Hamidashi style Tanto with KC Tanto blade.
This is my first attempt to make a full Japanese style mouontings (koshirae). This project took me a lot of time, but it was fun and I learned quite a lot while struggling with it.
I started out with a Kris Cutlery Tanto blade (one of the old ones, with permanently mounted habaki and slightly hollow grind). Since it was a thick blade, I decided to reshape it: to get rid of waviness, define the ridge line, and transform the shallow hollow gring into flat surface. Took me a lot of work with stones and sandpaper, but worked out pretty good, and the blade is still plenty thick (with a pronounced distal taper).
I carved the saya and tsuka core from poplar (recommended by many experts on Swordforum.com).
All fittings (fuchi, kashira, tsuba, koiguchi and kurikata) are made of polished buffalo horn. It looks quite good, though maybe not the most common material traditionally for fuchi and tsuba? I chose it as it is cheap and relatively easy to work with, and still provides some nice traditional look.
The saya is finished in black, but not with traditional laquer. I built a foundation with two layers of common floor laquer (brushed on, let dry and sanded), and finished with several thin layers of epoxy spray paint. When applied in an "overspray" manner, it looks somewhat like textured laquer finishes I saw on some Japanese swords.
The tsuka is wrapped with black silk tsuka-ito over red leather (for contrast), crossed over the kashira and tied off in a traditional knot. It feels very secure in hand.
Feel free to comment or ask questions, by email or on Swordforum (links are on my main page)!