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Post by Adrian Jordan on Oct 10, 2015 23:49:37 GMT
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Post by Adrian Jordan on Oct 10, 2015 23:51:55 GMT
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Post by brotherbanzai on Oct 11, 2015 23:07:02 GMT
Interesting stuff. I wonder what those guys are getting paid compared with skilled or semi-skilled labor in the US.
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Post by Adrian Jordan on Oct 12, 2015 2:00:49 GMT
That's a good question. Perhaps Chris will give a ballpark figure in one of his blog posts.
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Post by Kiyoshi on Oct 12, 2015 2:54:53 GMT
What I would like is a list of master smiths. According to his article, all blades are factory produced but master smiths still exist. I'm pretty curious as to what their work is like and who they are.
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Post by Adrian Jordan on Oct 12, 2015 3:00:47 GMT
I believe that he mentioned naming/showing some of them in later posts.
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Post by Kiyoshi on Oct 12, 2015 3:15:56 GMT
Cool, I'll definitely be following these then. Thanks for the share.
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Post by Adrian Jordan on Oct 12, 2015 4:01:18 GMT
My pleasure.
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Post by Croccifixio on Oct 12, 2015 11:21:16 GMT
He's posted some pics a few weeks back of Zheng's work. Mostly Jian and Dao.
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Uhlan
Member
Posts: 3,121
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Post by Uhlan on Oct 12, 2015 13:59:13 GMT
Very interesting. Do you mean to say that Huawei blades come from a place like this? Also, I see no temper tanks or whatever they are called. Are the blades hammered out, bundled, transported and re heated / tempered somewhere else? If Huawei blades come from a place like this, these guys are way better than Chris seems to give them credit for.
Cheers.
PS. Doing the math: Each guy cranks out 100+ blades a day, I read. Let's assume a 10 hour work day. That means 10 blades per hour and that again means 6 minutes to do a blade? What are they? Aliens?
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Post by Croccifixio on Oct 12, 2015 16:43:44 GMT
Very interesting. Do you mean to say that Huawei blades come from a place like this? Also, I see no temper tanks or whatever they are called. Are the blades hammered out, bundled, transported and re heated / tempered somewhere else? If Huawei blades come from a place like this, these guys are way better than Chris seems to give them credit for. Cheers. PS. Doing the math: Each guy cranks out 100+ blades a day, I read. Let's assume a 10 hour work day. That means 10 blades per hour and that again means 6 minutes to do a blade? What are they? Aliens? Well first, I think they work more than 10 hrs a day. Second, if you heat them all together (as Paul's old videos showed), you can pound out a sunobe in just a few mins with a power hammer. Since they don't do the polish on the basic blades, that means they can really hit that rate of forging.
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Uhlan
Member
Posts: 3,121
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Post by Uhlan on Oct 12, 2015 17:18:19 GMT
Thanks for your repley to my questions. Now I have another one, three actually: Does that mean that the only difference between a low quality blade and a higher quality blade, like those from Huawei, sits in the after care, like the polish and clay tempering? It still seems rather doubtfull to me that a Huawei San Mai blade, which I have and I can prove it is genuine San Mai, is hammered together in a couple of minutes. Then again I do not know much about the Katana trade at all, let alone the forging. Second question: Taking into account the amount of blades produced by this factory and the fact that there are many more like it in China and the size of the Katana market, which is not a very large market at all, or so I am given to understand, there must be a huge glut in said market, some huge mountain of blades not sold? The third question: If Huawei proudly states they sell T10 steel katana, are they lying?
Cheers.
