A samurai sword that can be unsheathed was one of my very first ideas when I began to get serious about silversmithing. The design was meant to utilize the sheathed sword as the clasp, so that, unsheathed, the necklace can betaken off. Originally I made these using a flattened tube for the sheath, later developing the design so that the sheath was fabricated to match each sword individually.
This particular katana was meant to be elegant in its design, for this reason I chose to make a katana "kenuki-gata" meaning without guard. It hangs in the same way that a samurai sword would be worn on the belt, ready to be drawn.
