Japanese Sword Katana Disassembly Tutorial

This is brief tutorial on safely disassembling your katana for sword maintenance.

Please be careful anytime you handle a sword.

[UnicornsPoke]

Thank you so much!! Although I do not own ANY sword....I have seen people open them on certain TV shows..(Pawn) and I found it interesting as to how they would quickly pop it apart for further inspection. Great vid. You got right to the point, which I love.

[TsetTsyung]

Hi there SwordNArmoury,
Thank you for making a BRILLIANT tutorial.
I don't know much about the correct culture about Katana's but this video was very respectful (something I believe is important to true practitioners of martial arts...) and informative!
Domo Arigato Gozaimas.

[moparmadness]

very good video.. i am very impressed with your knowledge and care in handling the Katana Careful NOT to touch the blade with your hand.Most impressive display of respect for the blade. thank you. great video.

[Swordnarmory]

Make certain you're trying to get it out the right way. Pegs are narrow on one end and larger on the other, and if inserted correctly should be taken out from one side of the tsuka first, then the other. Inspect your mekugi carefully and be certain you're hammering the narrow end. Otherwise, you've been tightening it. Hope this helps!

[HeadShtBrent]

Ya, when I get the Mekugi out and try to hit my wrist nothing happens, I have had many other stronger arms try to help me and they couldn't get it either.

[del]

wow, my katana is really stubborn compared to yours, the tsuka is way too tight along with the tsuba and they've wrapped the Tsuka ito over the large side of the pins lol. I ended up using a rubber mallet to tap the whole thing out, and then there was the painful part of putting it back together again. I think I might have to get mine custom fitted again

[ZentetsukenVII]

Yes almost always you can remember which side the peg goes in because your hand will be covering its escape. So top peg comes out the right side because your right hand covers it. putting the peg in the wrong way can be very bad for your tsuka core and your peg.

[VideoMasher]

@b262222 a good quality katana is always full tang. almost any katana that is above 60 dollars is full tang. no tang is not as long as the entire handle but it should be just little bit shorter. if you have the two bamboo pegs inside the handle, its full tang.

[AentikDranikan]

the hammer is called Mekuginuki by classic look of it its brass one!! and the pins are called Mekugi

[del]

@1986alkaline I've used a rubber mallet on mine and tapped the tsuba lightly to get the tsuka off (I had to leave my katana in the scabbard to reduce chances of injury) then when I put it back together I used the similar method as shown in the video except I tapped the kashira with the rubber mallet lightly a few times to get it back in withouth damaging it.

[vladimiriantchev]

Well done Kevin and nice iayto as well

[samjane]

thanks for this iv got that exact type katana and was wondering on how to change the hilt so thanks again

[kingfang]

I do not know what kind of sword I have. It was givin to my grandpa in World War II. I resently found out about the tang and researched about it. After this video I tried to remove the pins but it turns out there are none! All there is is one golden flower with a nail in it at the top of one side and one more at the bottom of the other side. There is very tight leather wrapped around the handle and what looks like snake skin underneath. Please if you know what kind of sword this is and how to remove the handle please let me know I really appreciate it.

[laksivrak]

Thank you very much for this information, will post video of progress

[b]

@VideoMasher3000
i do have the 2 bamboo pegs inside the handle. i just thought that a tang should be as long as the entire handle i got my katana custom order and costed about 700 $ it is diferencial clay temberatured battle ready.
thanks a lot for the info!

[kawakami]

Dear Kevin,
I have a first generation Hanwei Practical Plus Katana. I want to disassemble my sword because I want to work on the blade's finish (I want to remove the frosty hamon). While I was able to remove the tsuka I can't seem to be able to disassemble from the tsuba on. The tsuba is really tight and I can't imagine how much tighter the habaki would be. How can I remove the tight tsuba and habaki without damaging my sword? Thank you for your help and awesome videos!

[joshjacobs]

Is it possible once the tsuba is removed to leave it off and have the katana resemble a shirasaya? Will the katana close fully or be left with a gap or loose?

[AgoNyShinya]

Maybe the tsuka(the handle) was too tight. you can use a wooden hammer or something is softer than iron hammer, lay your sword down on a vertical dimension(your tsuka must be lifted high to the floor) and then you smash it on the tsuba very nicely, hit it again and again until tsuba is free to pull out.

[alexmccleod]

On my sword it looks like the dowel aren’t straight across. If you look at the narrow side you can clearly see one dowel slightly higher than the other. Does that mean they are four separate dowel pegs in mine?

[Akirayashiki]

@FailureRuux you could just clean the blade but after a while the nakago will get a bit rusty and it might spread to the blade, so your better off cleaning the whole thing. you know what they say, better safe than sorry :P