"The bright blade flashes. . . Inscribing the final arc. . . on all tomorrows."

After so much time of waiting! 7 Months in the making! My Katana has arrived! I had this sword custom forged from Bugei trading combany to my specification, and I must say I am NOT dissapointed, even though this blade set me back almost $2,000.00 You feel the balance, the weight, the way it slices through the air (and occasionally the poor tree that got in the way ^_^) .

This style of wrap is called "battle-wrap"

These pictures suck (I've gotta get a digital camera) but if you could see the actual sword, you would see that it has what looks like "wood grain" markings along the blade, this is caused by the traditional folding process of japanese Katanas, and if you'll notice the discoloration along the edge, many off shelf swords, and $50.00 replicas look like this also, however, their discoloration is caused by the frosting of the blade to make it "look" authentic. This discoloration is actually caused by the process of differentially heat tempering of Traditional Japanese katanas whereby the edge is actually harder than the rest of the blade so that it holds a sharper edge (and let me tell you after cutting through a 3" tree branch cleanly with no damage WHATSOEVER to the sharpened edge. . . it works. . . try doing that with you $75.00 pakistani ;) ) The back of the sword is softer so that it acts as a shock absorber, if the whole sword was as hard as the edge, it would be fragile because it would have no give.

If the Tsuka (handle) of the Katana looks long to you, it's supposed to. Traditionally, katana handles WERE long. This was the style used during wartime, the longer Tsukas allowed more powerful strikes when using the sword two-handed, and a greater balance (moving the center of balance further back toward the lead hand) when using the sword 1 handed. During the peaceful era of the Meji restoration when samurai were all but forgotten the few who still wore their swords found the longer tsukas uncomfortable for everyday wear and shortened them to the popular 11" tsukas that most of the modern replicas are made with.