Before I started wargaming I was into martial arts very enthusiastically for quite a long stretch. Started doing judo in year... 4 I think, so 8 or 9 years old.
In the last few years before I had an extended sabbatical from training I did one where we used wooden training weapons; mainly sword/bokken and similar things.
Back then, I decided to try making my own, the group I was training with had some similarly minded people who were similarly experimentally inclined... though not as ocd as I turned out to be.
It went ok, and I ended up churning out a couple dozen pieces. The time required per piece meant it wasn't a viable commercial operation and I ended up stopping, and also stopping training due to injuries and other 'real life' events and circumstances.
Due to other 'real life' circumstances I have done a few training session with my old teacher in recent times and it's been very enjoyable. Like riding a bike really, but I'm definitely older, slower and more injury prone.
Anyway, I ended up donating the majority of my left over works thinking I wasn't going to be training anymore (incorrectly), but have kept a few selected pieces that were more sentimental than the rest.
Handling the old weapons after so long, I had the urge to make another piece that I'd put off making during the earlier era. This is a summary of the build process, and I'll note that the pieces are all made by hand with just hand tools.
Historically I have got my wood from Trend Timbers in Mulgrave. In the early era this was a 40 minute drive but is now more or less just around the corner. I was after Ironwood which I'd used for all my previous projects but there was only one piece available -it was more than I wanted to spend and more wood than I envisaged I would ever use. I ended up picking up a handsome looking piece of NSW Ironbark which had a similar density/weight and a nice, tight grain structure. It is lighter in colour than Ironwood, which is redder. But it would have to do.
From the large block I cut out the required block, and marked off the basic areas for shaping. I'd already made up a full-size paper template for this project.
Tiny bit of shaping, just to start building character.
The insert blade was to be make of rock maple. I'd always wanted to do something with rock maple but never got around to it. It's very nice to work with.
These are the tools I used when making all my old pieces. Planes, scrapers and sanders. In the box are a couple of metal templates which I used to get the cross sections of the bokken to a maximum standard size before fine shaping by eye.
Cross blade inserted, and have started on the basic shaping of the main piece.
This is pretty much the final shape finished. I used a wood rasp for most of the initial shaping then coarse sandpaper to finesse the profile.
Side story: The following day my forearms ACHED, like really bad to the point of having to take some pain killers.
This is the piece with the signature inlay done (a sliver of cocobola, which I still had left over - smells like chocolate when you sand it, bloody delicious) and the start of the finishing sanding, i.e. it's now smoothed to the final shape. Sanding started at 40grit, then 80grit for shaping, then down to 120grit and 240grit for smoothing.
This is after final sanding. From 240, 320, 400, and 600.
The ring is also from rock maple. This was mainly handmade except I did use a belt sanding for shaping the ring a bit. First rasp, then belt sander, then hand sanding again. It's not a perfect circle by any means but I got the biggest piece I could out of the plank (hench the flat section).
After sanding the wood is burnished with a piece of Ironwood (you can see a bit of it at the bottom of the pic). I do this with all of the pieces and it makes the finish super-smooth. In the pic above I just did a little of the blade to show the difference before and after.
As well as looking ace it also means you're less likely to get splintery issues when training.
There's nothing special about the ironwood burnishing block - i.e. no wax or oils or anything. It was just an offcut, slightly smoothed, which then became a for-purpose tool.
And this is the finished piece, all assembled and with a light coat of linseed oil on the wood sections. It's a kyoketsu shoge - the blade is used for cutting, stabbing and hooking/grappling - the ring is used for punching, and trapping - and the rope is use to swing the ring for striking, and also for ensnaring. Not a common training weapon by any means, which is why it remained on the backburner for so long.
Fairly happy with the end results.
And this...
...is my remaining collection of pieces. The first bokken (ol number one), shoto and tanto I ever made. A bokken and tanto made of ebony. And one-of/'experimental' pieces, the hanbo, kasuragama, and kyoketsu shoge.
It was a fun/fulfilling project to do; I enjoyed it back in the day, and also enjoyed making this new piece, but I do not foresee myself making any more pieces on going. It was part of an era, part of my hobby, not so much anymore.
The kyoketsu shoge was item number 35 that I completed. The majority of those items were bokken, with smaller numbers of shoto and tanto. I also made a couple of yari (spear) heads which I attached to wooden shafts, including a jumonji yari.
Creating stuff has always appealed to me. The medium may have changed but that hasn't. Finishing off a project is always satisfying, but the process of working out how it's going to work and then seeing it unfold (hopefully as planned) is quite compelling.
Until next time...
