Ryumon Zodiak Katana
Oct 1, 2010 13:48:07 GMT
Post by TomK on Oct 1, 2010 13:48:07 GMT
Ryumon Zodiak Katana
Review by Tom Kinder of Goose Creek, SC USA.
I love Katanas, especially those that are differentially hardened. There’s something about a nice hamon that just takes my breath away. After seeing the positive reviews of the Ryumon practical dragon katana and seeing that it is nearly one hundred dollars cheaper than most other swords like it I decided that I wanted to check out the Ryumon phenomenon. It only took me a few minutes of looking to see all the other swords Ryumon was offering for a similar price point and start drooling over the possibilities. They were offering folded blades that were also differentially hardened. Frankly, I was stunned. This seemed to be an unbelievable deal. I had several models to choose from and I picked the Zodiak because I liked the fittings and saya. Shopping around, I decided to buy from art-of-the-ancient dot com.
I was out of town when it arrived at home, but my wife received it and put it in the closet for me. When I got home and opened the closet I wondered where it was before I realized that the skinny box up front was it and not another box I keep some bare blades in while they wait for attention. The box was thinner than I expected having seen all the reviews and advertisements that mentioned the beautiful wood display box that is extra wide to accommodate a cleaning kit. This box obviously did not have that wooden box inside. Also, another mystery presented itself at this point: the return address on the box clearly stated it was from “Jason Moore, Swords of Might 235 Spring Street, Wilkes Barre, PA 18702” now that was strange! I did not order this sword from Swords of Might, in fact, I have never ordered anything from Swords of Might (perhaps I should have).
It was well packed though with a box inside a box with Styrofoam peanuts in between.
The inner box held the sword suspended in Styrofoam blocks and with the satin sword bag tucked away to the side. That was it, no wood box, no cleaning kit, no certificate. I was feeling disappointed but I reminded myself that the important part was the sword. If the sword was good nothing else mattered.
Pulling the sword from the box I immediately knew this sword was light and fast. In fact, it felt too light at first. Next I noticed the beautiful dark stained wood saya and was very impressed even after I noticed that the black fittings on either end were not buffalo horn as is traditional but rather just heavily painted with black paint to give the appearance of traditional fittings. Well it is a bargain priced sword, I can forgive that. The sageo was also very cheap shoe-lace like material. Again not too bad I can live with it for the price.
Next I pulled it from the saya to examine the fittings and remove the tsuka for a good safety inspection. Of couse I got a look at the blade while I did this and yet another surprise grabbed my eye right away, but I’ll tell you about that later, first the fittings.
The tsukamaki (hilt wrapping) on this sword was not what I had hoped for in the least. It was loose enough I could shift the ito (thread) easily and in fact, I had to, to get at the forward mekugi. The same was real and looked very nice with large nodes and an even pearl-white color.
The menuki are small and hard to see but they are brass (or something like brass) castings of the zodiac animals from Chinese lore. The loose ito allowed me to shift it enough to get a better look at them and they looked to be well cast with no visible lines and good detail. If I had wanted I could have shifted the ito enough to remove the menuki, but I didn’t, of course.
The kashira looked good, had a well defined dragon on it and appeared to be decent quality brass/copper material. I was deeply disappointed to see that it was loose enough that I could pull it most of the way of the tsuka core. A small amount of epoxy would take care of that later, but it irked me.
The tsuba was very attractive, made from brass/copper and very solid feeling. It featured the Chinese zodiac animals on each side of it, six on one side and the other six on the opposite. PROBLEM! The seppa rattled against the tsuba but the tsuba, fuchi and tsuka were all very tight and immobile. I didn’t like this one bit and it worried me that maybe I wouldn’t be able to cut with the sword. Well, I figured at least I’ll pull the tsuka off and take a look, maybe I can get another seppa on there to tighten it up. No dice! The tsuka would not come off. I even applied a rubber mallet to the job and nothing shifted at all. Instead of breaking the tsuka, I decided that it wasn’t going anywhere and should be safe to cut with.
