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Post by Deleted on Jun 3, 2007 23:04:21 GMT
i am very disappointed in my sub $300 swords my first katana came with a cracked tsuka. for strength, i ended up epoxying the handle to the tang. now, G2's black prince (BP) was very dismal. let me preface to say, i grind knives and dabble in forging and i am very familiar with heat treating high carbon steel. i forged a camp knife from 5160 steel. with this knife, i could shave, cut paper and use it all week long chopping wood and it would still shave. if the BP is truly made of 5160 and heat treated, it should handle what i did today. G2 says it can perform. no doubt the earlier ones did, but i have a feeling the QC is lacking. my test started with water bottles. it seemed to cut ok, but not like my tenchi. i then decided to chop on a pine 2x2. i took 2 chops and examined the blade. to my dismay, it had bent. i then proceeded to do a file test. if a high carbon blade is adequately heat treated, with light pressure, a file will slide off the blade and not grab. with light pressure, the file grabbed. another test for adequate hardness is to apply lateral pressure on the edge with a 1/4" brass dowel. the edge should flex a bit, but come back to center. if the edge is too soft, it will not come back to center. the BP failed at this. i will be emailing Clyde to see about a replacement. now i am thinking about canceling my G2 romain maintz.
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Post by rammstein on Jun 3, 2007 23:09:26 GMT
I can't think of a better word to describe this but
YIKES!
Something is up, this isn't anything new. Clyde, what's happening?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 3, 2007 23:11:55 GMT
you can see right below the bend where i chopped at the 2x2. the first blow dug in, the second tool a chunk out.
eta: it's like the blade is in it's annealed stage and no heat treating was done.
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Post by rammstein on Jun 3, 2007 23:13:26 GMT
Would that count as abuse?
If it helps your case, my gen2 witham can easily slam into a tree stump (look at my review) and remains as straight as an arrow.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 3, 2007 23:19:52 GMT
i decided on the BP due to tsafa's review and hardiness of the BP on his pell. i hardly think hitting a 2x2 is abuse. it's not like i placed it in a vise and bent it 45 deg. i have a tire in the garage and would gladly hit it a couple times. i bet the blade would look like a filipino kris. like i mentioned before, it appears to be in the annealed state.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 3, 2007 23:31:21 GMT
It's now official, my faith in Gen2 has been shaken to the core. It kills me to say that, considering the awesome experience I've had with my 12th C. Medieval Sword and matching dagger. Both still have snug hilts, despite quite a bit of cutting. Both have very nice edge holding ability and the sword's blade is still arrow straight despite flex testing and cutting (the dagger is too stiff to flex much, of course, but no rolled or chipped edges, or bends in it either). Given this and Paul's numerous Gen2 tests that turned out well, there's an obvious problem with more recent batches. How many recent "dud" Gen2's does this make now? Five, six? I don't know what to think. Clyde has always been very responsive to customer input (look at the changes made recently on a couple models due to suggestions made right here at SBG), but this recent rash of complaints hasn't seemed to receive the same attention from him or his usual outgoing willingness to make things right. Clyde, I certainly hope you won't take these criticizms as personal attacks, but as the genuine concerns of a loyal fan of your products. I'm just not sure what's going on here.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 4, 2007 1:59:19 GMT
Thats a nasty curve. I have been able to trust with not bending into the side wall of my tires wiht not problems. I just did some further retesting on mine. I am able to easily bend the blade past 30 degrees off center and it comes back true. The difference must be in the tempering of the individual swords.
Thanks for adding your experiance to the pool of knowledge Rad.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 4, 2007 3:47:48 GMT
OMG I feel sick just looking at that blade - I've harrassed a local retailer into acquiring G2, and I'm thinking about telling him to lay off! Hopefully their high demand has kept him from getting any yet.....
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Post by Deleted on Jun 4, 2007 13:38:20 GMT
I am going to have to go to the thicker blades. We recently thinned them to make them lighter and more balanced (Not sharpened crowbars) as we were getting feedback.
They will still be 3/16" but not taper so much like the last batch. I am still having test experiments done to find out what has happened on this last batch. It could be because of the extreme heat there now that the quench cooling is not happening as it should, since all work is outside (No air conditioning facilities there as here.
I do not know right now but we are looking into it, but the blades probably will not taper as this last batch.
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Post by Brendan Olszowy on Jun 4, 2007 13:48:11 GMT
Whats wrong with sharpened crowbars? There is a niche market for those and G2 seem to be the ones we are turning to to fill it.
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Post by rammstein on Jun 4, 2007 13:54:16 GMT
Big clunky clumsy weapons are not a needed niche. A sharpened crowbar literally means a weapon that focuses on durability rather than any other aspect. Handling,aesthetics, etc. all suffer. You sure you want that ? Basically that's a very ignorant assumption of gen2 that many people have made of them in the past. They most certainly handle decent at worse, outstanding at best. You often find this term applied even if it isn't deserved, just because of gen2's marvelous durability.
