mekugi

[John A Stuart]

Hi All, I was wondering if anyone could direct me to a source for those black plastic mekugi. I am tired of whittling my faai ji. Thanks, John

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

If yu're asking in order to have a stronger mekugi then a bamboo one, I'm sure Keith Larman can address you to a super-strong mekugi made with modern materials.

[Guest Simon Rowson]

Hi John,

 

If it's black horn mekugi you want, rather then plastic, you can get the unfinished blanks from Iimura sword supplies in Tokyo, link below:

 

http://www16.plala.or.jp/katana-iimura/mekugi-e.html

 

Simon

[Brian]

Simon,

 

Are they the ones who would supply Namikawa with some of their goods, and would it be cheaper to order from Iimura than from Namikawa?

How easy is it to order from them, and do they accept credit cards easily?

 

Brian

[Guest Simon Rowson]

Hi Brian,

 

As far as I'm aware, Iimura and Namikawa are totally unrelated to each other (apart from being rival sword goods suppliers) and their prices are pretty similar.

 

I've always had them deliver stuff to my in-laws so I've never had to have anything sent internationally but I believe that they do provide this service......I'll investigate more tomorrow (it's 1am here at the moment).

 

BTW, Iimura san's father was the author of a well-known book on Nihonto which, unsuprisingly, they sell on their site.

 

Best wishes,

Simon

[John A Stuart]

Hi, Thanks. I noticed swords I have received lately after work having been done have had these black mekugi. They felt like plastic but must be the horn ones. I break the bamboo ones frequently. I don't overstress them often but are the horn ones as tough as bamboo? John

[Guido]

The material you're looking for is Delrin. However, Mekugi are mostly made of seasoned, smoked bamboo (Susudake すす竹) because of its elastic yet tough fibers. Even when it breaks, the fibers hold the Mekugi together, so that the blade doesn't slip out. Horn simply snaps.

 

It is important to note, however, that the Mekugi is not solely responsible for holding the handle to the blade: The friction on the blade’s tang caused by a perfectly inlet Tsuka is another very important factor, perhaps even more important than the Mekugi itself.

 

The fact that "the bamboo ones frequently break" is alarming, and can have two causes: a) crappy inletting of the Tsuka, or b) abusing the sword / bad cutting form. Maybe you should have a new Tsuka made instead of looking for a "better" Mekugi material - a broken Mekugi is extremely rare in (traditional) JSA, and one should try to find the reason for this instead of treating the symptoms.

[John A Stuart]

Hi Guido, So the synthetic material is delrin ? Thanks, that must be what I have received. The swords that I have this problem with, two, though one in particular is causing this problem, because of shrinkage of the tsuka, quite old koshirae, causing a slight misalignment that abrades my homemade mekugi and after a few removals break. These are not used for tameshigiri. The sword I use for that is a modern made sword by Howard Clark. Ted Tenold did the fitting out. This one with no mekugi at all wouldn't lose the tsuka. Well fitted. I am avoiding having new tsuka made for those two swords since they look half way decent as is,read cheap. John

[Keith Larman]

What Ted uses is Delrin. I use it as well.

 

Basically get a friend to lathe them to a consistent taper. Then we use a machinist's tapered reamer to ensure the mekugi-ana of the tsuka is identical in rate of taper. That ensures a really nice fit. Well done they'll last a very long time and stay very snug and tight.

 

You might just contact Ted directly and see if he has any spare long pins.

 

And fwiw black horn mekugi are beautiful, but aren't all that helpful for a sword seeing use. They're relatively fragile and tend to break fairly easily. But if they aren't being used horn would be fine too. Just don't swing it...

 

And Guido has a really good point. At the last Tai Kai I was at I helped a few of the Japanese sensei doing the sword inspections prior. I was shocked at what people were using as mekugi. Lots of mekugi made of chopsticks, deformed ancient mekugi, pieces of wood, etc. ended up in the trash. We made a ton of new mekugi that day out of susudake and since I was away from my workshop I was away from my tools. Susudake is *very* tough, holds shape quite well, and is a wonderful material. Next time I'm bringing more tools and I"m premaking a bunch of mekugi.

 

Another source of very good bamboo for mekugi is at some craft stores. Here in the US some of the craft shops carry Japanese bamboo knitting needles. They come in all sorts of sizes and it is almost the same as top notch susudake. They cut the bamboo from the same parts of the culm, they season it, etc. Very good stuff.

[John A Stuart]

Hi Keith, Lots of possibilities, thanks. Is Ted all sorted out now after his move ? back to the old grindstone ? John

BTW All we have is metal lathes for shafts and the like and our milling machines are fairly large. Could I use the drill press to turn these down ? It works fine on metal dowell and taper pins ? John

[Keith Larman]

The only problem with doing them with a drill press is that you need to put a bit of pressure on the stuff to cut into it. And since it is relatively flexible in longer pieces it isn't always easy. Like I said, the reason I use the precision lathed delrin mekugi on new mounts is that I can get them with a precise machinist's taper to match my tapered reamers. So the mekugi is absolutely flush throughout the entire mekugi-ana. Just keeps things more stable, tight, and solid.

 

Otherwise I generally just use a big chunk of susudake I have, cut out a piece, and file it to shape by hand. If it is for an existing antique you'd probably be better off doing it that way anyway. You need to match the dimensions of what you have and you probably don't want to ream out the mekugi-ana especially if there is tsukaito already wrapped around and in the way.

 

But yeah, Ted is settled in at his new place in Montana. Been settled for a few months now. We've all been away at Tampa, however, for the Token Kai. I don't think he's going home until tomorrow.