THE BLADE:
As I slid the blade out of its saya I instantly noticed what was obviously a WIRE BRUSHED FAKE HAMON!!!
What the heck is going on here? This thing is supposed to be differentially hardened! I looked at it very closely and noticed three things:
1. Rust spots on the ha (cutting edge).
very irritating, but I can take care of that.
2. There did appear to be a real hamon under the fake one. I could see the shadow of it through a very rough polish on the surface of the blade. In the picture below I have drawn a line where the real hamon is so it will show up better.
3. I could find no evidence of a grain in the steel indicating that the blade was folded. Now I was getting angry.
Moving down the blade I came to the kissaki.
It had the same polished on yokote that many other sub $300 katana have but I was pleasantly surprised to see that the thickness of the kissaki did actually flare out then taper to the point like it would if it had a real yokote.
I also found some more rust on the mune near the kissaki.
I called Art of the Ancients to see what was going on with the strange return address and the non-folded, folded blade, fake hamon over real hamon deal. After a day and the vendor speaking with the forge (they claim) I was told that the sword has a wire brushed hamon and that I cannot see the hada grain pattern in the steel because it wasn’t polished to bring those features out because that sort of polish is very expensive and would raise the price of the sword. They did swear that it really is a folded blade. As for the rust and the loose tsuba the forge’s opinion was that these things were normal maintenance items and that I should deal with them (“get some shims and fix it”). The store, however, implied that because of the rust they might replace it for me but I would have to pay to ship it and they would only give me another of the same, so I decided to take care of it myself, polish it, etch it, and see what I can find for hamon and hada. oh yeah, I was also told the wood box and cleaning kit were a limited time offer from Ryumon and the time limit is over so they are no longer included. the store would happily remove that info from their web page advert.
At this point I’m just angry but since I had tatami soaking I might as well cut see how it cuts. I took it outside for some dry handling.
it may be an ugly blade, but it moves beautifully. This became obvious to me at once and I actually began to have some fun swinging it around. This katana is lightning fast and agile it almost felt like there was nothing but a tsuka in my hand. I also finally noticed just how sharp the blade was, and that it was rather thin feeling. I didn’t know how much until I started taking its measurements, but the Ryumon is a skinny 3/16 inches thick while my kaze is a whole 1/8th thicker at 5/16. That’s quite a difference! No wonder it’s so light and fast.
here are the measurements:
Blade length: 28 inches
Hilt length: 12 inches
Overall: 41 inches
POB (point of balance): 4 ½ inches from base of tsuba
Weight: 2lbs 4oz and 3lbs 0oz including saya (this sword is lighter in its saya than many swords are out of theirs)
TESTING!
I guess I should have some fun with it after all and someone had to cut those soaking tatami. ;D
I’ll let the videos pretty much talk for themselves here but this is where I decided I actually liked this sword.
First up plastic bottles:
That went well enough, but hey, any hunk of metal can cut plastic jugs.
How about tatami? Can it cut it? I’ll start with a half mat.
Impressive, it does seem to be a good cutter. But now I want to try full roles of well soaked mugen dachi tatami.
In each of these videos I botched some cuts and bent the blade. In both cases it wasn’t too hard to bend it back so I’m not terribly upset by that. In the first video the bend had a twist in it which was a little bit harder to get out, but I was actually kind of happy to see it because it’s another sign that, yes, this sword is differentially hardened.
It performed very well, but I didn’t feel confident enough to try a double roll with it. When my form was on it cut through easily.
So I wanted to see just how sharp and fast this sword was and I remember our own Vyapada cutting empty soda bottles and I decided to take up the challenge and see if I could match that.
Yup impressively sharp sword here.
