Japanese Sword Katana Disassembly Tutorial

[kawakami]

Dear Kevin,

I have a first generation Hanwei Practical Plus Katana. I want to disassemble my sword because I want to work on the blade's finish (I want to remove the frosty hamon). While I was able to remove the tsuka I can't seem to be able to disassemble from the tsuba on. The tsuba is really tight and I can't imagine how much tighter the habaki would be. How can I remove the tight tsuba and habaki without damaging my sword? Thank you for your help and awesome videos!

[donmiguelgascon420]

@swordnarmory thanks so much for posting this video,..........i have highly used my katana(my hands sweat ALOT)........i finally took my handle off.......there was some slight RUST starting on tang, inside the handle......thank god i cleaned it before it got out of hand.....cuz it might have weakened the structural integrity of the blade itself..........so thanks again:):):)

[Fangeroo]

Why do you take off the handle of the sword? You don't clean it right? Is it to see the condition of the sword, or if there is a marking on there? I'm just curious on why people take it off clean their sword and put it back in with out doing anything to the handle they went through all the trouble to take off, please explain?

[general3dill1]

is that a hanzocreplica sword i see?

[RAS1986o0]

What about the metal pins on the back end that wont fucking come out lol

[CrimsonGetsu]

Do you apply sword oil on the tang part of the blade too?

[GrimReaperKILLYOU]

i bought my katana and some dickhead used steel pins glued in place WTF!!!

[samuraichuck87]

my tsuka wont come off of my katana..... what do i do??

[ZentetsukenVII]

Yes almost always you can remember which side the peg goes in because your hand will be covering its escape. So top peg comes out the right side because your right hand covers it. putting the peg in the wrong way can be very bad for your tsuka core and your peg.

[jiggahippo]

loved ur vid. i got alot out of it! I will try it myself and clean my newly bought sword.

[AL94RUSS]

I want a katana, too...where can I get it cheap in germany?

[Jerry7Msa]

i got the same Katana :D

[rogantu]

hey guys Im gonna buy a katana in a few months and it seems most of these ones have 1 of the holes in the tang at the edge or even in the edge.

anything I should worry about? it seems like what is holding that hole together is metal less than 0,4 CM long/thick.

[tyler1016christian]

He has a hatorri hanzo blade

[TatsumakiOokami]

@Akirayashki123

I don't clean my whole blade I take it apart and then clean under the habaki but no futher and it's still good

[skaterstar638]

i dont have pegs in mine'

[FailureRuux]

What's the point of doing that ? I mean, do we really need to do it ?

[crossgravekeeper]

@FailureRuux You have to clean and oil a katana periodically if you want to keep it in good condition. It should be cleaned after every use, honestly. It keeps grime from building up inside the tsuka and keeps rust off your blade.

[FailureRuux]

@crossgravekeeper But, do we need to disassemble the katana each time we want to clean it ? If i want to clean my sword right after using it, do i have to do all those step of i can simply put some oil and all that stuff without disassembling it ?

[Akirayashiki123]

@FailureRuux you could just clean the blade but after a while the nakago will get a bit rusty and it might spread to the blade, so your better off cleaning the whole thing. you know what they say, better safe than sorry :P

[jonathankundinger]

@FailureRuux ya to clean better 

[AcdcStoner]

I baught a sword from you guys, and the tsuba was loose and jiggaling within 4 days of cutting matts and live,green (soft) bamboo. anyways, I have tried your method and I can not remove the handle, you guys put it on there pretty goodIi guess.. any tips?

Thanks for the help.

[b262222]

hi! i would like to ask you this: should a good quality Katana be ''full tang''? i mean, should the part of the blade tha inserts the handle be as long as the handle itself? or no matter if that part is shorter than the handle

[VideoMasher3000]

@b262222 a good quality katana is always full tang. almost any katana that is above 60 dollars is full tang. no tang is not as long as the entire handle but it should be just little bit shorter. if you have the two bamboo pegs inside the handle, its full tang.

[b262222]

@VideoMasher3000 i do have the 2 bamboo pegs inside the handle. i just thought that a tang should be as long as the entire handle i got my katana custom order and costed about 700 $ it is diferencial clay temberatured battle ready.

thanks a lot for the info!

[Dirtbikerookie23]

I have a Katana that has no pegs i think its a cheaper katana but the bottom cap comes off and theres a bolt but the handle is loose and twists when its tight help please!

[VideoMasher3000]

@Dirtbikerookie23 you have a cheap katana. you have asword that is rat tail tang wich is instead of full tang, you have a small thin piece of welded metal. the skrew and nut are the end of to keep the whole thing together. i would not recomend hitting this sword against anything cause it could snap and the best you could do is hang it up and dont mess with it

[Dirtbikerookie23]

@VideoMasher3000 Thank you

[imtiyaz91]

Im Having the Same problem with the Tsuka on my Sword its a 1060 Carbon Steel Musashi i bought it from trueswords they said it can be dissembled for care but i cant seem to get the Tsuka off any advice would be Great thanks SwordNArmory

[acsnowboarder13]

my tsuka wont come of i dont want to break my wrist so i only hit my self moderately hard. how can i do it with out hurting myself? i got a 1060 high carbon steel hand forged musashi from trueswords, it says it can be dissasembled but its realy hard to do.

