Shura review (yes another one)
Jun 30, 2008 23:32:44 GMT
Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2008 23:32:44 GMT
Few month ago I received my shura (with bohi) from SBG store and lucky me without any customs fees ;D.
After some month of testing, I've felt that a review on SBG can be a good idea so here we go ;D.
As I am a metric system user without any clue how to transcript meters in foots here is the officials mesurements of the shura from cheness :
28" Length
0.3" Width
1.25" Height
0.7" sori
2 lbs 5 oz weight (800 gr for the blade, 400 gr for the saya on my balance but I don't know how much lbs it takes to have a Kg)
Well, after the info here comes some pictures.
As you guessed the sword comes with the classic cheness case. Nice addition for me, it's not like it seems solid or very good quality but hey it looks ways better than a cardboard box!
The sword is also inside your average black tissue bag, no surprise here.
Here we have the katana without the display sageo's knot (well my shura is not really for display so I king of dispose of it).
Good point here, the koiguchi fits really well on the habaki so the saya is really tight on the blade
First bad surprise, a minor flaw on the saya. It seems they put the sageo on the saya when the lake wasn't dry... Not really nice but I don't really care. Second bad surprise the sageo is made of nylon and very stiff. I've changed it whith my PPK's sageo so it's not a big deal but well I don't like nylon at all
Here we have a look on the blade we can see the etched suguha hamon and the bo-bi running over the blade.
The blade is strait and we have an iori mune.
I found some scratches on the blade but no big deal, overall the blade was in good condition
The polish is not first grade (well it is tameshigiri polish after all) but looks nice enought for a beater.
We have the kissaki here with a ko-maru boshi. The shape of the kissaki is not the best I have seen but it seems solid.
A close look on the habaki, it fits well on the blade and in the koiguchi. In all case a better work here than on my PPK.
The mounted tsuka.
Dismounting the blade was not a pleasure, the fittings were assembled very tightly together and well they don't fit very well as we see on the picture with the tsuba so they assemble them with full force. Remounting the katana was also hard as hell and some play showed up but no big deal.
The dismounted tsuka without the fuchi.
The tsuka itself and it's a tough one! No worries to have on this side it's rock solid.
The tsuba, it seems to be plain steel.
The seppas.
The fuchi. It seems to be made of zinc and not steel as it's stated on chiness website...
The kashira, I guess it's made of the same material than the fuchi.
The nakago with the mei of the worker who done the blade I guess.
A close look on the tsuka maki and the same. Another problem here, the ito is made of nylon and not cotton as stated on cheness website... I plan to rewrap the tsuka with some cotton ito I have from Namikawa as for me nylon ito feels horrible in the hand. I've not really checked the same but it seems to be ok.
Last bad point, if the tsuka maki seems to be tight (well I guess they glued it) the ending knots are really loose and the kashira being not glued to the tsuka it goes of place really quickly when using the katana. After like one month of use the kashira wears of totaly of the tsuka and I glued it, cut some exess ito and redone the knots to fix it.
Well after the examination lets move where the shura really shine : the cutting!
The paper test doesn't go so well, but no worries the blade geometry do the trick and the shura cuts really well. I don't have the material to do some video so guess what? Yeah, pictures again
Watter filled bottles are nothing for the shura, and on some cuts the top of the bottle not even fly away and fall right into the base.
Harder, here we have 6 water filled bottle in line, no big deal for the shura either. I've encoutered more resistance on the second cut but nothing unexpected.
Paper mats gives more resistance but the shura do well here too, on this one it's a paper mat with a dry bamboo on the core. Hard one but the shura cut threw as well.
Last cutting test, the paper mat without support (well I just drop it on the cutting stand). The first cut (the one of the picture) nearly left the mat standing on the support but it felt after some momento. The second one was a bit hard but it gone well too, the last cut was quite easy.
After nearly 7 month of use the shura is still in great condition, no bends or even a scratch. It slayed hundreds of watter filled bottles and some papers mats and the blade looks like it has never served.
It also thrust very well and handle like all the katanas I've used on this price range.
Historical accuracy: 1/5. Well, it's far from a nihonto.
Fit & finish: 3/5 The nylon ito and sageo and minor flaws as well as the "zinc" fuchi stated as steel cost 2 point for cheness here.
Structural integrity: 5/5 I've done 2 (really) bad cuts and the shura feels nothing, an hell of a tough guy!
