ST-Nihonto T-10 Bonji DH Katana Review...
Jan 16, 2014 21:20:04 GMT
Post by jblakey on Jan 16, 2014 21:20:04 GMT
Hi Guys,
just got in my new ST-Nihonto katana yesterday, and I thought I'd post up some pics and thoughts about it and the ordering process.
Back Story
Cruising around on eBay a few weeks before Christmas, and I came across a nice-looking Chinese-crafted katana from ST-Nihonto. It was put together with some nicely understated steel/iron fitting, clay tempered, no bo-hi, and had a pretty nice o-kissaki. Base cost was $200 USD + 45 dollars shipping (EMS). Put it on my watch list. Then, a couple of days later, my wife asked me "What do you want for Christmas?". Seemed like the universe (or at least eBay) was trying to tell me something, so I tried to listen:)
Ordering
Emailed ST-Nihonto (Sheng) on eBay, asked him about the sword. I wanted to get a geometric o-kissaki done, as the one on the posted sword looked counter-polished to me. Sheng said no problem, that'll be an extra $35 USD. Asked for dark green ito, dark green sageo, and the green/black speckled saya (I've got lots of black saya already). A few weeks later, Sheng emailed me to say the blade on that sword was broken during re-polishing, and they'd have to make another. A few weeks after that, the new blade was done. Sheng emailed me some pics. The kissaki as not as O as I would have liked, but the hamon was very nice, and the kissaki shape was also very nice in any case, so I was OK with that. Sheng confirmed the color choices for the katana, and I asked him if I could get Hishigami used during the re-wrap. He said sure, extra $35 dollars please. Talked him down to $25 dollars (well, just asked, really), and the next thing I knew, my sword had been shipped (EMS), arriving in Canada about 1.5 weeks later.
Packaging
Sword arrived in great shape. Styrofoam coffin-style shipping, completely enclosed in yellow packing tape. Sliced it open, and the sword was in a very nice black/red cherry-blossom themed bag. Blade was wrapped in plastic inside the saya, tsuka was shrink-wrapped with plastic as well.
The Sword
After I removed the two plastics, I could finally start eye-balling the sword. Blade is beautiful. Crisp yokote. Crisp shinogiji. Not a rough mark anywhere on the blade. Kissaki is beautiful. Blade is razor sharp, and very even. Habaki fit is excellent. Seppa are made of brass, not that gear-shaped variety, and alignment with both the fuchi and koigouchi are right on. Tsuba is solid. Tsuba, fuchi and kashira are all magnetic, so made of iron or steel (as advertised). Very nice casts, actually. Clean and detailed. Saya fit is good. Saya finish is very nice, actually. I was a little worried the green would be a bit bright, but it's quite a nice green. Sageo is one of the nicer Chinese ones, not just left over ito used as sageo. Hamon is sweet, lots of activity, very visible. Habaki is brass, matte-finished and seems very solid. Menuki are pretty standard blackened-alloy (I think) dragons (quite long dragons, though).
The ito wrap is, there's no other word for it, great. Super tight, quite even, very well done. Alternating cross-overs (I asked for alternating hinerimaki). Hishigami were used. Found one slipped hishigami on the whole tsuka (now pushed into place:)). Honestly, I don't know how whoever wrapped this handle got it so tight. I've worked with this ito, and it's not easy stuff to control or properly torque. Solid, solid wrap. Well worth the extra $25 dollars. Wrap starts on the correct side, and ends on the correct side. End knots are quite well done (although the tsuka would have benefited from the "knot-notch" being there, the knots are a little on the high side.
The katana (IMHO) only has two flaws. One is the rayskin used on the handle. It's quite low-grade, with quite small nodes that are sparse in spots. The other flaw is the tsuka shaping. It's just a little bit off. The fuchi is just 1-2mm higher than the ito, and while the kashira lines up nicely with the ito, it looks like a couple of little bits of wood (or paper, or something) were added to the tsuka to make this happen. That's fine, and normal, but these extra bits weren't worked into the shape of the tsuka, and stick out a little bit. The tsuka is just 1-2mm from being perfect, and it's enough to bug me, but the wrap is so well done, I don't want to undo the work that went into that. Besides, I've got enough swords to work on. It can stay that way for now:)
Anyhow, I'm quite pleased with the sword. Well worth the $260 + shipping that I paid for it. It always amazes me the amount of work that goes into one of these, and how little they cost (relatively).
