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Post by zabazagobo on Sept 9, 2015 20:30:34 GMT
Obviously, I haven't been to China and inspected their forges, but I would think that certain Longquan based sellers DO have their own forges, or at least direct access to a forge nearby. www.ebay.com/itm/181745125970?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AITAfter all, some Chinese eBay sellers Do offer completely customizable katana, and not just in their fittings - take mine, for instance. Sheng and I worked out a custom blade from top to bottom, with things like steel type, sori degree, koshi zori, hamon type, blade polish, and more. If they were merely ordering random blades from a factory, I HIGHLY doubt that they would have had my EXACT katana lade just lying around. ST-Nihonto, at least, must have a forge of their own, or at least access and even control of a nearby forge that they buy from. I completely agree. While all the ebay vendors have some parts that overlap (artsfeng, etc.), you can more or less assess from pictures and site layouts that some vendors are more similar than others. I think ryanswords might do a lot of wholesale for various other forges, whereas a vendor like St Nihonto or Huawei seems to be more in-house, just based on pictures and presentation.
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Post by Croccifixio on Sept 10, 2015 0:00:28 GMT
I doubt St Nihonto is in house. Their lower end stuff looks too similar to others. Or perhaps it's the other way around? The forges own the various sellers?
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Post by Kiyoshi on Sept 10, 2015 0:07:42 GMT
I doubt St Nihonto is in house. Their lower end stuff looks too similar to others. Or perhaps it's the other way around? The forges own the various sellers? Lower end stuff is all production line. There isn't a group of skilled smiths making them or anything, just a line of dudes trained to do their one job. I assume they'd all look the same. I've seen some of the video tours of the factories and it wouldn't surprise me if he had a large team for lower end blades and a few guys who do higher end / customs.
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Post by Croccifixio on Sept 10, 2015 0:20:06 GMT
Well, the SBG/Ronin Tour was pretty eye-opening indeed. Their forge supplies so many sellers and stores, and it makes you realize how the Lonquan sword businesses operate: big makers with local shops, and a lot of sellers. Our local katana seller here in the Philippines, for example, uses swords from two forges in Lonquan (one of them being Zheng/RK) depending on the type of sword (budget or high end).
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Post by Kiyoshi on Sept 10, 2015 0:26:11 GMT
I would fashion a guess that the people we communicate with like sheng are manager types and he gives the orders off to teams. I've seen the buildings and they can range from brick boxes to really nice businesses with showcases and storefronts. I think that even if there are many resellers, at least a couple of these guys are the ones who work for/own the forge. I wasn't really surprised by what I've seen in those tours. If I was, it was actually that those places are better run than I would have guessed.
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Post by greatsaiyaman on Sept 10, 2015 0:30:15 GMT
Sorry I removed this. So basically Longquan has a sword museum labelling who made each sword. Definitely differences to be had with Chinese made swords over there.Anyone who says otherwise needs a better eye and appreciation for some of the skilled smiths over there.
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Post by Croccifixio on Sept 10, 2015 0:48:08 GMT
Heck, Chinese smiths were THE smiths for the longest time. :) A big part of the doubt however lies with the heat treat and lack lf transparency (or perhaps an inability to communicate well?). One reason Japanese smiths are so highly regarded is that apart from propaganda, they actually took their time to write books for non-Japanese, went on tours, seminars, classes, and hammerins (proving that much of the hype was deserved), and had government help in preserving a very rich bladesmithing tradition.
The problem now is that while Chinese master smiths have begun charging premium on their work, we only have very few clues on their process and how they attain their rank.
In any case this is a huge digression. But ultimately, these Chinese-made swords have shown to be value-for-money at the low end. Whether that translates to the same at the high end is another question altogether. At least, apart from productions like Hanwei, Huanuo, and Kaneie.
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Post by Kiyoshi on Sept 10, 2015 0:51:17 GMT
Even then some of us (shifts eyes nervously) might disagree with at least one of those.
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Post by Croccifixio on Sept 10, 2015 1:11:56 GMT
Ok, let's change that to "apart from some productions, all of which have questionable issues at the high end from time to time."
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Post by Kiyoshi on Sept 10, 2015 1:16:50 GMT
Fair enough. I'm sure I'd like kaneie much better if I got to pick the dimensions.
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Post by MessengerofDarkness on Sept 10, 2015 1:21:08 GMT
I don't think Kaneie are bad at all, but I do think they're a bit overpriced, imho. a better polish and some better tsuka shaping would make them much better.
