Tuesday, April 24, 2018

Helm/Tendick Wakizashi/Tanto Daisho Wakizashi

Note: These are available.  Check out the "Available Work" section for details.

Sometime last year I made an o-tanto that caught the eye of the very talented Ben Tendick of BRT Bladeworks in Oregon.  We had been wanting to do a collaboration for a while, and it seemed like a good direction to go.  The tanto was slated for someone, so I forged another, and ended up making a wakizashi in the same style as well.  I forged the blades, and Ben did the rest of the work.

Here's what was sent to Ben, a 16" and a 11.5" blade forged from 80CrV2 steel, heat treated and ready for Ben to work his magic on the handles.  I left the tangs big and blocky to give Ben plenty of canvas on which to paint.


Ben worked them down, shouldered the tangs to fit the tsubas, and drilled the holes to anchor the wrap.


I left all the details to Ben on how he wanted to finish.  He decided to use wrought iron for the tsubas.  In his words, "I did my best to capture that well used Ronin style in this set."




And copper menuki with his touchmark.


He went with antiqued cotton cord for the underlay. 


Finished up.

 






 
 
I think Ben nailed it.   8-)

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