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Post by Jussi Ekholm on Oct 12, 2015 17:53:38 GMT
My question is who is buying all these swords? So it's the same as the second question by Ulahn. I've known that some factories for example Zhengs can produce very large quantaties of low end swords per month (you can see some of their production estimates at AliBaba) but the big questions is where do these thousands and thousands swords go? I also noticed Chris said Ronin is buying 500+ laminated blades yearly, I was very surprised how much Ronin seems to have grown in the last few years. As few years ago the number was 50 Elites. I just can't understand how there will be a buyer for all the new swords as there are already thousands and thousands of swords around, and there is no actual need for swords anymore. I think my answer to your third question Ulahn would be does it really matter if it is or isn't T10 as long as it's a good sword? I know advertising should be the truth etc. but you can see how much "shady" stuff is going on in production katana market. I'm just surprised that these great blog posts haven't sparked more interest? Where are all of our production katana guys? This should be right in that alley, and information that many have been wanting for multiple years.
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Uhlan
Member
Posts: 3,121
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Post by Uhlan on Oct 12, 2015 21:57:47 GMT
,,I think my answer to your third question Ulahn would be does it really matter if it is or isn't T10 as long as it's a good sword? I know advertising should be the truth etc. but you can see how much "shady" stuff is going on in production katana market.''
The Huawei I have are good swords without question. So, no, in the end it does not matter as much as the quality of the ,,handywork''.
,,I'm just surprised that these great blog posts haven't sparked more interest? Where are all of our production katana guys? This should be right in that alley, and information that many have been wanting for multiple years.''
I dunno. Maybe the truth is too much for them?
Still, the question remains: Where do all of those blades go? Obviously not to the market as prices would drop like a brick. Naw, I am beginning to get the feeling there is more going on, like a government induced buy back scheme, so they keep the forges working. This has nothing to do with the workings of a regular market. Half or more of the forges and the people in the industry would be on the street, closed down, funtoosh. Maybe one of the reasons they crank out one blade per 6 minutes. Those are subsidised or something like that. Maybe they get a penny per blade from the state. Something must be afoot, because there is simply no market that can carry those quantities. Are we looking at a Potemkin village here? I see clean, happy, healthy guys, not the typical worn out faces I would expect in any steel related business. There is not much of an internal market too I suspect, what with the financial whipeout of millions upon millions of little private investors in the Chinese stock market lately and the rest of them hanging by their finger nails to get by. Ah well, probably we will never know.
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Post by LG Martial Arts on Oct 13, 2015 0:11:01 GMT
I suspect you all are right about the Chinese government buying back/manipulating prices on swords... they subsidize almost every form of tangible goods, and manipulate their currency to artificially make their economy stronger.
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Post by Croccifixio on Oct 13, 2015 2:06:19 GMT
Ulahn, your Huawei sanmai was probably made by a decently skilled smith and was likely limited in production. In Paul's video, the more expensive katana are made by a "high ranking" smith in a separate room. The 100+ bladesmiths probably make the normal 1060 through hardened katana that Zheng sells to several different vendors/assembly houses (Ronin being one - I know of at least two others, one of them based here in the Philippines).
And yes, it's almost always the post-forging stuff that is the most time consuming. You have to grind, profile, temper, normalize (might not be a thing for DH), grind again, sharpen, and polish. Then you have to fit it properly. I think the Ronin videos show pretty clearly why the tsukas are usually the victims of sword production, since they're just pounded into the tang and not properly fitted.
As for the Chinese economy, suffice to say that it's slowly going to reveal itself for what it is: A tragedy for the working class in China, of course.
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Uhlan
Member
Posts: 3,121
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Post by Uhlan on Oct 13, 2015 4:38:29 GMT
,,As for the Chinese economy, suffice to say that it's slowly going to reveal itself for what it is: A tragedy for the working class in China, of course.''
We are in the same boat. Hope to see you guys again at the other end.
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Post by jam on Oct 13, 2015 12:44:56 GMT
These will be the $99 katana that can cut down tree.
With regard to the choji hamon offerings on huawei. Is choji hamon really difficult? I saw a documentary and the smith was displeased with the clay hamon, and just heated up the blade and dunked it. It seemed a little hit-and-hope at the time, although the outcome was pleasing for an art-sword. A beautiful large choji hamon.
I'm curious about this.
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Post by Adrian Jordan on Oct 13, 2015 19:45:16 GMT
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Post by Croccifixio on Oct 14, 2015 7:01:03 GMT
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