silk ito vs cotton ito

[jezah81]

Which is more durable? Longer lasting..??etc.
Kind Regards,
Jeremy Hagop

[The Coffee God]

Personally, I use nylon, but that's because I plait my own. :D
Time consuming as hell, but that way I get the gage I want.
This is a pic of one I'm working on at the moment, it's a 6mm gage.
(sorry for the poor quality of the pic, the only digicam I have is my webcam)

[renfield_kuroda]

It's all personal preference. I prefer silk -- different feel than cotton. Can't stand leather, though many swear by it, especially good suede. Cotton feels harder to me than silk, and I personally think silk looks better as it gets older and more used.

Regards,
r e n

[Tim Mailloux]

My first Iaito had cotton ito, and I hated it. It felt hard, and was pretty rough on the hands during long training session. From there my nest two shinken had leather ito. Leather was ok for a while, but as I started to train more often for longer periods of time I found the leather was too slippery (I sweat alot). So I just recently had a tsuka re-done in good old silk ito and I love it.

[David T Anderson]

I hated the thick spongy feel of the cotton on my old PK, so I had it rewrapped with silk. It feels like a new sword...just great. I'd be concerned that leather would feel spongy too...

[jezah81]

Thanks for your answers guys. I hope im not being rude, i actually do have silk ito on my sword also, very beautiful feel, but my actual question was if you guys knew what material actually lasts longer, maybe it was my fault coz i didnt make my question clear in the first place!
Ive had the paul chen shinto katana, it had the cotton ito, i much prefer the ito on my batto shinken from swordstore which is made from first grade silk (so ive been told).
Kind regards,
Jeremy Hagop