Last I decided to try a thrust using materials on hand
CONCLUSION:
As much as I hate the way this sword looks I have to say that it is a very fast, very agile blade that cuts light to medium targets like they don’t exist. I don’t think I’d recommend it to the beginner but I’d say the intermediate cutter could learn quite a bit from this sword as its thin cross-section aggressively punishes poor alignment and form, teaching one what not to do very quickly. It is easy to bend back into shape after taking a set and is relatively cheap for a differentially hardened sword. Make no mistake this sword is a cutter first and a project blade second. It may end up being a diamond in the rough but if so it is pretty rough indeed. I will try to update this review in a month or so when I have had the time to polish and etch the blade. Who knows it might turn out beautiful but right now it is still an ugly duckling.
Pros:
handling - this thing is fast and light and moves very well while still maintaining good cutting power.
unusually high amount of sori - some people crave this I wasn't too impressed there are better ways to get your sori fix
Cons:
Ugly - this sword is ugly and not a duckling; just ugly.
I was unable to bring out even a hint of real hada on this supposedly folded blade.
I was unable to bring out more than small portions of the real hamon and that was horribly thin and looked like it might have fallen off the blade in places. hard to tell though. real hamon is not visible.
bends easily and feel flimsy.
saya is horrible to look at, painted kojiri and koiguchi are just nasty looking up close
customer service was a horror story
THE BOTTOM LINE:
ok, I reccomend people to avoid both this particular sword AND this particular vendor as my experience with both was absolutely horrifying. I hate to put it that way but there it is: the truth. I was very unhappy with this whole deal.
Old Ratings:
Historical Accuracy: 2/5 ok it IS differentially hardened and maru is a traditional construction method meaning “monosteel” and it is (supposedly) folded. So, I’ll let it have a “two” here but it really probably only deserves a “one”
Fit and Finish: 2/5 (this sword needs a make-over)
Handling: 6/5 (the only thing faster is a lightsaber)
Structural Integrity: 3/5 (bends easily but is easy to correct and I don’t think it will break easily)
Value for Money: 3/5 (honestly if you have the $230-ish you might as well wait and dig up an extra $70 to hit the next level up unless you WANT a project sword)
OVERALL: 3.5/5 (Add Fit and Finish, Handling, Structural Integrity and Value for money scores together and divide by 4).
Review by Tom Kinder of Goose Creek, SC USA.
I love Katanas, especially those that are differentially hardened. There’s something about a nice hamon that just takes my breath away. After seeing the positive reviews of the Ryumon practical dragon katana and seeing that it is nearly one hundred dollars cheaper than most other swords like it I decided that I wanted to check out the Ryumon phenomenon. It only took me a few minutes of looking to see all the other swords Ryumon was offering for a similar price point and start drooling over the possibilities. They were offering folded blades that were also differentially hardened. Frankly, I was stunned. This seemed to be an unbelievable deal. I had several models to choose from and I picked the Zodiak because I liked the fittings and saya. Shopping around, I decided to buy from art-of-the-ancient dot com.
I was out of town when it arrived at home, but my wife received it and put it in the closet for me. When I got home and opened the closet I wondered where it was before I realized that the skinny box up front was it and not another box I keep some bare blades in while they wait for attention. The box was thinner than I expected having seen all the reviews and advertisements that mentioned the beautiful wood display box that is extra wide to accommodate a cleaning kit. This box obviously did not have that wooden box inside. Also, another mystery presented itself at this point: the return address on the box clearly stated it was from “Jason Moore, Swords of Might 235 Spring Street, Wilkes Barre, PA 18702” now that was strange! I did not order this sword from Swords of Might, in fact, I have never ordered anything from Swords of Might (perhaps I should have).
It was well packed though with a box inside a box with Styrofoam peanuts in between.
The inner box held the sword suspended in Styrofoam blocks and with the satin sword bag tucked away to the side. That was it, no wood box, no cleaning kit, no certificate. I was feeling disappointed but I reminded myself that the important part was the sword. If the sword was good nothing else mattered.
