The great general sword by ZHANG SHI DAO JIAN
Dec 23, 2011 13:48:52 GMT
Post by exiel on Dec 23, 2011 13:48:52 GMT
Spec.
Total Weight: 3lbs 5.3oz/ 3lbs 12.3oz (after modification)
Total Length: 47"
Blade Length: 32"
Gripping Length: 10.43"
Hilt Length: 13.2"
Blade Width: Base=1.575"
Blade Thickness: 10mm-5mm
Guard Width: 3.1"
Center of Balance: 4.8" from base of the blade/ 41.6% of the total length from the bottom of hilt.
I ordered this special customized Chinese two-handed sword from ZHANG SHI DAO JIAN in mainland china and it took 45 days to finish it and ship to my place, and this is the first time I bought a sword from the factory. So here’re some pictures:
I especially like the brass parts of the sword, along with the 8-faced blade of it, in my mind that’s how a traditional chinese war sword should be, strong and elegant; though the edge angle would be a little too small to hadle hard targets such as pork arms (around 40-45 deg.), i think it will do just fine on bottles and paper rolls~
When I first received the sword, there’re some problems, first the color of grip was brown instead of black as I asked, second and the most important, the guard was loose and I mean shake-it-and-watch-it-dance kind of loose, this is caused by shipping process, according to the company, which could be fixed by tightening the screw nut at the end of hilt, personally I think it was a clever design.
They use a combined method to assemble the tang to the wooden hilt, by insert two rivets like katana and a screw at the end of tang like some of the Europeans; it was a smart move because whenever the guard is loose, you can simply tighten the nut instead of disassemble the whole sword; the nut was secured by hot-melt glue, this way one can use a hair dryer to unseal the nut but it won’t get loose easily in common situation; the only concern was that they welded the tang to lengthen it to match my asked hilt length, let’s hope they did that right so it won’t be broken easily…
The handling
At first it feels a little light compared to the Miao-Dao and DSA guardian I have, which is not so good because I’m learning the Chinese swordsmanship which required heavier sword, so when I disassembled the sword, I add some lead into the space of the hollow guard to achieve a better swinging inertia, made it more powerful in cutting; the result was a beast to held, you can feel its power the very moment you hold it.
The cutting
The edge of two sides are paper cutting sharp, and the first test including ordinary water bottle and milk jog,
and here're the results:
For the milk jog i use Hi-speed function to capture the moment.
Those cuts indicate that the edge is pretty sharp, but how about the influence of the 8-faced blade?
so, i took a second test by paper rolls, i prepared 2 different sizes paper rolls, both 2.6 and 2.75 inch
(measured before i soaked them), though i felt the resistance to the blade, the sword succesfully
cut through both of them, i think for now 2.75 inch would be the limit for this sword cause the resistant force
i felt is larger than my other swords, it is a trustworthy sword in battle fields due to the 8-faced geometry,
however the design also make it unable to reach the maximum cutting ability, considerd the weight and POB of it.
Here's a video to be compared with, in which i use the DSA Guardian sword (also paper-cutting sharp)
and the target was a 3.5 inch paper roll (alo measured before soaked), you can see it passed through the roll smoothly.
To sum it, the 8-faced geometry blade is durable and beautiful, it cuts through 2.75 inch paper roll, one can give
a deadly strike to his opponent by it, fits me in both weight and size, a great companion in practices of swordsmanship~