consider making an ishime finish before adding the kurigata. What do you think?

The paint is not urushi because it is not really available in my country, and curing it is not possible in my environment (air humidity and temperature).

I also built the katana kake in the picture. I hope you like it.

 

Finally, the reason I built a DIY korishae is because the old one is broken, and it would not make sense to get a new one made before it was polished.

Because the blade is a mumei and probably not worth the money it would cost to get it polished and get a new koshirae, I made the decision to leave the blade in its unpolished state and just make a new koshirae.

The project was really interesting, and I learnt a lot from it. I think it looks good for my level of skill in woodcraft.

Please don't hate; just constructive criticism.