Value for money: 4.5/5 For this price I expect cotton ito not nylon but without that, great bang for the buck!
The end
And remember to be carefull when cutting, stay safe
After some month of testing, I've felt that a review on SBG can be a good idea so here we go ;D.
As I am a metric system user without any clue how to transcript meters in foots here is the officials mesurements of the shura from cheness :
28" Length
0.3" Width
1.25" Height
0.7" sori
2 lbs 5 oz weight (800 gr for the blade, 400 gr for the saya on my balance but I don't know how much lbs it takes to have a Kg)
Well, after the info here comes some pictures.
As you guessed the sword comes with the classic cheness case. Nice addition for me, it's not like it seems solid or very good quality but hey it looks ways better than a cardboard box!
The sword is also inside your average black tissue bag, no surprise here.
Here we have the katana without the display sageo's knot (well my shura is not really for display so I king of dispose of it).
Good point here, the koiguchi fits really well on the habaki so the saya is really tight on the blade
First bad surprise, a minor flaw on the saya. It seems they put the sageo on the saya when the lake wasn't dry... Not really nice but I don't really care. Second bad surprise the sageo is made of nylon and very stiff. I've changed it whith my PPK's sageo so it's not a big deal but well I don't like nylon at all
Here we have a look on the blade we can see the etched suguha hamon and the bo-bi running over the blade.
The blade is strait and we have an iori mune.
I found some scratches on the blade but no big deal, overall the blade was in good condition
The polish is not first grade (well it is tameshigiri polish after all) but looks nice enought for a beater.
We have the kissaki here with a ko-maru boshi. The shape of the kissaki is not the best I have seen but it seems solid.
A close look on the habaki, it fits well on the blade and in the koiguchi. In all case a better work here than on my PPK.
The mounted tsuka.
Dismounting the blade was not a pleasure, the fittings were assembled very tightly together and well they don't fit very well as we see on the picture with the tsuba so they assemble them with full force. Remounting the katana was also hard as hell and some play showed up but no big deal.
The dismounted tsuka without the fuchi.
The tsuka itself and it's a tough one! No worries to have on this side it's rock solid.
The tsuba, it seems to be plain steel.
The seppas.
The fuchi. It seems to be made of zinc and not steel as it's stated on chiness website...
The kashira, I guess it's made of the same material than the fuchi.
The nakago with the mei of the worker who done the blade I guess.
A close look on the tsuka maki and the same. Another problem here, the ito is made of nylon and not cotton as stated on cheness website... I plan to rewrap the tsuka with some cotton ito I have from Namikawa as for me nylon ito feels horrible in the hand. I've not really checked the same but it seems to be ok.
Last bad point, if the tsuka maki seems to be tight (well I guess they glued it) the ending knots are really loose and the kashira being not glued to the tsuka it goes of place really quickly when using the katana. After like one month of use the kashira wears of totaly of the tsuka and I glued it, cut some exess ito and redone the knots to fix it.
Well after the examination lets move where the shura really shine : the cutting!
The paper test doesn't go so well, but no worries the blade geometry do the trick and the shura cuts really well. I don't have the material to do some video so guess what? Yeah, pictures again
Watter filled bottles are nothing for the shura, and on some cuts the top of the bottle not even fly away and fall right into the base.
Harder, here we have 6 water filled bottle in line, no big deal for the shura either. I've encoutered more resistance on the second cut but nothing unexpected.
Paper mats gives more resistance but the shura do well here too, on this one it's a paper mat with a dry bamboo on the core. Hard one but the shura cut threw as well.
Last cutting test, the paper mat without support (well I just drop it on the cutting stand). The first cut (the one of the picture) nearly left the mat standing on the support but it felt after some momento. The second one was a bit hard but it gone well too, the last cut was quite easy.
After nearly 7 month of use the shura is still in great condition, no bends or even a scratch. It slayed hundreds of watter filled bottles and some papers mats and the blade looks like it has never served.
It also thrust very well and handle like all the katanas I've used on this price range.
Historical accuracy: 1/5. Well, it's far from a nihonto.
Fit & finish: 3/5 The nylon ito and sageo and minor flaws as well as the "zinc" fuchi stated as steel cost 2 point for cheness here.
Structural integrity: 5/5 I've done 2 (really) bad cuts and the shura feels nothing, an hell of a tough guy!
Value for money: 4.5/5 For this price I expect cotton ito not nylon but without that, great bang for the buck!
The end
And remember to be carefull when cutting, stay safe