A while ago, a good friend of mine donated 2 swords to me. This O-Tanto is one of those swords.
For those that don't know, the "O" prefix is simply the way we designate the weapon as being larger than it is usually. This tanto is quite large. With the addition of this new tsuka core I carved, it's now massive!
Shown underneath the tanto is the old tsuka. In hindsight, the perspective will mess with how you compare the sizes, but not so much it really matters. The new tsuka is about twice the length of the old one, just not as bulky.
Here on the left, you can see how it fits the hand and yes, this looks unwieldy but it has superb balance now. the tsuka itself it fit as perfectly as I can manage and I trust it completely with single peg construction.
On the right you can see it alongside the original tsuka, without my hand in the way.
Not everyone is going to like this modification as it's not traditional. Katana sometimes had huge tsuka, but both tanto and wakizashi were pretty much never modified in this way. *shrugs*
This shape eventually got modified so it wasnt rounded at the top which made for easy fitting of the kashira.
It was truncated like..................
This! Which was a photo taken on some random neighbours bin lid being as it was the only place there was sun at that time in the afternoon.
Next article on this tanto will show it as finished. I'd love to do a worklog but I'm a very busy person as of late. I hope you appreciate the unusual aesthetic.
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