japanese style knife

[dodo knives]

Hey guys so I have been working on a traditional Japanese tanto ( eventually I am going to work up to a full size katana) I have the blade done the tsuba (guard) the sepa's (spacers) are all done I am having trouble with making the fuchi (the sleve/collar on the front of the wrap) and the kashira (the pommel) I have tried what I saw in a video of creating a thin brass oval the size of the end of the wrap then taking a thin strip of brass and wraping it around the oval piece and brazing. it has been very hard to get these 2 pieces together and lined up before brazing and then even what I have had luck keeping it together with thin coper wire tied around everything keeping it in one place the wire melts while brazing and every thing comes apart I have tried it a couple defend times and at best I got it together but it looks HORIBLE and is impossible to clean everything up and make it look good, any advice tips or other ways of doing this would really really help e out

[Dogsoldat]

Not my area of specialty by any stretch,  but could you not use steel/iron wire and file it off after everything is solidly brazed? Or maybe a larger diameter wire that wouldn't melt so easy.

 

[ThomasPowers]

One thing I have learned is that copper pipe comes in a large number of sizes and they even make nesting sizes for repair.  This gives a large range of possible ovals you can do seamlessly and so only have the soldering to the flat plate to do.  Are you using steel wire to hold it in place while you braze?  (I'd go with hard solder myself; AKA silver solder)

Also many community colleges offer jewelry making classes that can provide skills and coaching on hard soldering and turn out to be very handy in doing fittings for blades,

Please reassure me that you won't be reproducing the cold steel tanto with the ugly angled point that was NOT very common in traditional Japanese blades (not unknown but probably less than 5%...)

[Stormcrow]

Pictures would help.  Perhaps try stainless wire?  It holds its strength at higher temp than steel wire, and has a higher melting temp than copper.

[dodo knives]

Thanks guys yeh I think I am going to use larger wire, and actually just got home with some copper pipe had the same idea as you Thomas....and no it is not like the cold steel tanto, I have done knives with a similar tip but the handles looked nothing like a Japanese handle.....to be if your going to do it trandionally it should have the curved tip just as a katana or wakizashi would

[bigfootnampa]

IME brass is quite difficult to hard solder or braze!  Actually I would say extremely difficult!  The alloys in most brasses seem to collapse before a good join is made!  Soft soldering is much more likely to succeed IME.  I'm talking jewelers solders here.  Plumbing solders are easier but a little unprofessional for quality knives IMO.

[rhitee93]

I would form the oval ring, and solder the joint on it with a higher temperature solder.  You can clean up the oval ring, and then join it to the oval plate with a lower temp plumbers type of solder.

As noted above, this is feels like cheating, but I would be ok with it.

[dodo knives]

thanks guys I ended up making it ok could be  lil cleaner but it acceptable I ended up getting coper pipe wich was thicker than the brass I was using. I cut it and flattened it out to a flat plate cut out what I needed rolled it back up and brazed it togather then took a square piece and brazed that on the end and ground off all the excess, I think using copper and since it was thicker is what helped