1060 High Carbon katana from Swordsmith668 (Ebay)
Dec 13, 2012 5:25:45 GMT
Post by JagerTotez on Dec 13, 2012 5:25:45 GMT
Introduction
Good evening again everyone! Here I am with my third and final review (until I buy another I suppose.)
This time I purchased a sword from a different Ebay seller by the name of Swordsmith668. This katana was purchased for use by my Girlfriend who is also attending a Dojo with me.
Seeing as I was/ am broke, I was seeking an affordable (see cheap) sword which still would server as a decent cutter and all-purpose dojo katana for my Girlfriend for Christmas. While searching for the sword I wanted for myself (See my previous review of the Huawei 1.5" sori katana for that) I came across the webstore for Swordsmith668 who had some pretty average prices for the inexpensive Chinese forged katana but who had great auction prices.
I managed to nab the following sword for $88.00 with free shipping. I was also able to customize the fittings and etc. which was even better considering the price.
I did find out why this was so inexpensive though.
Historical overview
I am, as I always say, not qualified to give an in-depth historical overview of this or any katana. It is my understanding that this blade would generally fit into the (very) general ballpark of the Edo era due to it's curvature and overall 'normal katana' looks save for the colors.
Having said that, it is my understanding that the color scheme of this katana would be illegal during the Edo era thanks to some of the edicts put forth during the Tokugawa Shogunate which restricted katana to certain blade lengths, colors, and etc.
Full Disclosure
As always, I am in no way an expert nor will I ever claim to be. For the most part, I have no cutting experience at this point in time and am fairly new to the katana scene. I have only just recently began learning at a Dojo and this review will not be able to say much toward anything other than aesthetics, how the katana feels to me, fit and finish, and etc.
I am not affiliated with any group or seller and I'm doing this review simply to help the novice buyer (like myself) find what they like and let my experiences with various sellers be known so that if I get a lemon, you may not have to.
Initial Impressions
Right, so here we are at another big yellow box made of tape and styrofoam.
This was promptly signed for and brought onto my dining room table alongside my obligatory can of Coke.
So far, nothing new from my previous sword-venture with China.
I grabbed my trusty razor blade and began delicately slitting along the tape where I could see that the styrofoam beneath was split into a lid and bottom.
As you can see, not nearly as prettily packaged as my Huawei sword from China but, hey, it got the job done.
The sword was encased in a silk(?) sword bag with tassels as the closure in lieu of the single band of cloth like my Huawei was. The bag is pleasing to the eye and fairly well constructed. The colors, design, and overall brightness will undoubtedly please my Girlfriend and the dragon pattern matches my bag while contrasting nicely (hers bright, mine dark.)
As with my Huawei purchase, this bagged sword was encased in a plastic sleeve which I removed when I removed the sword from the packaging.
As you can see my dog, Kodiak, was just as excited to get this package as I was.
As stated in the introduction, upon winning the auction for this sword I chose to customize it per the colors and theme I knew my Girlfriend would like. This was greens for the saya and ito, whites for the sageo and samegawa, and a flower theme tsuba.
This is how my order turned out and I was very pleased with the overall look.
Like with my Huawei order, the tsuka came wrapped in shrinkwrap. Below is a closeup of this.
Here is a closeup of the flower-themed tsuba
At first glance, everything seems great. The colors work well together and it is everything I ordered so far.
Then I started to look closely and scrutinize the tsuka.
First thing I noticed was the Ito wrap was moderately tight. I could get it to budge a bit but overall it was pretty decent for the price point. Also it was alternately wrapped which was pleasantly surprising as the Ebay listing showed a katana without alternately wrapped ito. Then I moved to the Samegawa whiched seemed to be panels (not uncommon in inexpensive katana, particularly from China) which looked to be canted slightly and thus exposing the wood of the tsuba (also not too terribly unexpected.) Easy fix I figured.
Then I continued looking...
Wait a minute....
What the heck is this?
These aren't even panels of Samegawa. These are just wood with particles glued to it to simulate Samegawa. It wouldn't be too bad if it were done well.
As you can see above there are spots where the particles are thin and even bare exposing wood below it. Not a huge deal in and of itself but the Ebay listing DID say it was REAL Samegawa.... Slightly annoying but mostly aesthetics (though I can't correct it now so it IS a permanent blemish.)
There was no play in the end cap, though I suspect it to be glued because if there is any play in the ito there is generally some play in the end cap.
Ok, so after that minor let down I shrugged and moved on to unsheathing the blade.
