Antique ox-tail dao:
I thought this might of some interest to those who practice with the dao. It is my own personal opinion that practicing with weapons as close to the originals helps one understand the techniques better and to demystify a lot of the "flowery" lore and moves that have crept into the forms. This is a typical late 19th century, turn of the 20th century oxtail dao.
The piece is very tired and fatigued, characterized by multiple areas of deep pitting, hammer marks one commonly sees in field repairs to bent swords, and a substantial crack in the cutting edge near the center of percussion. The tip end of the blade has been ground down so much that it is less than 0.5mm in width.
Yet, I think, in it's day, this was a slightly above average weapon for the following reasons:
1. The fullers are fairly well made and straight.
2. The piece features a faceted spine, which is typical of the better quality pieces of era. Incidentally, the dao also features a "bamboo" pattern spine near the forte, which is a common motif.
Since this sword is so fatigued, it isn't worth anything to the collecting community. However, despite how thin the tip is, the blade is still well balanced (center of gravity is ~5 inches from the guard, which is typical of real antique dao) and so I decided to clean it up for my new practice dao.
I couldn't really get rid of the deep scratches without losing too much of the blade, so I had to find a balance between preservation vs restoration.
The dao is of pattern-welded steel with a qiang-gang (insert) edge of high carbon steel. The edge was quite hard and I could barely scratch it with a metal file. This old warrior was meant to be used. Upon cleaning up the rust, it was revealed that on one side of the forte, there is a plum flower motif, the other side a slogan.
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Originally Posted by Neil Anderson
