The tsuka (pronounced TSKA, almost a single beat) is the handle of the katana — the part your hands actually close around. Everything the blade does, it does because the tsuka let your body deliver it. Strip away the romance and a sword is a lever; the tsuka is where you grip that lever, so it has to do two jobs at once: lock the blade rigidly to your hands, and stay alive enough to feel.
What a Tsuka Actually Is
A tsuka is not a single piece. It is a hollow wooden core, the tsuka-shitaji, split and carved from honoki wood so it closes perfectly around the tang — the unsharpened nakago that runs from the blade into the grip. Over that bare wood goes a skin of polished rayskin, the same, and over that the cord that gives the handle its texture, the tsuka-ito wrap. The whole assembly is capped at the end by the pommel, or kashira, and collared at the blade end by the fuchi. It is, quite literally, a small piece of furniture engineered to fail gracefully under shock.
How It Holds Together
What surprises most newcomers is that nothing is glued in a true tsuka. The blade is held by friction and by one or two small bamboo pegs, the mekugi, driven through holes in the wood and the tang. Tap the pegs out and the entire handle slides off, revealing the maker’s signature, the mei. That removability is the test of an honest sword. A tsuka that is epoxied shut is hiding a tang it does not want you to inspect. You can see how the core is fitted to the steel on our how it’s forged page.
Judging a Tsuka Before You Buy
Hold it. A good tsuka has no rattle, no give where the blade meets the habaki collar and guard. The wrap should be tight and even, the rayskin nodes proud under your fingers, the length suited to two hands with room between them. For a first sword, a clean, well-fitted handle matters more than ornament — browse our beginner katana for grips built to be used, or step up to a master-grade katana when you want the handle dressed to match the steel. Return to the anatomy overview to see how the tsuka sits in the whole.