No, I'm not making new ones...
No, wait, it turns out I totally am, or at least I'm making one.
I was just intending to write down my process, just for fun, noting that I didn't have pictures of the making process as my previously makings were done in the pre-smart phone era.
There's nothing special or secret about any of it anyway. It's mainly just work that would be classified as simple and tedious, though there's some creativity and artistic eye involved at times which made it worthwhile for me.
1) Start with a block of decent wood. No cracks, divots, funky gnarls or knot holes etc. Obviously it needs to have the length and breadth for the pattern and needs to be about 30mm thick.
As mentioned elsewhere I really liked NT ironwood for this, but the NSW spotted gum should work. I know of people who have used jarrah or purple heart even. Anything with a dense, tight grain is usually acceptable, which leads to it having a good weight as well. Most 'modern' commercial bokken are made out of 'white oak' or 'red oak' which does the job well enough, and I'm guessing they're used because of availability and also the wood is less likely to have imperfections, and definitely less hidden cracks or gum deposits than Australian native wood.
2) Draw on the profile outline (drawing around a bokken you have works just fine if you like the shape), then cut out the profile to roughly the right shape - cut wide/outside the outline rather than into/inside the outline. In my previous era of making I used an electric jigsaw for this, and this was the only time I used an electric tool in the process (before I received the block doesn't count). NT Ironwood sometimes used up 2 or 3 blades due to the resilience of the wood. It's bloody hard stuff.
This piece was made out of Blackbutt, because that's what I had - this project was also an experimental exercise to see how this wood faired. Now, post-process, I think it's not as dense as I'd like. It has nice grain and isn't super-splintery. Just not my number one choice, and I wouldn't feel comfortable about making them for other people.
The piece of wood I had was smaller than I could use for a regular bokken (too narrow) so I decided to free-hand a 'chissai-katana' version.
3) I now have the 'blank' for the piece. Put it in a bench vice and using a plane (just a handheld jackplane) cut down the blank to the drawn-on template shape.
For this project I used an electric plane, and then the belt sander to grind to the outline.
And then drew on the front centre-line and rear bevel shaping.
4) From there I use the plane (or a rasp works) to start paring down the curves of the cross section. The piece will be all curves, so we need to start taking off the corners of the block. On the front edge this is easy enough and a jack planes is still suitable. For the rear face and 'spine' it's probably better to use a spokeshave (or rasp).
This is the spokeshave I have historically used. I picked it up by chance at a little independent tool shop I happened to walk by one day. It was really good for the task given that it allowed greater (perhaps perceived) curve handling than a flat-bottomed plane (even better than the 'standard' european spoke shave types).
I would typically also take the edges off the handle portion of the piece, but leaving enough flat sections to keep it manageable for gripping firmly in the vice.
For this project I used a rasp, and coarse grit sandpaper to rough out the shape.
5) So now I have a basically 'chunky' bokken shaped piece. A curvy club. I would normally give the entire piece a quick parse over with coarse grit sand paper at this stage (40grit) just to start feeling the curvature within the weapon. Normally the template I used had some wastage built into the outline so there was the capacity to slowly grind down the shape without worrying about it being too spindly as a result. This is the last of the 'planing' steps.
So now the piece has a basic silhouette and also a basic cross-section.
6) I then use a metal template to start cutting out the 'maximum cross section'.
This is a matter of using metal scrapers and coarse sandpaper to nibble the blade down to the maximum shape it needs to be, starting at the tip and moving all the way down the blade section. Grind and scrape carefully until the blade just fits into the metal template. Any shiny points where there is too much material shows where to grind away on the next parse. This is tedious but gets a consistent 'blank', from where the artistic stuff can start.
The metal scrapers are just metal plates with a sharp edge, that can be used to scrape away ribbons of wood - the opposite of planes. And for sandpaper I use sanding belts from belt sanders chopped into sections which have a nice solid backing so they don't break up like actual paper sheets do/can.
By the end of this process I will have a piece that had a very bokken-like shape, though still too chunky.
For this project I actually alternated between 40grit paper and using the edge of an actual stanley knife as my scraper. The blades are sharp, and when dulled I could just replace them rather than need to sharpen anything. Here we can see that the process is scraping, not whittling or cutting.
The template slides down the blade until it binds, then more material is taken off. This probably took me four sessions (4 nights for an hour or two depending on how enthusiastic I was, it was quite meditative) to get all the way down.
Here we can see the process marked by the shaped blade toward the tip, and the ridge where the template no longer goes. As I was working I soon found out that the piece was excessively wide all the way along, so I planned down a couple of millimetres off the sides.
7) The next steps are all 'by eye', and I switch between several things going on at once.
i) taper the sides of the blade. So on the sides I'll use the scraper and sandpaper to create greater width toward the handle, and narrower width blade toward the tip. A 'standard' process might involve doing 10 scrapes along 3/4 of the length (from the 'tip-ward' end), 10 more scrapes from 1/2 the length, and 10 more scrapes on the final 1/4 of the length. Repeat with sandpaper. This provides a wedge aspect when viewed from the top and the blade is narrower toward the tip.
ii) make sure the curve of the front of the blade is flowing nicely. start getting out any flat spots or divots as best as possible.
iii) also make sure the cross section of the blade is curved suitable. taking out material on the sides means the curvature will narrow (usually toward the tip) so take off material to keep the rounded parts flowing with continuous proportion... I know what I mean :)
iv) also make sure the back cross section of the blade is curving proportionally. The actual 'spine' which is flat should remain the same but the angled trailing edge/back of the blade is still curved and needs to flow in the same manner as the front.