As with my Huawei katana, the blade was encased in a plastic sleeve inside of the saya which protected the inside of the saya from the oiled-for-shipping blade.
After removing the saya I did like I did with my Huawei to remove the plastic sleeve and pulled the sleeve up enough to get a spot to hold and then slid it against the blade to cut itself free.
No dice.
The sleeve slid off but was not cut.... at all....
Odd, since the Ebay listing said it was 'razor sharp!'
More on this in a bit.
There was generous amounts of oil on the blade which I promptly wiped away and re-oiled with a lighter oil of my own and was greeted with this as the result.
A very handsome blade with a pretty decent polish. Not perfectly mirror but near enough.
The blade has no hamon but I knew this when I bought it. No surprise there.
That all said, there was one elephant in the room.
As you can see, there is minimal - if any polishing on the kissaki.
Not too unexpected from the price but it really feels like they didn't even bother to give it a go... Oh well I can polish that myself. No big deal there and it certainly would not have been a deal-breaker if I had expected it from the start.
So moving down the blade again, let's have us a look-see at the habiki shall we?
A very simple and thus attractive (to me) habiki. I've never been one for flourish so this suits me well.
There is, as you can see, ever so slight of a cant of the blade in the habiki which is fairly well expect at this price and even up into the $150-200 range of katanas. No surprises here. In fact, it isn't as much as I was prepared to see so I was even a bit pleasantly surprised. I've seen some real horror stories of habiki cant from some people before and at the price I got this for I think this is more than acceptable cant in my purchase.
Equally on the edge of the blade there is cant to match the back. Ever so slightly off to the side. Again, no huge deal and not unexpected.
The one thing I did notice is the slit on the front of the habiki. Haven't seen that before but it's no big deal I guess. Just how it was made.
In addition to the katana, there was also packaged with it an envelope with a card and letter thanking me for my purchase along with a '1' and '5' of Chinese currency. This was a very nice touch and something not received with my Huawei purchase. Nothing super special but just a little extra something to make you feel good.
Statistics
These are the listed stats of the sword from Swordsmith668, I'll do my own shortly.
Blade/Nagasa Length: 27.8"
Handle/Tsuka Length: 10.6"
Overall Length: 40.9"
POB (Point of Balance): (Didn't check yet)
Weight: Around 2 lbs (with saya)
Handling Characteristics
Feels fine in hand. Fairly light and well-balanced thanks to the bo-hi. It makes a very pleasing sound when cutting with it.
Test Cutting
Alright, so here is where we will get back to the blade sharpness. As I stated above, unlike with my Huawei purchase, the sleeve over the blade itself did not cut free when I slid it from the blade. It simply slid off. This had me a bit worried as I had intended this for use by my Girlfriend for Dojo use (some of which would be cutting.)
I immediately took paper to the blade and started near the bottom to slice paper with it.
No dice.
The lower portion of the blade is too dull to begin a cut on paper.
I moved up the blade to the area where a good cut is supposed to be (the last 5 inches or thereabouts) and finally the blade sliced cleanly.
If I drag the paper down the blade starting from where the blade is sharp to where it was duller it will continue to cut the paper. The lower half of the blade just wont START a cut on paper. It would still cut me if I tried but with force, unlike my Huawei which will cut if you just look at it funny.
After the paper testing I took it outside and had at some water bottles.
Nice clean cuts with little to no resistance felt.
I am please to say that it is not a useless blade out of the box after all! PHEW! Not the sharpest but not as dull as I feared when it refused to cut the plastic sleeve that was on it.
Conclusions
In conclusion, I am overall satisfied with my purchase and think my Girlfriend will be very happy with her new Katana (which she STILL has no idea I got. Should be a nice surprise.)
Despite some of the drawbacks and flaws that I've gone over in this review, I still think that for the money this was a good buy. $88.00 shipped got me a decent blade with good fittings (except the "samegawa") which will serve it's purpose as a good beginner katana for my Girlfriend to use when training at the Dojo.
All in all, there are better blades you can get out there (maybe not for QUITE as cheap, but there are always steals) but you can certainly do worse. This is a seemingly good starter katana and has the potential, if worked on a bit, to be a real gem.
Pros:
Good price (Ebay auction, not "buy-it-now")
Customizable (Fittings and etc.)
Sharp enough to get the job done
Good blade
Personal touch from the seller
Cons:
Samegawa was listed as "real" but is neither real (panels or otherwise) or Samegawa at all. Just glued particles.
