Taking a Sword Apart

[Ben]

Is anyone here skilled at taking a sword apart? Please tell me how you do it. I have tried to take my katana apart but the mekugi just won't back out.:-<

[Jason Moore]

What kind of sword is it?

[69NINJA]

Make sure you try to take it out in the right direction. Properly shaped mekugi are fit to go in and come out one way. one way to tell which direction they go (which i learned from Mako on our old forum ) is the peg may have one side with slight hammer imprints from when the peg was first inserted, to remove it you must tap it from the opposite side.
also the pegs should alternate direction, meaning if the peg nearest to the tsuba can be pushed from the right , the lower peg should ( in theory ) be pushed from the left.


that is all of course if your particular sword didnt have glue used during production.


.

[Ben]

Its a Musashi sword. It has two pegs and it can supposedly be disassembled. I'm striking the peg on its smaller end, which I assume is the end that was inserted. How much force is usually required to knock those pegs out?

[Jason Moore]

I never strike them, I just push them out...

[Brian Brazier]

Check this out http://nihonzashi.com/MekugiReplacement.htm

[Ben]

Thanks a lot for the link Brain that is useful information.

[Brian Brazier]

no problem, if you look under their DIY Guide they have a bit of good stuff

[PinoyFili]

Wow! I checked out that link and was really surprised. Who would have known there was so much that went into such a small and simple looking piece on the Katana.

Very helpful guide for those of us with little knowledge of these things. My thanks also for posting it Brian.

[Ben]

I found a good punch tool and popped both of the mekugi out of my katana. I even replaced one of them that looked a little worse for wear. This was probably because it was never the correct size.

I was not able to remove the tsuka though. It just would not budge. I even tried to hit the tsuba with a rubber hammer while holding onto the tsuka, but it wouldn't even move. I thought about hammering a splint between the tsuka and seppa. But, I wasn't so sure about that idea.:-?

Does anyone know how to take off an overly snug tsuka?

[Brian Brazier]

alot of the Musashi and Masahiro tsuka's are super hard to remove because of the way they are cunstructed. I have seen splints that are for taking off a tsuka from a shirasaya but I don't know about using one on a tsuba.