"Gotoba" is a name of emperor in the early 13th century. We named this project after the emperor's episode. He invited master smiths to his palace and made swords by himself. Probably he did only a small part of sword making. The hardening work (tempering) is most possible for amateurs.
Now, we introduce blades what customers have done the hardening work (or some other stages) by themselves. Of course they are amateurs, and our smith who supports customer's challenge is not a master smith. But those blades show something useful to study "what sword is".
Tanto "Q"
Big success of hardening work
Tanto "Ryo"
Calling the choji hamon out of the steel
Tanto "US"
Quenching work (tempering) was done by University Students.
Yoroidoshi style tanto
Challenging clay designing, quenching work and polishing (finishing part)
Ken blade
Tanto blade
Trying wavy pattern hamon on a meteorite blade
Gotoba sisters
Ladies challenged on sister blades with clay designning and quenching work.
Quenching on a meteorite blade
As a matter of fact, there were many failed challenges behind of these successes.