Pulling the sword from the box I immediately knew this sword was light and fast. In fact, it felt too light at first. Next I noticed the beautiful dark stained wood saya and was very impressed even after I noticed that the black fittings on either end were not buffalo horn as is traditional but rather just heavily painted with black paint to give the appearance of traditional fittings. Well it is a bargain priced sword, I can forgive that. The sageo was also very cheap shoe-lace like material. Again not too bad I can live with it for the price.
Next I pulled it from the saya to examine the fittings and remove the tsuka for a good safety inspection. Of couse I got a look at the blade while I did this and yet another surprise grabbed my eye right away, but I’ll tell you about that later, first the fittings.
The tsukamaki (hilt wrapping) on this sword was not what I had hoped for in the least. It was loose enough I could shift the ito (thread) easily and in fact, I had to, to get at the forward mekugi. The same was real and looked very nice with large nodes and an even pearl-white color.
The menuki are small and hard to see but they are brass (or something like brass) castings of the zodiac animals from Chinese lore. The loose ito allowed me to shift it enough to get a better look at them and they looked to be well cast with no visible lines and good detail. If I had wanted I could have shifted the ito enough to remove the menuki, but I didn’t, of course.
The kashira looked good, had a well defined dragon on it and appeared to be decent quality brass/copper material. I was deeply disappointed to see that it was loose enough that I could pull it most of the way of the tsuka core. A small amount of epoxy would take care of that later, but it irked me.
The tsuba was very attractive, made from brass/copper and very solid feeling. It featured the Chinese zodiac animals on each side of it, six on one side and the other six on the opposite. PROBLEM! The seppa rattled against the tsuba but the tsuba, fuchi and tsuka were all very tight and immobile. I didn’t like this one bit and it worried me that maybe I wouldn’t be able to cut with the sword. Well, I figured at least I’ll pull the tsuka off and take a look, maybe I can get another seppa on there to tighten it up. No dice! The tsuka would not come off. I even applied a rubber mallet to the job and nothing shifted at all. Instead of breaking the tsuka, I decided that it wasn’t going anywhere and should be safe to cut with.
THE BLADE:
As I slid the blade out of its saya I instantly noticed what was obviously a WIRE BRUSHED FAKE HAMON!!!
What the heck is going on here? This thing is supposed to be differentially hardened! I looked at it very closely and noticed three things:
1. Rust spots on the ha (cutting edge).
very irritating, but I can take care of that.
2. There did appear to be a real hamon under the fake one. I could see the shadow of it through a very rough polish on the surface of the blade. In the picture below I have drawn a line where the real hamon is so it will show up better.
3. I could find no evidence of a grain in the steel indicating that the blade was folded. Now I was getting angry.
Moving down the blade I came to the kissaki.
It had the same polished on yokote that many other sub $300 katana have but I was pleasantly surprised to see that the thickness of the kissaki did actually flare out then taper to the point like it would if it had a real yokote.
I also found some more rust on the mune near the kissaki.
I called Art of the Ancients to see what was going on with the strange return address and the non-folded, folded blade, fake hamon over real hamon deal. After a day and the vendor speaking with the forge (they claim) I was told that the sword has a wire brushed hamon and that I cannot see the hada grain pattern in the steel because it wasn’t polished to bring those features out because that sort of polish is very expensive and would raise the price of the sword. They did swear that it really is a folded blade. As for the rust and the loose tsuba the forge’s opinion was that these things were normal maintenance items and that I should deal with them (“get some shims and fix it”). The store, however, implied that because of the rust they might replace it for me but I would have to pay to ship it and they would only give me another of the same, so I decided to take care of it myself, polish it, etch it, and see what I can find for hamon and hada. oh yeah, I was also told the wood box and cleaning kit were a limited time offer from Ryumon and the time limit is over so they are no longer included. the store would happily remove that info from their web page advert.
