Zhisword

Hi,

I do own a nice Zhisword katana and did a review HERE. Unfortunately, I had not bought any Chinese jian from them so I'm unable to comment

Here are a couple of emails from Zhisword about the functionality of their weapons:

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Hello Friend,

stiff(solid) blade and the hardness is enough for sharpening, that all available for machine sharpened, or hand sharpened. some of the kichen knife are made out of stainless steel , it also sharpeneed.
hand sharpening work require the steel hardness reach some standard.

DK511 blade is aligned with handle.




Yours sincrely
Mr.Zhang
Zhi Sword Forge


Hello Friend,

Thank you for your concerning.

Our products are different from the vast low-end mass production in the market. Most of our product are hand forged, and polished. Certainly we have some low-end products for beginner.

stainless,and flexible sword not available for cutting practice, it is for movement in Wushu practice.

only steel blade is available for cutting, also that required hand sharpened. Japanese Katana is combined Chinese dao sword, and western sword's advantage, their characters are similar.


Hello Tom.

the DK511 production can be used for Kungfu practice.
you can see the Wushu Jian catalog, we wrote "hand sharpened" in description , these swords are available for cutting.
If you need me recommend one for you , y ou can let me know your request,and budget.

Thank you!

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I think the overall message was that anything not "stainless" nor "flexible" can be sharpened (or are already sharpened by them) and used for cutting targets.

I have recently seen many new products from him. They seem to fall into 3 categories: the first are those flexible Wushu blades and stainless ornamentals, with some beginner's swords under $100; then there is a somewhat intermediate level of swords that have better fittings and more styles and types of blades, and then there are the expensier swords made from folded steel or inserted edge.

I'm hoping someone out there has experience with their Chinese Swords; if Garrett stops his standard production line, it'll be harder to find functional ones under $500...

... But if these are good, then we'll still have a source for affordable jian!

Hi,

I own a Zhisword jian, I got mine in September last year.
www.zhisword.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=20_55&products_id=184

The jian overall looks good in particular the blade as I opted for a folded steel bade instead of the mono steel one advertised. However I would not use mine for cutting of any kind because the tang is only threaded with a nut that gets lose easily even when dry handling. The scabbard has a tight fit, with the blade only slotting in a particular angle. Also the fittings on the scabbard were lose, but that was easily fixed with a bit of glue.

Although there are quite a few faults with the jian i got, since I got one of the lower range. I think that maybe the higher end stuff, the ones with the additional peg or metal pin in the tang for extra security might be better, but can’t say for sure as I don’t own any of the higher end stuff.

There customer service was excellent, as I usually get a reply within 24 hours. However if you do decide on ordering from them make sure they know precisely what you want as there might be some lost in translation.

I think anyone looking for a fully functional jian should wait for the Scott Rodell Hanwei Jian. It should be out in a few months time. But also from looking at the prototype it looks awesome.

I might write a review if I have the time in the future, but the only camera I have is the one on my phone which sucks.

Zhisword does have a nice variety of Jians and Daos to choose from (one of the reason why I got mine) but their functionality is still questionable. I have not yet seen a review that has done any cutting test with their jians and daos so it is unknown how well these swords will perform while cutting. I have only seen some old review of their katana sword where they performed some cutting test. The jian I got from them was said to be able to cut however as I said previously the nut on the pommel gets lose to easily so cutting is out of the question.

There are other manufactures such as Jin shi or Sino swords that have some nice swords, they can also custom make jians and daos of many different designs at a reasonable low price.
www.jin-shi.com/products.htm
www.sinosword.com/Product/?childsort=100037

I’ve managed to take some pictures of the jian dissembled and assembled. The tang on mine looks kinda thin but I have seen some historical swords with thin tangs like this. But the bad thing is that the threaded section of the tang looks like if it might be welded (not sure if it’s the safe way of welding or the dangerous spot welding).

If the nut is removed I think there is enough of the thread to peen it, but I guess the wooden handle could also be cut shorter so the thread could be longer for peening.

Well, I did my own inquiry to Zhisword asking about the following product: www.zhisword.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=20_55&products_id=186

The price is only $149.99 so I was expecting a response that the sword is not suitable for cutting.

Here's what i was told:
My Inquiry-


The First Response -


The Second Response -


So I guess we will have to wait for a verdict until I have a spare $150 plus shipping burning a hole in my pocket and see. However, I want to get my Jin-Shi first. I will give Zhisword credit for promptness in answering the e-mails the message series took place over a fifteen minute time period while I was slugging down coffee. So they might prove worthwhile, we need more research. The parts of the Zhisword emails I left out were related to a wonky e-mail link on their page so not really connected to a discussion about product quality.

I haven’t contact Zhisword since I got it almost a year ago when my knowledge about swords was quite limited. I don’t think that I will contact them as I do like my sword as a display piece. And I already have the Hanwei Adam Hsu jian that I use for my Wu Taiji and Shaolin practice.

The sword seems to taper to half the thickness from base to tip, not sure of the exact measurements as I don’t have a way to measure the thickness of the blade. But it is advertise at 0.85 thick.

Ah, I've been meaning to make a thread asking about Zhiswords for some time now, glad to see someone else had the idea as well!

I'm hesitant to take the plunge and buy one since most of the reviews I've been able to find are of their katana, rather than their Chinese blades. And of course they have a huge range of products and prices, which means the forge itself might defy easy categorization. I just don't know what to think without having a page on Sword-Manufacturer's-Guide to refer to!

However, I've fallen in love with this particular piece, and when I find myself with the appropriate amount of disposable income I may just have to "take one for the team" as it were and give it a try:
www.zhisword.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=20_54&products_id=606
As beautiful as the more intricately detailed jian are, there's something about the stark contrast between the black and gold designs here that I find very visually appealing.

Having seen the tang on edge's model (thank you, by the way, for sharing those pictures) I'm a little leery of dropping $400 on the above jian, but given the price difference I expect (well, I hope) it will be of much sturdier construction. I must remember to ask Mr. Zhang about this.

And of course, if and when I'm able to procure one of these babies I'll share my impressions of it with you fine folks.

On the contrary any hardness over 50 should be fine. Scott Rodell did a review of an Arms&Armor Jian, A&A tempers their swords to around 50rc. After hitting a tree and cutting bamboo, no edge damage at all. So even at 50rc, you've got a hard enough edge.


Seems like I need to take my Zhisword apart and see how the tang looks. My zhisword is a $700 model, so hopefully quality improves as price increases.