Making a Naginata

[Migoto]

Here is some advise on making one.



Pick a nice wood. No knots and long running grain it must go from one tip to the other.



Cut the wood to a little over the length, width and height. The grain should run along the widest width of the E-Bu. I used a table saw and tried to make as straightest cut possible. The wood will warp if you only cut one side to get it to the correct dimensions. So cut both sides. If it warps you’re going to shape it with a belt sander anyway.



Sand the wood. The E-Bu is oval. So up to this step you will have a piece of wood about 68 inches by 1 1/8th inch by just under an inch maybe 9/10th inch. When you sand remember you are trying to make it oval and straight with a consistent diameter from tip to tip.



At this point sand the wedge where the Ha-Bu attaches and cut down the length if it is longer then 66 ½ inches. If the E-Bu is not straight cut the excess length off of the end that will affect the straightness the most. When sanding the wedge where the Ha-Bu goes pick the end that is the least straight. As the end where the Ha-Bu goes will be sanded down more and give you a chance to bring it in to trueness.



After your done working the wood on the belt sander. Sand it by hand down the length, tip to tip with the grain. You should be able to make any last corrections in diameter and trueness, as well as give the E-Bu a nice smooth finish.



Use mineral oil and /or carnauba wax to protect the wood to your preference.

[Axloth]

Hi there,

I've also tried making an e-bu with a piece of white oak stick of about 2 meters, supplied by my sensei. For the dimensions i used my own e-bu as a model (measured the habu tip and ishizuki oval diameters, the overall length and the taperness from ishizuki to habu tip), using a caliper (a sliding ruler with this "beak" for measuring). For getting started on working on it, this page helped me alot:

http://ejmas.com/tin/tinart_taylor_1100.htm

First I sawed the stick to the appropriate lentgh (about 169,5 cm for this one). Although I do have a bandsaw, I tried it the more traditional way using a woodshave/woodplane to shape the oval cross-section and the taper (clamping the stick on a work bench). The caliper and "feeling the shape" helped me check the oval shapes at different points to ensure a good copy of my original e-bu. The wedge on where the ha-bu goes I also used the woodplane after I marked the correct shaving distances. It wasn't that hard, it just took me a long time (oh, about some 5-6 hours .

After the shape was ok, I went at it with rough sandpaper (grain 80) and then fine (grain 240). That way it came out nice and smooth. Then I boiled some linseed oil for about 10 minutes and oiled it, which I repeated the next day. The oil gives the finished e-bu a nice shine and it brings out the grain wood patterns. Sensei was quite pleased with the result and asked me if I liked to make another 12 .

Now, for the remaining part of the stick which I sawed off I decided to make a shoto/wakizashi bokken using the beltsander clamped on the workbench. First thing I noticed when I started working on it, is that a beltsander is bloody noisy as hell (had to stuff foam in my ears to keep me from getting deaf). It's also quite tricky to handle the wood while pressing it on the sander, so you might want to practice on a scrap piece of wood if you aren't used to working with it. But the advantige is that it goes really quick and the surface is quite smooth already after it's finished.

Well, that's my experience on having a go on selfcrafting some budo weapons. On the wood selection my senpai said that it's best to use (European or Asian) white oak or red oak, white oak being more dense.

You could try and use other exotic types, but it's not really recommended because of its different stiffness and density properties in case you plan on using it in official shiai. This is because official shiai rulings are based on the Japanese white oak or red oak e-bu model, at least that's what I think (could be wrong though). Also because of the different properties, the one who will eventually feel the difference most will be your opponent on who you are swinging your naginata about, so for example the poor guy or girl you are hitting will feel more impact energy if you use a heavier and stiffer wood type, plus the extra stiffness will give yourself more "bounce" feedback.

By the way, does anybody know the official weight limits or requirements for shiai-type naginata (including or excluding the ha-bu)?