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Post by Brendan Olszowy on Jun 4, 2007 14:28:16 GMT
I want my cake and to eat it too. We want decent handling, and a decent approximation of historic accuracy. But we're prepared to accept some comprimise for durability above all else.
Because us SBGers use our swords, and hansom as we may be we all miss a cut sometimes, and dont want a bent sword as the result. As Mike happily pointed out in his review, after whacking his 2x6. I want a sword I can hammer the s**t out of and enjoy decent handling doing so. When I'm done slicing bottles and trees, I want it to look good on the wall. But a bent sword does not look good or handle good.
If we weren't so concerned with durability there are plenty of more historical swords we can spend our money on.
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Post by rammstein on Jun 4, 2007 14:33:10 GMT
Well there are plenty of swords (higher end mind you) that have gen2's durability with outstanding historical accuracy. Hard to get a combination of both for our price range. Gen2's bridging that gap fast though...
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Post by Brendan Olszowy on Jun 4, 2007 14:37:42 GMT
Good on them too. I hope they go from strength to strength.
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Post by admin on Jun 4, 2007 14:46:25 GMT
Personally, I feel that this is a temporary set back for Gen2...
We all know that Clyde is a totally stand up, honest guy. And my own experiences with older batches of Gen2 swords impressed the hell out of me. So in the grand scheme of things, I am certain that these problems wont persist for long.
I mean, when we look at the issue - it only appears to be confined primarily to three swords - the Black Prince, the High Elven and the Ranger. The new Viking has certainly not seen any such issues. So it most likely has something to do with the profile of the blades and the fact that someone, somewhere at the forge is failing to take the profile into account when they temper them... (After all, a quick oven temper seems to fix them right up to where they should be).
At the end of the day, I want to help and support Clyde resolve these issues in whatever way I can.
I'll be a die hard Gen2 fan for life - and if it means going back to a slightly thicker blade again, so be it. (The earlier model Gen2's I enjoyed so much were never sharpened crowbars - a little heavy yes, but always balanced beautifully and always handling well, with the kind of durability a medieval warrior could have only ever dreamed of...)
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Post by Brendan Olszowy on Jun 4, 2007 14:58:32 GMT
I think we can trade a bit of extra weight from a thicker blade for durability. After all, we're probably fed a bit better than you're average medieval soldier.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 4, 2007 17:13:27 GMT
Personally, I feel that this is a temporary set back for Gen2... We all know that Clyde is a totally stand up, honest guy. And my own experiences with older batches of Gen2 swords impressed the hell out of me. So in the grand scheme of things, I am certain that these problems wont persist for long. I mean, when we look at the issue - it only appears to be confined primarily to three swords - the Black Prince, the High Elven and the Ranger. The new Viking has certainly not seen any such issues. So it most likely has something to do with the profile of the blades and the fact that someone, somewhere at the forge is failing to take the profile into account when they temper them... (After all, a quick oven temper seems to fix them right up to where they should be). At the end of the day, I want to help and support Clyde resolve these issues in whatever way I can. I'll be a die hard Gen2 fan for life - and if it means going back to a slightly thicker blade again, so be it. (The earlier model Gen2's I enjoyed so much were never sharpened crowbars - a little heavy yes, but always balanced beautifully and always handling well, with the kind of durability a medieval warrior could have only ever dreamed of...) An excellent post, Paul. That's pretty much how I feel. I'm not even close to giving up on Clyde or Gen2, but I have been extremely concerned about all the complaints recently and Clyde's recent responses which seemed to indicate that he didn't see a problem. Hence, my "shaken to the core" statement above. I felt the need to make an extreme statement in order to adequately express that concern. Clyde, I'm glad to hear that you're looking into some changes. Whether it's going back to using less distal taper or whatever, the toughness of your swords has been a huge selling point for many people, myself included. It sounds like your guys in the Philippines may have thinned the blades out without changing the heat treating process accordingly? In any case, I agree with brenno. I'm willing to accept a little extra weight in exchange for toughness. When we first started making suggestions for changes to your swords, they were changes to the hilt components to make them more pleasing to the eye (grip tapers, thinner guards, and the like). I think these are the things we should be focusing on. Keep your blades as they always have been, super tough and heavy duty.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 4, 2007 17:30:21 GMT
Agreed,
I wanted a Gen2 because of their reputation as being "tanks" not in terms of weight but durability. If that means they weigh abit more then thats a trade I am willing to make.
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Post by rammstein on Jun 4, 2007 17:46:28 GMT
I would prefer historical accuracy to durability. One can make a well handling baseball bat, but that doesn't mean anything to me because it doesn't look historically plausible. I'm not demanding 100% rigorous attention to detail, but I want my swords to look at worst, somewhat realistic. A few gen2s meet that category well, but others don't.
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Post by jpfranco on Jun 4, 2007 18:45:36 GMT
Rammstein, I have to agree with you on this one.
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