Shinto Ryu tameshigiri videos

I videoed our tameshigiri over the weekend.

Just thought I'd share.

Chris Ellard

Jeremy Hulley

me

These aren't 'promo' videos, so they have the good, the bad and the ugly.

Looks like fun

Howard Popkin wrote: Looks like fun

Heck YEAH!

Nice videos. It's good to see an honest record of the bad cuts along with the good ones.

I've been filming my tameshigiri attempts (strong emphasis on the word 'attempts') recently to try to gain some visual feedback of what I'm doing right or wrong.

I have next week off work so I'm planning to buy a load of tatami omote and get a few decent cutting sessions in. I'll try to get some videos and upload them here too, if you don't mind me adding to this thread in such a way.

Christian Moses wrote: I videoed our tameshigiri over the weekend. Just thought I'd share. Chris Ellard Jeremy Hulley me These aren't 'promo' videos, so they have the good, the bad and the ugly.

Nice. What kind of blade are you using?

Larry,
Most of us are cutting with a Bugei Bamboo that is 15 or 16 years old. I can't remember who made the balde Chris Moses cuts with but it was touched up by Adam Coleman last year about this time. I'm cutting with a Paul Chen Tanto....can't remember which one..

Mine's a shobu zukuri by Joe Walters using 1084 spring steel. It was a butter knife though until Adam Coleman reshaped and sharpened it. Saying it's "sharp" now doesn't really do justice to the edge on that thing.

The Bugei, as Jeremy mentioned, is an older early production run back when they were using Chinese railroad steel. It's been touched up a few times by Mike Femal at Nihonzashi who also does great work.

At the end of my video (when I'm not wearing a saya) I'm trying out one of the other guy's L6 Praying Mantis katana (also from Nihonzashi).

Christian Moses wrote: Mine's a shobu zukuri by Joe Walters using 1084 spring steel. It was a butter knife though until Adam Coleman reshaped and sharpened it. Saying it's "sharp" now doesn't really do justice to the edge on that thing. The Bugei, as Jeremy mentioned, is an older early production run back when they were using Chinese railroad steel. It's been touched up a few times by Mike Femal at Nihonzashi who also does great work. At the end of my video (when I'm not wearing a saya) I'm trying out one of the other guy's L6 Praying Mantis katana (also from Nihonzashi).

Ya, that blade looked Really sharp.... I've always liked the look of the Bugei Bamboo also....

Good stuff to see....

Ever used anything from handmadesword.com

?

I haven't Larry, although they look like Chen offerings. I recognize some of the tsuba from another Chen reseller about 10 years ago, I have one of the Oda Nobunaga (I think) Chen blades from that period. The steel was good on that one, but came poorly sharpened and the wrap was both low quality and poorly done. It only lasted about two sessions of tameshigiri before the bottom 3" came apart. The offerings on handmadesword at least look higher quality than that. In my experience with the Chen products, it really pays to go with an importer that really knows swords and actively works on quality control with every blade they sell. Bugei and Nihonzashi both do a LOT of work behind the scenes to make sure that the swords that leave their shops have been thoroughly examined and touched up. I have personal experience with both of those shops also going the extra mile and taking care of the swords they sell after they've been used in the dojo for a while, and that's pretty critical with swords you're going to actually use.

Anyone who uses a Chen blade (even folks who did not buy from Bugei) really owes Keith Larman and James Williams a bit of gratitude for how much work went into shaping the overall quality of what comes out of the Chen forge these days.

(@Larry: probably more info than you actually needed but I wanted to include it for completeness for the casual reader.)