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Post by Kiyoshi on Sept 10, 2015 1:27:29 GMT
Yeah, the tsuka are a little tall. I think if they didn't have such a crisp transition to the hamon, the polish would be tops. The blade dimensions are the biggest killer for me.
Edit: Polish also could use real burnishing instead of a mirror polished shinogiji.
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Post by zabazagobo on Sept 10, 2015 1:37:32 GMT
I doubt St Nihonto is in house. Their lower end stuff looks too similar to others. Or perhaps it's the other way around? The forges own the various sellers? Yeah, probably not the best choice of words. Maybe not "in house" so much as "discretely different"; St Nihonto's less expensive options look a lot like Hanbons or Ryanswords to me, or maybe that's just the fittings. Could be vendors shuffle products around, like there's a guy who makes the really cheap blades, another who makes the nicer blades, and so on.
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Post by Kiyoshi on Sept 10, 2015 1:51:45 GMT
I wouldn't guess that since a $400 huawei looks different from a $400 st-nihonto which looks different from a $400 ryansword. Their lower ends might be all by the same team/forge or whatever, but their upper end stuff looks different in quality of finish at the least.
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Post by MessengerofDarkness on Sept 10, 2015 2:57:12 GMT
In (another) update for you all (that I should have posted a few days ago), Sheng has sent me another reply himself showing that the katana's nakago was inscribed with the exact mei that I requested: It also served to show a nice shot of the nakago-anna, which look very clean and neat, and don't have those horrible 'dents' on so many other nakago. Additionally, In a nice (and funny) twist, I messaged Sheng the other day asking about the habaki and its fit on the nakago, hoping that it wouldn't be squashed and ruing the nakago-machi - I linked him this picture of a crappy katana from Katana1980, whom ground down the nakago horribly to fit their habaki: and his EXACT reply was: "Alec:
hahaha, so bad the katana, This kind of trash, I can not make, please rest assured
best wish
Sheng"
When I later told him that it would be reviewed in-depth on here, Sheng (quickly) replied: "Alec:
When you receive the sword, I hope you are on SBG, show me the Work , (details of the photo)
I want people to know that my sword, more than ryansword or some other big sellers
best wish
Sheng"
So this is actually a good thing, I think - he seems rather eager to prove that he's better than Ryansword and other such Chinese sellers, so this reassured me more than anything that I (and you as well) should be getting a quality product.
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Post by greatsaiyaman on Sept 10, 2015 4:14:40 GMT
That's just the reply I wanted to hear! It's about time we have an eBay vendor who is intelligent enough to know about sword forums and is making strives to become a valuable asset by acknowledging us. Based on my experiences of other Longquan vendors not giving a damn about our sword community and Huawei's very poor customer service skills, it is good to find one in Sheng that cares about us and has enough experience and knowledge to know what we are looking for I.e. good and bad crafting.
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addertooth
Member
Working the tsuka on two bare blades from Ninja-Katana, slow progress
Posts: 458
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Post by addertooth on Sept 10, 2015 14:55:43 GMT
Tracking number sent last night on the Ryansword replacement, should be here in a couple weeks. It has already hit Wenzhou (coastal city in China where it flies to San Francisco to go through customs). This is the last blade needed for the comparison article.
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Post by MessengerofDarkness on Sept 10, 2015 15:12:08 GMT
Tracking number sent last night on the Ryansword replacement, should be here in a couple weeks. It has already hit Wenzhou (coastal city in China where it flies to San Francisco to go through customs). This is the last blade needed for the comparison article. Good to hear, I hope the next Ryansword lives up to your expectations. (In other news, I just snagged a Hanwei Shinto katana online for compassion's sake, as it was suggested to me by someone that it was a FAR better value than going with any eBay katana - we'll see. Wish it didn't have a bo-hi though...)
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Post by danmasamori on Sept 10, 2015 15:21:00 GMT
I don't think I've ever gotten a St Nihonto blade with bad habaki fit, this seems to be one of their strong suits. In most cases they even allow for the mune-machi to sit a millameter or so inward from the edge, which keeps the mune of the blade from touching the saya when sheathed.
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Post by MessengerofDarkness on Sept 10, 2015 16:14:14 GMT
I don't think I've ever gotten a St Nihonto blade with bad habaki fit, this seems to be one of their strong suits. In most cases they even allow for the mune-machi to sit a millameter or so inward from the edge, which keeps the mune of the blade from touching the saya when sheathed. You've had some purchases from Sheng in the past? Would you mind going into detail about the overall quality of his swords, not just the habaki? Ie, the steel sharpness/quality, saya fit, tsuka integrity/ito wrap? It would be much appreciated! ^_^
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