Blade is not "razor sharp" as listed on ebay
Kissaki is rough if polished much at all.
Good evening again everyone! Here I am with my third and final review (until I buy another I suppose.)
This time I purchased a sword from a different Ebay seller by the name of Swordsmith668. This katana was purchased for use by my Girlfriend who is also attending a Dojo with me.
Seeing as I was/ am broke, I was seeking an affordable (see cheap) sword which still would server as a decent cutter and all-purpose dojo katana for my Girlfriend for Christmas. While searching for the sword I wanted for myself (See my previous review of the Huawei 1.5" sori katana for that) I came across the webstore for Swordsmith668 who had some pretty average prices for the inexpensive Chinese forged katana but who had great auction prices.
I managed to nab the following sword for $88.00 with free shipping. I was also able to customize the fittings and etc. which was even better considering the price.
I did find out why this was so inexpensive though.
Historical overview
I am, as I always say, not qualified to give an in-depth historical overview of this or any katana. It is my understanding that this blade would generally fit into the (very) general ballpark of the Edo era due to it's curvature and overall 'normal katana' looks save for the colors.
Having said that, it is my understanding that the color scheme of this katana would be illegal during the Edo era thanks to some of the edicts put forth during the Tokugawa Shogunate which restricted katana to certain blade lengths, colors, and etc.
Full Disclosure
As always, I am in no way an expert nor will I ever claim to be. For the most part, I have no cutting experience at this point in time and am fairly new to the katana scene. I have only just recently began learning at a Dojo and this review will not be able to say much toward anything other than aesthetics, how the katana feels to me, fit and finish, and etc.
I am not affiliated with any group or seller and I'm doing this review simply to help the novice buyer (like myself) find what they like and let my experiences with various sellers be known so that if I get a lemon, you may not have to.
Initial Impressions
Right, so here we are at another big yellow box made of tape and styrofoam.
This was promptly signed for and brought onto my dining room table alongside my obligatory can of Coke.
So far, nothing new from my previous sword-venture with China.
I grabbed my trusty razor blade and began delicately slitting along the tape where I could see that the styrofoam beneath was split into a lid and bottom.
As you can see, not nearly as prettily packaged as my Huawei sword from China but, hey, it got the job done.
The sword was encased in a silk(?) sword bag with tassels as the closure in lieu of the single band of cloth like my Huawei was. The bag is pleasing to the eye and fairly well constructed. The colors, design, and overall brightness will undoubtedly please my Girlfriend and the dragon pattern matches my bag while contrasting nicely (hers bright, mine dark.)
As with my Huawei purchase, this bagged sword was encased in a plastic sleeve which I removed when I removed the sword from the packaging.
As you can see my dog, Kodiak, was just as excited to get this package as I was.
As stated in the introduction, upon winning the auction for this sword I chose to customize it per the colors and theme I knew my Girlfriend would like. This was greens for the saya and ito, whites for the sageo and samegawa, and a flower theme tsuba.
This is how my order turned out and I was very pleased with the overall look.
Like with my Huawei order, the tsuka came wrapped in shrinkwrap. Below is a closeup of this.
Here is a closeup of the flower-themed tsuba
At first glance, everything seems great. The colors work well together and it is everything I ordered so far.
Then I started to look closely and scrutinize the tsuka.
First thing I noticed was the Ito wrap was moderately tight. I could get it to budge a bit but overall it was pretty decent for the price point. Also it was alternately wrapped which was pleasantly surprising as the Ebay listing showed a katana without alternately wrapped ito. Then I moved to the Samegawa whiched seemed to be panels (not uncommon in inexpensive katana, particularly from China) which looked to be canted slightly and thus exposing the wood of the tsuba (also not too terribly unexpected.) Easy fix I figured.
Then I continued looking...
Wait a minute....
What the heck is this?
These aren't even panels of Samegawa. These are just wood with particles glued to it to simulate Samegawa. It wouldn't be too bad if it were done well.
As you can see above there are spots where the particles are thin and even bare exposing wood below it. Not a huge deal in and of itself but the Ebay listing DID say it was REAL Samegawa.... Slightly annoying but mostly aesthetics (though I can't correct it now so it IS a permanent blemish.)
There was no play in the end cap, though I suspect it to be glued because if there is any play in the ito there is generally some play in the end cap.
Ok, so after that minor let down I shrugged and moved on to unsheathing the blade.
As with my Huawei katana, the blade was encased in a plastic sleeve inside of the saya which protected the inside of the saya from the oiled-for-shipping blade.
