TLDR
I am proposing Funding (10eth) to Handmake 9 Folded steel Katan Swords with Custom water Transfer printing applied to the Saya/Scabbard with Noun Art. 4 of the Blades will be sold as NFT’s with all eth raised sent back to the Treasury and the remaining 5 Will be Raffled and sent to Noun Holders wherever they are!
About Me,
You guys can call me Marshal. I have been making blades since I was 18 or 19 and it took several years before I could make a decent sword, Blacksmithing/Bladesmithing as a beginner is excruciatingly harsh. The process from heating and forging the metal to clay tempering if you are, and eventually probably the most dreadful part polishing are all tedious but as a whole it’s the process that makes all of these components worth it, I gain such a level of fulfilment from it it’s really something I will do for the rest of my life. It’s my own form of art. And I would love to share these skills with the Nouns Community.
{Me in the Workshop 
}
Forging style
Below is a piece that I made about a year ago using the Japanese Style Shinogi-Zukuri, the blade is laminated 1080 and L6 steels in the kobuse method of construction around a mild steel/iron core. The blade being 22 ¾’ in length. Overall length being 34 ¼’. The visible design of grain on this sword, the (Hada) intrigues me a lot, this blade is one of my more favorite pieces for sure, and this will be the blade I will be making again with a Nouns Touch. All fittings like the Tsuba and Kashira will also be handpicked and added by me as well. In addition, I will also be applying water transfer printing or Hydro Dipping to the Saya/Scabbard of the Blade, something I have been doing over the past few years on things like bike helmets and even some power tools and am really confident in (pictures below). I Have picked out some images of previous Noun Art and backgrounds on the Noun Twitter, but I will also open a discussion on Discourse asking for some more art for the Saya, as variety is all ways better.
(This is an image i got off the internet of an person Hydro Dipping a flash light, so you guys get the idea of what Water Transfer Painting Is.)
Budget
The steels used will be high carbon 1080 and 1095, which in itself isn’t too expensive being under $1000 altogether, a Large portion of the budget will go to the fittings which will all be Japanese antiques piece from www.touken-matsumoto.jp imported directly from Japan, they are a very reputable and well established company based in the Chiba Prefecture and I have purchased pieces from them before with no problems. A large chunk of the Budget will go to the labor. the whole process of forging, polishing, and putting together a well-made folded steel blade can take a longtime, the one above took me 2 months to fully complete on and off. 9 blades would easily take a year by myself to make, fortunately I have an apprentice now who can aid, and I think we could cut down the time to around 4 months. That’s both of us working every day not doing any other forging task.
Budget Breakdown
1080 & 1095 high carbon steel – $1,000
Antique Katana Fittings[ Kashira, Tsuba, Habaki ect] - $9100
Labor and essentials (half going to my Apprentice) - $8000
Total-10eth
Conclusion
I have been watching and reading about Nouns for about a month now and I recently made this discourse account to formally be a part of the community and to also submit this small grant, what you guys are doing for small artist ad content creators is just awesome and it would be a privilege to be able to make a few blades for such an amazing community and movement. Either way it goes Nouns are really something special!