Don’t you hate seeing that little hole appear in the thumb of your kote?  You want to ignore it, but it’s just going to get bigger.  You could patch it, but in the long run, it won’t hold.  You could your kote away to be repaired, but that’s expensive and you’ll be without your kote for quite some time.  You could just throw your kote away and buy a new pair… Or, you could fix them yourself.

First, let me say that I am not a professional kote repairman, nor am I a professional leather smith.  This is not the way that a professional would repair your kote.  A professional would open the seams of your kote and completely restitch the palm.  This is an alternative home repair that has worked well for me.

If you want professional quality repair work for your kote, send them to a professional and pay the appropriate fee.  If you do not have experience sewing, or working with leather, consider carefully what you may be getting into.  Leather can be difficult to work with, especially soft leathers like deerskin, if that is what you’re planning on using. 

If you still want to move forward, practice on something else first.  Ask your sensei if your dojo has any old, worn out kote that you can practice with.

Repairing your own kote is a lot like jodan… once you start in earnest, there is no going back.  Read all the way through these directions to see if you really want to give it a try…

CONTINUE AT YOUR OWN RISK!!

1.Another pair of kote.  (This might take you some time to finish… You might make a horrible mistake.  Have a back up.)

2.A pair of scissors… not your mom/wife’s good scissors!  They need to be sharp enough to cut leather well, but tough enough to take the abuse.

3.A sharpie or other marker.

5.Some thread.  NOT regular sewing thread.  At the very least you will need some waxed linen thread, or some artificial sinew.  Ask your leather supplier for recommendations.

6.A thimble.  It should fit on your index and/or middle finger.

7.A small pair of needle nosed pliers.

8.Some leather.  Most leather shops have scrap bins that you can pick through and charge by the pound.  This is a very economical way to it.  The example I’m giving uses 4 ounce, split grain cow hide.  This is a little on the heavy side and will take some breaking in, but it will take plenty of abuse and the split grain gives it the rough surface on both sides which helps in gripping the tsukagawa.  Make sure you check both sides of the leather to see if there are any flaws such as holes, scars, or thin spots.

9.A good samurai movie that you’ve seen before and don’t need to pay too much attention to.  The longer the better… you’re going to be at this for a while.  My best time is 2 hours per kote.

10.Snacks.

11.The intestinal fortitude to take on a difficult, precise, repetitive task.  Did I mention repetitive.  If not, I’ll mention it again.

Do you have all that together?  Think you’re ready to go?  In that case, put the movie in the player, but don’t start it yet… I’ll tell you when.  And no snacks yet either.   If you have a dog, be careful he doesn’t eat your snacks while you’re not looking.  Here we go!

1.Unlace your Kote to give yourself some room to work.  If you’re experienced with stitchery, you might be able to skip this part.  Pay attention so you can re-lace them when you’re done.

2.Use the sharpie to mark the palm leather and kote leather on three important points…

•The tip of the thumb.

•The crotch of the thumb.

1. •The tip of the finger box (where the middle finger would sit).
   

3. 3.Carefully cut away the palm leather from kote, staying close to the seam.  DO NOT cut into the “blue”” part of the kote.  When you reach the marks made in step 2, be sure that some of the mark is still visible on the kote when the leather is cut away.  Make one continuous cut so that the palm remains in one piece.  You will be leaving a small amount of the original leather still attached to the kote.  You have now passed the point of no return.
   

4.Lay your new leather out on a flat surface, nice side up.  Which is the nice side?  It’s the side that you want to face out… toward the shinai.

5.Lay the old palm on tip of the new leather, outside facing up (you want the new piece to be identical to the old, not a mirror image).  Flatten it out as best you can.  If possible, use push pins to secure both of these pieces to your work surface.

6.Using your sharpie trace the outline of your old palm leather onto the new leather.  Stay as close to the old piece as possible to account for stretching that has occurred through use.  Be sure to transfer the 3 marks from step 2 onto the new leather as well.  Set the old leather aside.

7. 7.Use your scissors to carefully cut the new palm from the new leather.  Cut on the INSIDE of the line.  You want this leather to be somewhat smaller than the old leather.  WARNING!  The piece of leather you produce will not look right!  Trust me and keep going, it will fit back the way it should in the end.
   

At this point, you’ve finished the prep work.  You can now take everything over to the couch, gather your snacks and start the movie.  Now the real fun starts!

8.Thread your needle and line the marks from step 2 on your new palm leather to the marks on the kote leather.  Use a simple stitch to tack the new leather in place at each of the three points.  The reason for this is that leather can be very squirrely.  You start stitching, and by the time you are half way through the piece will have stretched and shifted and will no longer line up properly.  Tacking it down at these points will help to keep the palm in place while you work.

9.Now tack your new palm to the kote at the point where your old leather started.  There should still be a piece there to work with.  I like to begin on the side where the thumb is and head toward the thumb.  Using a baseball stitch (that’s what I call it, because the result looks like a baseball seam and is very secure) begin stitching your new leather to the kote, using the little piece of the old palm as an anchor for your stitches. 

Each stitch should come from the inside of the kote, out through the palm, then back into the inside of the kote and out through the anchor leather.  It is somewhat of a figure eight motion.  In the straight areas your stitches can be a little on the long side (5mm max.), but should be shorter (2 to 3mm) on the inside of the thumb, tip of the thumb, and end of the finger box.

When making the stitches, use the thimble to push the needle through as far as you can.  If you cannot pull the needle through from the other side, use the needle nose pliers to pull the stitch through.  If you need to use the pliers be sure to grab the needle close to the leather and pull straight.  If you twist the needle with pliers it will break over time.

10.Repeat this process until you have gone all the way around the kote and anchored the last stitch at the end of the palm leather.  Be patient as you go.  You will be transforming what is essentially a two dimensional object into a three dimensional space.  Ask any theoretical physicist how much fun that can be!

11.Re-lace your kote and try them on.  Make sure there are not extra folds of leather or inconsistencies, and make sure they fit correctly.  Pick up a shinai and swing it around.  Go to your regular practice and try out your kote.  See if your thumbs or fingertips get broken or otherwise injured.  If any of the above symptoms occur, you may need to adjust the size of your palm leather.

These problems usually result from the palm piece being too big.  Take out your stitches, trim the leather, and start the process again.  Repeat this until the kote fit properly. 

Congratulations!  You’ve just made your own kote repair!  You can do this as many times as you like until the padding wears out.