BLADE MAINTENANCE

Traditional Blade maintenance involves Choji oil for lubrication and pumice chalk powder, delivered with a funky little tool to clean up and polish the blade. Although it is all very nice, these are not materials you find at your local hardware store.

It is important to clean up and maintain your blade after any use, specially Shinken - all of them made of carbon steel that rusts very easily. After our last Tameshigiri session in November, I waited too long (24 hours) to clean up and oil my blade, and there were a few stains showing were the mat had been cut.

In case of emergency, I found out that NOXON 7 metal polish is an excellent stain remover - you can get it in any Autopart store for about $5.00, and Remington gun oil an excellent lubricant - Available from all gun shops fro about $5.00 also.


I know, this is NOT traditional, but personally I'd rather maintain my sword in a non-traditional way than see it rusted in a traditional way...

Samurais were practical people, and they would very likely have used these very convenient products had they been available back then !