Casting butt caps?

[MetalMuncher]

Hello everyone!! I was looking at some Japanese tantos(or small katana looking daggers) and was wondering how they make the butt caps. I want to make a wooden handle one and needed to make a butt cap. My forge is good and I have melted whole bags of nails, but I need a crucible or something to contain the liquid iron. I know aluminium melts easy, but I'd rather iron. Thanks for any tips!!!

[orgtwister]

you would need a crucible to melt iron when melting iron use borax for flux and molding sand to make a sand mold the best is to check out some of the casting sites for different ways they doit most tell you you need a cupala furnace but the guy at BackyardMetalcasting.com has melted castiron in a crucible with a wast oil furnace i would check him out and use some of his ideas as he has tried a lot of ideas that many said would not work and it does work he made a furnace out of a flue pipe and concret and it lasted for over a year any way i would check out a few different places on casting and go from there

[Ed Steinkirchner]

just a thought but the cap may not be cast solid, if i remember correctly, i think i saw somewhere that traditionaly they were made from sheet metal and had a slot for the handle wrap to go through. now if i only knew where i saw that...:confused:

[Robert Mayo]

Here is a tutorial showing the traditional way of making the koshirae.

Bob
Koshirae

[ThomasPowers]

When you say "iron" do you mean fragile cast iron or really casting of mild steel? Nails would be mild steel.

If you are not going strict traditional you can find copper endcaps for plumbing that can be worked into appropriate shapes for your use.