'Flower of Fiji' Hand Forged Minamoto Katana in traditional folded steel with a clay tempered and Soshu Kitae lamination.

This hand forged katana is clay tempered. This involves smearing clay on the blade during heating and quenching to offer a uniform hardness to the blade and remove weak points which can occur when the heating or quenching is less even. It also allows the smith, by placing the clay thicker on certain parts of the blade, to make the edge harder (thus more able to keep the famous razor sharp samurai edge) and the rest of the blade less hard but more able to absorb impact.



The blade is also laminated using the ‘soshu kitae’ lamination process. Soshu kitae comes from legendary Japanse swordsmith Masamune and involves an extremely complex process resulting in a differentially hardened tri-steel blade.



The hamon on this sword is real. There is no bohi (groove in the blade for weight reduction).The wooden handle is wrapped in genuine Stingray skin (Samekawa) before the traditional cotton handle wrapping (Tsukamaki).The saya (sheath) is engraved with mother of pearl and the fittings are of buffalo horn. The sageo (or ‘ito’) – which is the material wrapped around the saya – is made of black silk.The wooden box, silk sleeve, cleaning kit and stand are included.

Overall Length (cm)	106
Blade Length (cm)	73
Handle Length (cm)	29
Blade Width (cm)	3.2
Blade Thickness (cm)	0.75
Blade Material	Clay-tempered 1095
Handle Material	Wood
Blade Hardness	HRC 58
Saya Material	Hard Wood
Tsuba Material	Brass
Fittings Material	Brass
Sageo Material	Silk