Here's a few pics taken with my iPod. I'll get a few better ones of the blade when I can get some natural lighting...
Thanks,
jason
just got in my new ST-Nihonto katana yesterday, and I thought I'd post up some pics and thoughts about it and the ordering process.
Back Story
Cruising around on eBay a few weeks before Christmas, and I came across a nice-looking Chinese-crafted katana from ST-Nihonto. It was put together with some nicely understated steel/iron fitting, clay tempered, no bo-hi, and had a pretty nice o-kissaki. Base cost was $200 USD + 45 dollars shipping (EMS). Put it on my watch list. Then, a couple of days later, my wife asked me "What do you want for Christmas?". Seemed like the universe (or at least eBay) was trying to tell me something, so I tried to listen:)
Ordering
Emailed ST-Nihonto (Sheng) on eBay, asked him about the sword. I wanted to get a geometric o-kissaki done, as the one on the posted sword looked counter-polished to me. Sheng said no problem, that'll be an extra $35 USD. Asked for dark green ito, dark green sageo, and the green/black speckled saya (I've got lots of black saya already). A few weeks later, Sheng emailed me to say the blade on that sword was broken during re-polishing, and they'd have to make another. A few weeks after that, the new blade was done. Sheng emailed me some pics. The kissaki as not as O as I would have liked, but the hamon was very nice, and the kissaki shape was also very nice in any case, so I was OK with that. Sheng confirmed the color choices for the katana, and I asked him if I could get Hishigami used during the re-wrap. He said sure, extra $35 dollars please. Talked him down to $25 dollars (well, just asked, really), and the next thing I knew, my sword had been shipped (EMS), arriving in Canada about 1.5 weeks later.
Packaging
Sword arrived in great shape. Styrofoam coffin-style shipping, completely enclosed in yellow packing tape. Sliced it open, and the sword was in a very nice black/red cherry-blossom themed bag. Blade was wrapped in plastic inside the saya, tsuka was shrink-wrapped with plastic as well.
The Sword
After I removed the two plastics, I could finally start eye-balling the sword. Blade is beautiful. Crisp yokote. Crisp shinogiji. Not a rough mark anywhere on the blade. Kissaki is beautiful. Blade is razor sharp, and very even. Habaki fit is excellent. Seppa are made of brass, not that gear-shaped variety, and alignment with both the fuchi and koigouchi are right on. Tsuba is solid. Tsuba, fuchi and kashira are all magnetic, so made of iron or steel (as advertised). Very nice casts, actually. Clean and detailed. Saya fit is good. Saya finish is very nice, actually. I was a little worried the green would be a bit bright, but it's quite a nice green. Sageo is one of the nicer Chinese ones, not just left over ito used as sageo. Hamon is sweet, lots of activity, very visible. Habaki is brass, matte-finished and seems very solid. Menuki are pretty standard blackened-alloy (I think) dragons (quite long dragons, though).
The ito wrap is, there's no other word for it, great. Super tight, quite even, very well done. Alternating cross-overs (I asked for alternating hinerimaki). Hishigami were used. Found one slipped hishigami on the whole tsuka (now pushed into place:)). Honestly, I don't know how whoever wrapped this handle got it so tight. I've worked with this ito, and it's not easy stuff to control or properly torque. Solid, solid wrap. Well worth the extra $25 dollars. Wrap starts on the correct side, and ends on the correct side. End knots are quite well done (although the tsuka would have benefited from the "knot-notch" being there, the knots are a little on the high side.
The katana (IMHO) only has two flaws. One is the rayskin used on the handle. It's quite low-grade, with quite small nodes that are sparse in spots. The other flaw is the tsuka shaping. It's just a little bit off. The fuchi is just 1-2mm higher than the ito, and while the kashira lines up nicely with the ito, it looks like a couple of little bits of wood (or paper, or something) were added to the tsuka to make this happen. That's fine, and normal, but these extra bits weren't worked into the shape of the tsuka, and stick out a little bit. The tsuka is just 1-2mm from being perfect, and it's enough to bug me, but the wrap is so well done, I don't want to undo the work that went into that. Besides, I've got enough swords to work on. It can stay that way for now:)
Anyhow, I'm quite pleased with the sword. Well worth the $260 + shipping that I paid for it. It always amazes me the amount of work that goes into one of these, and how little they cost (relatively).
Here's a few pics taken with my iPod. I'll get a few better ones of the blade when I can get some natural lighting...
Thanks,
jason