[& Such] Kendo sword guard

[kaizo]

I haven't really mentioned it on here but I come from a family that does kendo. I'll leave a Wikipedia link below because it is rather a niche compared to judo etc...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kendo

We use bamboo swords that we strike each other with over armour (it was first invented as a way of being able to do full contact sword fighting without using an actual katana or a wooden sword).

It has a leather guard and I thought it would be nice to make a few for myself and my friends so I made the one below.

The leather I used was a tan-coloured, veg-tan 4-5mm calf outer and the mid-layer was leather that was originally tanned as a shoe sole leather.

In retrospect, I would probably use 2 thinner mid-layers as when I cut the leather it 'bevelled' a bit because it was so thick.

One side is left plain for competitions in case the officials take issue to the basket weave pattern (at which point it could be flipped over).

Me fixing kendo armour was actually the reason why I started leather crafting (which I then diversified into making leather knife sheaths) so it's really nice that I came full circle to making a sword guard for kendo.

Thank you all very much for reading.

 

[Robber58]

Nice clean work partner!
Randy

 

[kaizo]

Nice clean work partner!
Randy

Thank you very much!

 

[Horsewright]

Very cool! Great work and a good tale behind it!

 

[kaizo]

Very cool! Great work and a good tale behind it!

Thank you very much!

 

[Horsewright]

Thank you very much!

Ya bet. What would be the judges aversion to the tooling on the guard? maybe catching and holding an opponents blade?

 

[kaizo]

Ya bet. What would be the judges aversion to the tooling on the guard? maybe catching and holding an opponents blade?

It's mostly to do with the avoidance of distraction to your opponent. Although like you say if the design was beyond what people reasonably call flat and the blade can catch that would be taken issue with as well.

The tooling on the one I made should be ok by most judge's books since the colour is tan but you can get some really colourful guards (which have a plain tan flipside for competitions which is where I got the idea from). Like the ones below:

Normally the leather guards are made of a single thick layer like the ones below. It's mostly made of cowhide but the most coveted ones are actually boar hide. They get sold for a fairly decent price.

There are even guards that are made of stingrays like the one below: