Right, I'll get onto it. You may remember a while ago I posted talking about stripping my PFK's saya and perhaps recolouring. Basically what I did in the end, perhaps as a result of distraction or lack of funds - I can't remember, was to give it a light stain and a couple quick coats of varnish just to protect the wood and make it look vaguely attractive. However I was never entirely happy with the end product and I finally got round to sorting it out. Now bear in mind this is my first attempt at modifying a sword so it's hardly to the standards of you lot, but I thought I'd share it anyway.
Firstly one of the main things I didn't like about the off-the-shelf PFK is that it looked so incredibly regular with the typical black colour scheme. The long tsuka combining with the large, wide tsuba made it look clumsy as well, which played on my mind whenever I handled it. While swinging it I never tried any menouvers too ambitious or beyond my ability to handle but I was nonetheless slightly apprehensive about it, a psychological side effect to the clumsy looks. So I changed the tsuba...
It took a lot of filing and as a result there was a slight wobble in the tsuba as the blade is wider than most others but tapers very quickly. To remedy the problem I put a paper clip (which had a plastic film around it to protect the blade, even though it wouldnt be visible) into the gap which worked great. Anyway when I got the tsuba on I was so pleased! Maybe I was overreacting (though I still feel the same way) but I had no idea how much difference it would make. Not only did it look soooo much better but being smaller it suddenly gave the large sword a kind of sweeping gracefullness. It seemed more part of the sword than the original tsuba ever was... I'm not sure if that makes sense but it kinda does in my head haha. Anyway in short: I was dead pleased!
Now the saya... When I stripped it initially I had a kind of lingering idea of giving it a kind of rustic, rugged look so I used a plane to take off the laquer which, unsurprisingly, gave it an angled, planed look. As a result I decided to give it a more prominant darker stain and then varnished over it with a matte finish. I'd wanted a gloss finish but as it turned out the varnish I used (being skint and not being able to get some gloss stuff) turned out quite glossy anyway, so that was lucky. I kept the black laquer on the part of the saya that the sageo goes through in order to set off the shitadome (that the right word?), which I kept in order to match the gold on the tsuba, more effectively. I also kept the black sageo for contrast. Overall I'm pretty damn pleased about how it turned out. I for one think it looks a lot better than the off the shelf version and there's the added pride of having done it myself. I think the rugged, natural look is quite distinctive as well.
I was also really pleased with that sageo, it's easily my best one which is not saying much. I suck at them. But yeh, I think that ones alright.
Hope you lot like it!
Anyway that's out the window now. I'm tempted to make my own wall mounted stand though...