At this point I’m just angry but since I had tatami soaking I might as well cut see how it cuts. I took it outside for some dry handling.
it may be an ugly blade, but it moves beautifully. This became obvious to me at once and I actually began to have some fun swinging it around. This katana is lightning fast and agile it almost felt like there was nothing but a tsuka in my hand. I also finally noticed just how sharp the blade was, and that it was rather thin feeling. I didn’t know how much until I started taking its measurements, but the Ryumon is a skinny 3/16 inches thick while my kaze is a whole 1/8th thicker at 5/16. That’s quite a difference! No wonder it’s so light and fast.
here are the measurements:
Blade length: 28 inches
Hilt length: 12 inches
Overall: 41 inches
POB (point of balance): 4 ½ inches from base of tsuba
Weight: 2lbs 4oz and 3lbs 0oz including saya (this sword is lighter in its saya than many swords are out of theirs)
TESTING!
I guess I should have some fun with it after all and someone had to cut those soaking tatami. ;D
I’ll let the videos pretty much talk for themselves here but this is where I decided I actually liked this sword.
First up plastic bottles:
That went well enough, but hey, any hunk of metal can cut plastic jugs.
How about tatami? Can it cut it? I’ll start with a half mat.
Impressive, it does seem to be a good cutter. But now I want to try full roles of well soaked mugen dachi tatami.
In each of these videos I botched some cuts and bent the blade. In both cases it wasn’t too hard to bend it back so I’m not terribly upset by that. In the first video the bend had a twist in it which was a little bit harder to get out, but I was actually kind of happy to see it because it’s another sign that, yes, this sword is differentially hardened.
It performed very well, but I didn’t feel confident enough to try a double roll with it. When my form was on it cut through easily.
So I wanted to see just how sharp and fast this sword was and I remember our own Vyapada cutting empty soda bottles and I decided to take up the challenge and see if I could match that.
Yup impressively sharp sword here.
Last I decided to try a thrust using materials on hand
CONCLUSION:
As much as I hate the way this sword looks I have to say that it is a very fast, very agile blade that cuts light to medium targets like they don’t exist. I don’t think I’d recommend it to the beginner but I’d say the intermediate cutter could learn quite a bit from this sword as its thin cross-section aggressively punishes poor alignment and form, teaching one what not to do very quickly. It is easy to bend back into shape after taking a set and is relatively cheap for a differentially hardened sword. Make no mistake this sword is a cutter first and a project blade second. It may end up being a diamond in the rough but if so it is pretty rough indeed. I will try to update this review in a month or so when I have had the time to polish and etch the blade. Who knows it might turn out beautiful but right now it is still an ugly duckling.
Pros:
handling - this thing is fast and light and moves very well while still maintaining good cutting power.
unusually high amount of sori - some people crave this I wasn't too impressed there are better ways to get your sori fix
Cons:
Ugly - this sword is ugly and not a duckling; just ugly.
I was unable to bring out even a hint of real hada on this supposedly folded blade.
I was unable to bring out more than small portions of the real hamon and that was horribly thin and looked like it might have fallen off the blade in places. hard to tell though. real hamon is not visible.
bends easily and feel flimsy.
saya is horrible to look at, painted kojiri and koiguchi are just nasty looking up close
customer service was a horror story
THE BOTTOM LINE:
ok, I reccomend people to avoid both this particular sword AND this particular vendor as my experience with both was absolutely horrifying. I hate to put it that way but there it is: the truth. I was very unhappy with this whole deal.
Old Ratings:
Historical Accuracy: 2/5 ok it IS differentially hardened and maru is a traditional construction method meaning “monosteel” and it is (supposedly) folded. So, I’ll let it have a “two” here but it really probably only deserves a “one”
Fit and Finish: 2/5 (this sword needs a make-over)
Handling: 6/5 (the only thing faster is a lightsaber)
Structural Integrity: 3/5 (bends easily but is easy to correct and I don’t think it will break easily)
Value for Money: 3/5 (honestly if you have the $230-ish you might as well wait and dig up an extra $70 to hit the next level up unless you WANT a project sword)
OVERALL: 3.5/5 (Add Fit and Finish, Handling, Structural Integrity and Value for money scores together and divide by 4).