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Between work on my videos and the pressure to work off my backlog, I haven't had much to offer for sale lately. But at long last I've got a couple of new blades available.
1095 Tanto. This blade was forged from 1095 to test some new polishing techniques I've been working on. It's a fairly simple hamon without the kind of flamboyant choji I tend to favor. It's a slim 10 inches. Click the picture for a view of the other side. No habaki. AVAILABLE: $550.
Forge-welded O-Kissaki Wakizashi. This blade is made from high layer (roughly 2000 layer) steel forge-welded from 1095 and W2. This was part of a three blade set. The habaki is fine silver (fine silver is 99.5+% silver, as opposed to sterling which has a significant amount of copper in it). Click on the picture for details of the hamon and hada. SOLD.
Oddball S5 Bainite Blade. This is my first shot at doing a bainite-spined blade (along the lines of Howard Clark's L6 blades). The blade is forged from S5, a complex alloy that has a bunch of silicon, a pinch of vanadium, plus molybdenum, chromium and manganese. Highly alloyed steels raise lots of interesting heat treating issues. The goal was to make a blade that will withstand significant punishment without either breaking or bending. Based on initial testing, I'm already sure I achieved my goal. However, without a lab, I can't be 100% sure I was successful in making bainite. (I'm about 85% sure I did.) And I'm definitely not sure that the spine is 100% bainite. In fact, I'd be somewhat surprised if that were the case, given its odd appearance. At any rate, the blade can bend three inches without taking a set. Before completion of the polish, I made well over a 100 cuts into a knotty pine 2X4 without bending the blade or causing significant damage to the edge. The sword exhibits very peculiar visual characteristics. That's fancy way of saying: It's weird looking. The hamon is soft, indistinct, and homogeneous in appearance. The ji or spine or not-hamon (or whatever you want to call the rest of the blade) is blotchy, with several different kinds of structures available -- one a light gray, one a dark gray, and one bright and reflective. Whether these result from alloy segregation or differing microstructure (or both???) I couldn't begin to guess. (Well, I could! But I'd just be guessing.) All the weird, blotchy stuff you see in the picture is a function of the structure of the steel, not a crappy polish job. Click on the picture for a close-up of this very unusual blade. I'll be testing this blade extensively, so there may be some updates about this blade at a later time. NOT FOR SALE.
1086M Daisho. This daisho consists of a massive 30" katana and a 21" wakizashi, both forged from 1086M steel. An interesting feature of this pair is that the two blades were polished quite differently, yielding very different looking hamons. While the intrinsic differences in the hamons would make them look slightly different even if they were polished exactly the same, this illustrates the fact that the appearance of Japanese style blades can be radically altered by polishing them using different techniques. (It also illustrates the limitations of blade photography. If you looked at these two blades up close in normal light, you'd find the differences between them to be much subtler than this photograph would indicate.) SOLD.
Big W2 Tanto. I forged this big handful of steel from W2, my favorite steel these days. It's just a hair under 12 inches. It's got a very subtle choji hamon (much subtler than my usual hamons). This one feels good in the hand. Click the picture for another view. No habaki. SOLD
Folded Steel Wakizashi. I'm calling this a Keicho Shinto wak because it has the minimal curvature characteristic of early Edo period blades. But in other respects it's got a lot of Nambokucho qualities (minimal taper, long kissaki). It's forged from W2 and 1095 steels, a combination that gives a nice combination of beauty and performance. There are about 2,000 to 3,000 layers. The blade is 20" with a 6" nakago. The hamon is a somewhat subdued choji. It's not really a hitatsura blade, but there are a few hardened areas in the ji. There's a small cosmetic kizu, (nothing that would undermine the performance of the blade). The habaki is sterling silver. Click on the picture for more detailed shots. AVAILABLE. $1950. ON HOLD.
Suguha Tamahagane Tanto. This is a very restrained and conservative blade made from tamahagane that I smelted with Jesus Hernandez. The very thin suguha hamon is reminiscent of blades from the Kamakura period. The hada is a rough, rustic-looking itame (wood grain pattern) of about 2000 layers. There is a ton of interesting activity in the blade (some of which didn't photograph very well) including some strong utsuri. Click on the picture for a close-up of the hada. SOLD.
Mount Fuji. This monosteel blade forged from 1050 features an usual hamon design. It's basically a choji hamon, but the customer who commissioned the blade wanted a view of Mount Fuji included in the hamon. Click on the picture to see the results. Then nagasa is 28 inches. SOLD.
1086M Wakizashi. This wak was forged from 1086M steel. 1086 is a high carbon steel containing a pinch of vanadium. The addition of vanadium to the steel increases edge-holding and improves shock resistance...as well as changing the heat treating characteristics of the steel somewhat. The blade length is 21 inches with a 7 inch nakago. It's got a nice long kissaki and an active choji hamon. SOLD.
O-Kissaki Katana. This 28 inch katana is forged from high layer folded steel in a combination of 1095 and W2. It's the long blade in a multi-blade set. The curvature is around 3/4 of an inch. The extremely long kissaki was a challenge to polish...but I think it worked out pretty well in the end. The hamon is a complex choji with lots of sunagashi due to the somewhat different heat treating characteristics of the two component steels. The boshi has a very long turnback. The blade is intended to evoke the feel of Nambokucho era blades, with very little taper. Click on the picture for more details, close-ups of the hada, etc. SOLD.