how often should we re-oil the blade?

hi, im new to sword so i would like to know how often i should clean the blade and can i have alternate materials (that can be easily acquired) i could use aside from the maintainance kit you can buy from tozando?

If you do tameshigiri with your blade, wipe off your blade immediately after each mat you just finish cutting. Apply some mineral oil before each noto/sheathing. Basically keep your blade oiled at all times. Wipe off blade and reoil in between each mat you cut. And after your cutting session is over, wipe down blade, apply Noxon (pick up at Home Depot) to entire blade surface (Noxon helps stop any rusting that may start happening from result of cutting soaked tatami), then wipe Noxon off of blade and reoil with choji oil before sheathing sword and putting sword away.

If your sword is not being used for cutting or won't cut at all and only sees kata use, then just wipe blade down after practice and oil the blade up with choji oil and then put your sword away.

If your sword doesn't see use at all, the blade makes no contact with skin or anything else and just sits on display and you take out every now and then to look at, then just the occassional wipe off old oil and reoil with choji oil will do fine.

I have a sword that see's use constantly for awhile and then won't see any for awhile. From what I've seen you should oil your blade once a month no matter what. After a month (even if you don't use it at all) the oil tends to dry up. So I oil my blades once a month weather I think they need it or not.

-Chris Hein

what kind of oil i should use? i haven't got the chance to order from tozando so can i use other oil i can buy on some home depot? if yes, what are my choices?

Van Miranda wrote: what kind of oil i should use?

Choji is mineral oil with a very small amount of clove oil added to it. Mineral oil would be fine by itself. I'm sure someone has noted already that there are many online vendors that would be happy to sell choji; mineral oil is easy to find as well.

John Seavitt

thank you very much...

Oil your blade after every use. Especially if it's not nihonto. Those chinese katana are lower grade steel and exceptionally prone to tarnish (mostly you should be oiling the mune as that is where the oil is going to be whiped off by your hands) Also, after a while you won't need to use as much oil. The saya will soak up the oil over time and eventually the sword will be lubricated slightly when it enters the saya, but to build up to this point takes a few years.

I made the mistake of not oiling when i used the sword for kata. I went to examine my sword one day and saw tarnish down the entire mune! You can believe I felt pretty stupid.

Is this an iaito or a katana that you're using? If it's an iaito then you really don't have to worry about oil much at all. Once a month would work fine. The zinc aluminum blades don't really tarnish.

mine is just an iato..that i got from tozando..