This portion of the process normally takes the most time, but requires continual assessment of the piece, and removing material gradually... cos you can't put it back on if you stuff up. It's probably the most enjoyable part for me and a chance to just zen out in the work.
By the end of the process you should pretty much have close to the final shape of the bokken.
Once the 'blade' section is done I'd then flip the piece in the vice and shape the handle too. This is more or less just a basic oval cross section. perhaps slightly narrower to the front. It's often a case of do some work on it then see how it feels in the hands.
8) I would then switch to finer grade sandpaper, probably 120grit or maybe 240grit and look at refining the shape of the blade, specifically looking to make the curves as 'continuous curvy' as possible. After that I'd have another crack at the handle to get that feeling nice too.
9) Kind of a sub-step in the shaping but I'd then look at the back of the handle/spine of the blade and cut an edge where the tsuba (hand guard) sits. This is really just a matter of carefully, bringing the spine to a crisp finish point where the handle starts. It'd probably also spend a little time reviewing the spine and trailing edge of the blade as this can get overlooked a little when concentrating on the front of the blade. The lines should be fairly straight with the spine tapering gently toward the blade tip.
And that's about it for the main/hard/time consuming parts. You theoretically have a finished bokken right there with all the correct shapes, curves and features. But of course there's finishing to be done to make bothering to use that painful wood worth the effort.
9b) I think (from memory) that at this point I normally cut in my little signature block on the handle. This is a matter of cutting out the cocobola rectangle, then cutting in a divot onto the handle with a chisel and trying not to rip out edges and ruin the piece after all that effort. once the block is ready, glue it in, wait for the glue to dry, have a well deserved break, drink a beer, wonder if being covered in this much wood dust is all worth the effort...
Once the block is set then use sand paper to shape it back to the handle's profile.
10) From there I'd start looking at the finish - using finer and finer grades of sandpaper to make all parts of the surface smoother and smoother. From memory I'd use 400grit, then 800grit and finally 1200grit.
By this stage the piece should look pretty mint. There should be no cracks or divots or splinter points when you run the blade across your hand.
For this project I didn't bother with pics of the shaping process but suffice to say... it happened. I got the piece to a shape I was happy enough with, and then finished the surface with 240grit, 400grit and 600grit.
11) From there I use my burnishing block (below), to rub/press/compress the surface to a shiny and smooth finish.
There's nothing fancy about the block. It's just an off cut of ironwood. Shaped a little over time to give different edges if required.
A fairly firm pressure is required for burnishing, but it's far from strenuous. Perhaps give it a second parse if you feel like it. It helps to have good light, sunlight works, to make sure the surface is shiny all over the piece.
12) I normally put my signature on the piece about now, using just a hand held engraver. Then refinish (1200grit and burnish) that section to clean it up.
13) Finally... I (historically) had some length of material that I soaked or wet with linseed oil. I wrapped these around the entire piece, wrapped it in (probably) plastic bags to keep the oil contained, and set the piece aside for a couple of days to (hopefully) soak up some of the oil. the wraps weren't dripping with oil by any means, so the plastic bags just stopped it getting oil on anything it was sitting on. My understanding is that the harder/smoother the surface the less oil is inclined to just soak right into the grain, hence leaving it sit and allowing it to penetrate the grain as best as possible.
Really you could (and I do this now) just oil the surface and let it dry for a couple of hours. The burnishing means the oil isn't really required in order to end up with a nice finish, though the oil does tend to bring out the grain just that little bit more. The oil's mainly there to help combat hand grime soaking into the surface - which is not such a big issue with these darker woods anyway tbh.
13.5) After appropriate soaking time, unwrap, wipe off all the excess oil and you're done.
TADA! You now have one overly complicated, time consuming bokken.
Obviously the effort is very much (or more) about the process, as much as it is about having the final product.
11-13) Summary results for the new piece.
The wood did not burnish well. It's a little too porous compared with the Spotted Gum even, and while it does shine a little bit... it's no Ironwood.
I do like the grain of it, and after finishing and a taste of linseed oil it actually turned out nice. Not sure how fit for purpose it's going to be... only training use is going to reveal that.
This shows a before and after compared to the other half of the stick the bokken came from.
As usual... no desire what so ever to make any more of these, but it was enjoyable enough at the time.
[update 2024-08-12]
On a whim I made a tsuba (hand guard) from some rock maple. Turned out as well as I'd hoped.
I did pin it with a bamboo skewer through the front and back (of where the blade sits) as it's a relatively fragile piece and a decent knock would probably split it in two without some extra structural support.
We generally don't block or take strikes on the tsuba - if there's deflecting going on it's in the handle-most section of the blade itself. If you have a blade against the tsuba something has generally gone wrong.
Anyway just a fun project to occupy the mind and hands.
[update 2024-08-13]
Ok, I probably went overboard. Oh well...
Until next time...