After removing the saya I did like I did with my Huawei to remove the plastic sleeve and pulled the sleeve up enough to get a spot to hold and then slid it against the blade to cut itself free.
No dice.
The sleeve slid off but was not cut.... at all....
Odd, since the Ebay listing said it was 'razor sharp!'
More on this in a bit.
There was generous amounts of oil on the blade which I promptly wiped away and re-oiled with a lighter oil of my own and was greeted with this as the result.
A very handsome blade with a pretty decent polish. Not perfectly mirror but near enough.
The blade has no hamon but I knew this when I bought it. No surprise there.
That all said, there was one elephant in the room.
As you can see, there is minimal - if any polishing on the kissaki.
Not too unexpected from the price but it really feels like they didn't even bother to give it a go... Oh well I can polish that myself. No big deal there and it certainly would not have been a deal-breaker if I had expected it from the start.
So moving down the blade again, let's have us a look-see at the habiki shall we?
A very simple and thus attractive (to me) habiki. I've never been one for flourish so this suits me well.
There is, as you can see, ever so slight of a cant of the blade in the habiki which is fairly well expect at this price and even up into the $150-200 range of katanas. No surprises here. In fact, it isn't as much as I was prepared to see so I was even a bit pleasantly surprised. I've seen some real horror stories of habiki cant from some people before and at the price I got this for I think this is more than acceptable cant in my purchase.
Equally on the edge of the blade there is cant to match the back. Ever so slightly off to the side. Again, no huge deal and not unexpected.
The one thing I did notice is the slit on the front of the habiki. Haven't seen that before but it's no big deal I guess. Just how it was made.
In addition to the katana, there was also packaged with it an envelope with a card and letter thanking me for my purchase along with a '1' and '5' of Chinese currency. This was a very nice touch and something not received with my Huawei purchase. Nothing super special but just a little extra something to make you feel good.
Statistics
These are the listed stats of the sword from Swordsmith668, I'll do my own shortly.
Blade/Nagasa Length: 27.8"
Handle/Tsuka Length: 10.6"
Overall Length: 40.9"
POB (Point of Balance): (Didn't check yet)
Weight: Around 2 lbs (with saya)
Handling Characteristics
Feels fine in hand. Fairly light and well-balanced thanks to the bo-hi. It makes a very pleasing sound when cutting with it.
Test Cutting
Alright, so here is where we will get back to the blade sharpness. As I stated above, unlike with my Huawei purchase, the sleeve over the blade itself did not cut free when I slid it from the blade. It simply slid off. This had me a bit worried as I had intended this for use by my Girlfriend for Dojo use (some of which would be cutting.)
I immediately took paper to the blade and started near the bottom to slice paper with it.
No dice.
The lower portion of the blade is too dull to begin a cut on paper.
I moved up the blade to the area where a good cut is supposed to be (the last 5 inches or thereabouts) and finally the blade sliced cleanly.
If I drag the paper down the blade starting from where the blade is sharp to where it was duller it will continue to cut the paper. The lower half of the blade just wont START a cut on paper. It would still cut me if I tried but with force, unlike my Huawei which will cut if you just look at it funny.
After the paper testing I took it outside and had at some water bottles.
Nice clean cuts with little to no resistance felt.
I am please to say that it is not a useless blade out of the box after all! PHEW! Not the sharpest but not as dull as I feared when it refused to cut the plastic sleeve that was on it.
Conclusions
In conclusion, I am overall satisfied with my purchase and think my Girlfriend will be very happy with her new Katana (which she STILL has no idea I got. Should be a nice surprise.)
Despite some of the drawbacks and flaws that I've gone over in this review, I still think that for the money this was a good buy. $88.00 shipped got me a decent blade with good fittings (except the "samegawa") which will serve it's purpose as a good beginner katana for my Girlfriend to use when training at the Dojo.
All in all, there are better blades you can get out there (maybe not for QUITE as cheap, but there are always steals) but you can certainly do worse. This is a seemingly good starter katana and has the potential, if worked on a bit, to be a real gem.
Pros:
Good price (Ebay auction, not "buy-it-now")
Customizable (Fittings and etc.)
Sharp enough to get the job done
Good blade
Personal touch from the seller
Cons:
Samegawa was listed as "real" but is neither real (panels or otherwise) or Samegawa at all. Just glued particles.
Blade is not "razor sharp" as listed on ebay
Kissaki is rough if polished much at all.