Hello and introduction

[JPH]

Hello all...

I am a new member, my name is Jim, I live/work in Southern Nevada, in the United States about 18 miles south east of Las Vegas. I am a full time bladesmith and I am just getting back into doing Japanese style blades.

Hopefully I will be able to say something helpful from time to time and I hope no one minds a occassional "dumb question"...

Pleasure to be here and thank you for you time in reading this..

JP Hrisoulas

[Brian Owens]

Welcome to E-Budo, Jim.

I won't mind your "occassional 'dumb questions'" if you don't mind my occassional dumb answers. :laugh:

I try, but sometimes I miss the mark completely. :(

[JPH]

Brian:

Thank you for the welcome...yeah, I do come up with some real winners at times question wise, then again, with what I do, well I get some pretty wild and sometimes downright weird questions about forging, especially swords..Man I could write a book on those....Where folks come up with these are beyond me..

Speaking of questions...I have one and it is even sword related...

Where besides Fred Lohman can I get ito braid?? I was thinking about looking at a "narrow braid" textile mill (That is what something this narrow is called in the "industry") but I don't know if I want silk, cotton or heaven forbid..nylon...I heard you can use that grossgrain (?) "ribbon" but that doesn't sound all that servicable to me.

Now I have been using cotton cause it has a nicer "feel" to my callous ridden meathooks that I call hands but silk looks really nice but then there's nylon that doesn't rot or get as "nasty"..and it doesn't stretch as much, if at all and that is a plus...

The last tsuka I sent up to Mr Lohman was for my "nagi-dachi-tachi" which is a naginata style blade, tachi style in a 34" long double bo-hi, kobuse made blade length...I am having that "tsunami" ito put on that one...but I am in the middle of my 4th book and well, I am making a whole lot of the Japanese style blades for that one. and at the prices he gets, it adds up really fast when you have 8 or 10 to do...

When Mr Robert Engnath died a while back (he was my closest friend and he and his wife Stephanie were my children's Godparents) he took a lot of the thermal treatment information we "re-discovered" (and sometimes made up as we went along but what the heck...it worked) with him to his grave. I still have all the notes we took about materials, C content, temperatures, refractories used, the amount of sori you can get..all of that and I am compiling it all and putting it into book four so when I finally shed this mortal coil I will not be taking all that he and I worked so hard for with me...

JPH

[Soulend]

Dr. Hrisoulas,

I just wanted to tell you from perusing your site that your blades are absolutely exquisite.

[Brian Owens]

...Where besides Fred Lohman can I get ito braid??
Here are some places to try:

http://www.shadowofleaves.com/tsuka-ito.htm

http://www.hyper-cafe.com/html/Category-1-0.html

http://www.martialartswarehouse.co.uk/ito.htm

HTH.

[J. Mijares]

Dr. Hrisoulas,

Welcome to E-Budo!

A couple of years ago, I had some tsukamaki done by a gentleman named Russell Axt in Santa Rosa. I'm assuming this number from the internet is still current: (707) 543-8106. He makes his tsukamaki nice and tight, perfect for a martial artist. The last time I was at the Japanese sword show in San Francisco (2006) he was there.

I'd also recommend a gentleman named Jesse Pelayo. I've seen his work and it's very good. He hangs out on SwordForum and might be associated with Bugei.

There's also Dr. Thomas Buck: http://www.tsukamaki.net/ I've not used his services, but I do believe that he's worked for Fred Lohman before, as has Mr. Axt.

Regarding the material, my personal preference is for Tsunami leather. I think Tsunami is actually a mock-leather. Fred Lohman offers this type of material. It does a decent job absorbing sweat, and is not rough on the hands. Silk is the best for absorbing sweat, but can be a little rough. Cotton won't stay as tight on the handle as silk or leather. I've never tried nylon though.

Jay

[Finny]

Welcome Mr. Hrisoulas

I'm a big fan of your books and work.

For those that don't know - Mr. Hrisoulas is an amazing bladesmith.

Hopefully we can leech some of that knowledge here at e-budo (There were some great threads focusing on metallurgy and smithing a few years ago - I found them really interesting)

[JPH]

Hello all

Well THANK YOU for the referrals..I will be contacting these folks and see what they cab do and how booked up they are.

On the tsunami leather, from speaking with Mr Lohman, he is in total love with it. From what he said it has a nylong centre core that does NOT stretch at all and has a very soft, almost like buckskin feel to it. He even said that if I didn't like it he would re-wrap mt tsuka gratis with the "regular silk" so the man is totally sold on that ito I would say.

As for the comments on my work..the more I delve into this, the more I find that there is to know. Japanese blade construction, when compared to say Migrationary Period European blade making methods are rather simple, yet they were still composite built blades. I find it quite interesting that smiths on opposite sides of the globe came up with the same basic ideas. As I have always said there are only a few ways to make a good quality sword...and while the Japanese smiths didn't get as elaborate in their construction as the European smiths did, they were still making compoiste blades. What works, works...no matter what side of the world you are on...

JPH