having some one sharpen my musashi

by Jimi Martinez
(Oregon)

QUESTION: I have been doing a little cutting with my musashi and it has gotten a little dull and the tip ever so slightly blunted. Where is a good place to have it sharpened at the chain store in the mall or some of greater expertise.

ANSWER: A lot of it depends on the model you bought. If it was one of the $59 ones, it may be more cost effective to simply buy another! (or at least a generic sharpening tool).

If it was one of the mid range Katana, it can be very hard to find someone at the local knife sharpeners who knows what kind of edge to put on it. If you explain to them to try and keep the original geometry though, they might be able to assist...

My best advice is to try your hand at it yourself. As these are generally quite affordable swords, the beauty is that if you really stuff up sharpening a blunt one - you haven't lost a huge amount of money - and it is skill that every sword enthusiast should develop at some point...

Hope this helps.

- Paul

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thanks a bunch!
by: Jimi

Thanks I read your sharpening walk through and I'm gonna give it a shot with some of my old "wall hangers" before I attempt to sharpen the more expensive one thanks again!

Sharpen/Polishing a Musashi
by: Bookie

I am in the process of sharpening a modified Mushashi blade. No prior knowledge or developed skills about these operations and just came on board last November. To date, the blade's nicks and other assorted apocalyptic defects have been removed and the blade has a satin appearance so far. This is a project only for those who have patience, some stamina, and have a large vocabulary of nasty verbiage when a stone gets nicks, scratched, or crumbles on you. Dedication and beau coup patience are good traits to develope here.

Just finished with the 4000 grit stone this evening and am going even finer. Diamond finger stones have been purchased and are enroute.

But will it cut? Yes, indeedy! I held a piece of standard typing paper upright and proceeded to cut the sheet in one, long, and continuous spiral and that piece of paper ribbon is about 6-7 feet long with no breaks or tears. Zorro couldn't have done any better!

The cost of the stones have been a little heavy on the pocketbook and certainly have cost much, much, more than the rinky-dink blade did, but the experience was what was most important.(Ask me if my muscles ached during the 22+ hours of back and forth motion.)

Pics have been taken throughout the process and a waist high Rube Goldberg polishing "station" has been assembled from scrap and other miscellaneous bits of cast off materials. Placed a few pics here and there on the SBG Facebook page.

I filter the ground off water stone particles/slurry from the water bucket, allow it to dry and then use it on my finger tips or stuck on a small piece of coffee filter for polishing tiny blems. But to shut my trap and make a long story short, if I can do it, you can, too.

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