[NemesisPrime1989]

Question. I couldn't get one of the wodden pins out of the handle of my katana for cleaning. It even came to a point where the metal pin from my cleaning kit snapped trying to get it out. I was able to get the first one out just fine. the 2nd one was in there REALLY tight.

How can I get the 2nd pin out without damaging anything?

[TsetTsyung]

Hi there SwordNArmoury,

Thank you for making a BRILLIANT tutorial.

I don't know much about the correct culture about Katana's but this video was very respectful (something I believe is important to true practitioners of martial arts...) and informative!

Domo Arigato Gozaimas.

[altfclansing]

Is it disrespectful to the sword to take a tsuka from one sword and put it on another. Or any parts for that matter?

[shinobitech13]

@altfclansing lol of course not, a sword is just a tool not some kind of crazy spiritual device artifact that will put a curse on you if you change the parts. haha

[VideoMasher3000]

@altfclansing no

[del885]

wow, my katana is really stubborn compared to yours, the tsuka is way too tight along with the tsuba and they've wrapped the Tsuka ito over the large side of the pins lol. I ended up using a rubber mallet to tap the whole thing out, and then there was the painful part of putting it back together again. I think I might have to get mine custom fitted again

[1986alkaline]

I can't get my Tsuka to come free from the blade.

Any suggestions? Thanks

-Mark

[del885]

@1986alkaline I've used a rubber mallet on mine and tapped the tsuba lightly to get the tsuka off (I had to leave my katana in the scabbard to reduce chances of injury) then when I put it back together I used the similar method as shown in the video except I tapped the kashira with the rubber mallet lightly a few times to get it back in withouth damaging it.

[Fight040Allah]

What are you serious all thats holding the handle to the blade and tang are two little pins.

[quintonbob]

i got a katana from budk.com and yeah i can not get the handle off

[darkking222]

@quintonbob same here

[SleepingStranger]

i've bought a cobra katana recently and its very very old, now the  blade is all crooked in the habaki D=

[ab996021]

hey do you guys make custem swords

[bobbylee1557]

thats a hattori hanzo sword

[gohansan5001]

ok heres the deal my sword has this plastic dragon tailsman its realy annoying cus i want to replace the handle thank you

[shadow96411]

hey that's a sword from kill bill!

[ArukiI]

Exccellent!

[Shitsumeishi]

Any recommendation on what to do if you break a mekugi inside the handle? I popped my first one out w/o any problems and then I just assumed (wrongly) that the other one was supposed to be pushed out the same direction...long-story short there are now mekuginuki remnants inside the pin-hole. Any idea how to get them out? seems firmly lodged

[Hyoujinsama]

Wow. You must've been really hammering.

Do you have any pics of it?

[Shitsumeishi]

@Hyoujinsama I got it all figured out, used a small punch to help wedge the rest of the pieces out.

[CanadianSoldier67]

Nice vid! Very useful, tnx!

[Shmotz23]

yeah my handle wont come off its quite annoying is there another way to dislodge the handle with out me breaking my wrist (my katana is the high carbon steel version of the last samurai sword blue)

[SwordNArmory]

Depending on what it is, it could be a number of things. Glued, too tight, not really full tang. Did you buy it from our site? I need a link to an image of the sword.

[B00MM42]

i cant get the handle loose, how do you do the separation technique?

[duijffr]

I have only ONE peg on my swordNarmory Katana.

(the seven-samurai katana damascus steel)

[gibson82650]

@duijffr me too >> its not a full tang the

[Dominik047]

i couldnt get one of the pegs out its stuck how would i fix this?

[SwordNArmory]

Make certain you're trying to get it out the right way. Pegs are narrow on one end and larger on the other, and if inserted correctly should be taken out from one side of the tsuka first, then the other. Inspect your mekugi carefully and be certain you're hammering the narrow end. Otherwise, you've been tightening it. Hope this helps!

[SupeRadJUSTable]

wow it took me forever to get the handle off i just winged it lol good to know thank you for shareing

[clonecody1]

that was very interesting i allways wanted to know how a troditonal sowrd is made

[tayounorise]

Very interesting tutorial dear Kevin!

Thank you for sharing!

7 thankfully stars!

*bow*

angela

[ChosonNinja]

Great job Kevin.

Thank you!

5 stars!

[linkfanatic13579]

isint he hyounjinsama??

[TerraFirma369]

A very basic, but necessary skill! Thanks for demonstrating for all who may have not known how! Peace.