JKO (Sinosword) mono T10 midare hamon Wakizashi Review.
Aug 25, 2018 14:16:13 GMT
Post by Robert in California on Aug 25, 2018 14:16:13 GMT
JKOO/Sinosword non-folded T10 Midare Hamon Wakizashi August2018
Above: JKO / Sinosword T10 Wakizashi ordered via the www.sinosword.com custom ordering menu
Recently I received three JKOO swords.
Two katanas and a wakizashi. All three with blade niku, single bohi and geometric chu kissaki's.
All three with JKOO's midare hamons. I could have asked for other hamon's. Although it is not on the menu, I could have asked for a choji hamon (ref. JKOO FaceBook site). Choji and togari hamons are about $30 more than the other hamons. Price for suguha, midare and notare I believe are all the same cost.
Above: JKOO's midare hamon on a mono T10 tool steel blade.
Above: This is how the JKOO package arrived. Four single sword boxes taped together.
One katana was tamahagane (made from pig iron, not iron sands) with midare hamon, for $518.
The second katana was T10 mono steel with midare hamon for about $300.
The third sword was this T10 mono steel wakizashi with midare hamon for almost $300.
The fourth single sword box had, for $30 more, a spare gloss black saya for the T10 katana, including black sageo and buffalo horn furniture.
Prices included shipping from Longquan, China to California.
Above: the big box was four single sword boxes....3 swords and a spare saya
Above: The swords arrived in black, nylon type sword bags.
The tamahagane katana had JKOO's best and most expensive polish, a hazuya finger-stone polish.
Both the T10 katana and the T10 wakizashi came with "cosmetic" polishes, less expensive than the finger-stone polishes, but still much nicer looking than a basic mirror polish. JKOO's "cosmetic" polishes are like the polishes that my Huawei sword came with, quite good. Not quite hazuya/jizuya fingerstone polish level, but closer to a fingerstone polish than to a mirror polish. The hamon features are brought out nicely with the "cosmetic" polish. Better than a mirror polish.
I used the www.sinosword.com custom ordering menu for all three swords.
Pretty much every sword specification one can think of, can be ordered from the custom sword ordering menu. This is because the www.sinosword.com custom sword ordering menu has "what else do you want" sections in addition to the pull down menu choices, where I could type in "what else I wanted". It was fun playing around with it. So many choices.
Anyway, I was just tire kicking and messing around with the menu, to see what could be done with it, and I ended up doing an actual order. I helped fund my first JKOO purchase, via the sale of one of my Huawei katanas. I had two nice sughua Huawei katanas, virtually identical except one had a 28" blade and the other was 29".
My first JKOO/Sinosword menu purchase was the tamahagane katana, because I never had one and the sinosword site information about their more traditional "tamahagane" method of making, intrigued me. My second JKOO custom sword was to be a custom menu T10 backyard "beater".
But the T10 katana turned out so much nicer than I expected, that I can't bring myself to regard it as anything other than eye candy, like the tamahagane, to admire but not scratch up. This wakizashi was the third JKOO custom sword I ordered. If I had ordered just one sword, my wait time would have been about two months. JKOO completed all three in about 3 months and sent them together. Along with the spare saya for the T10 katana.
It is a good idea and quite affordable to, at time of sword order, get a spare, already fitted saya.
This review is about the wakizashi, made of non-folded T10 mono steel with a midare hamon.
As time allows, I plan to review the other two swords, the tamahagane katana and the T10 katana. Plus, yesterday I did a custom order for a non-folded, forged 1095 sughua katana (which should be ready in 2 or 3 months).
The wakizashi I purchased has the following specifications:
Above: sword terminology diagram from the www.sinosword.com site.
The T10 wakizashi:
Above: Theme was traditional black.
Weight, sword plus saya: 2.3 lbs
Weight, sword only: 2.0 lbs
ABove: the single bohi, mono T10 blade with midare hamon, "cosmetic" polish
Blade length: 21 3/4" (not including habaki)
Blade sori: 1/2"
Above: Brass seppa
Blade thickness at habaki: 5/16"
Above: The chu (medium) kissaki
Blade thickness at kissaki: 3/16"
Blade point of balance: 3 2/3" past the tsuba
Above: Brass habaki, one of 8 available habaki designs.
Blade width at habaki: 1 1/4"
Blade width at kissaki: 7/8"
Kissaki length: 1 1/2"
Above: Attractive midare hamon
blade edge to shinogi at habaki: 14/16"
blade edge to shinogi at kissaki: 9/16"
habaki: brass (1" long)
Above: Tsuka with full samegawa (ray skin) wrap, brass menuki and iron fuchi, iron kashira, iron tsuba and black cotton ito.
tsuka length: 9 1/2", straight with taper from 1 1/2" at tsuba tapering to 1 1/4" at kashira
Above: tsuba: blackened iron (3" in diameter)
The iron tsuba, fuchi and kashira do not look painted. They look more like "blued steel" in the way gun steel is blued, only blackened, instead of blued.
Above: Fuchi with wave design
fuchi & kashira: iron
Above: Kashira with waves design
menuki: brass, floral design, 1/4" x 1 5/16"
Above: Brass menuki with a subdued, antique look.
tsuka: full wrap, raw white samegawa with black cotton tsukaito wrap and 1 mekugi
Above: Saya
Saya: 24 1/2 " long, gloss black with black buffalo horn koguichi, kurigata and kojiri.
Gloss black saya:
Above: Saya was a smooth, polished gloss black
Above: Koguichi of black buffalo horn. Polished glossy on the sides, unpolished on the top.
Above: Black buffalo horn kurigata
Above: The kojiri was black, polished buffalo horn
Those are the specifications I asked for, and received.
The www.sinosword.com custom ordering menu system reduces chances of getting a sword not in accord with what one asks for. Excellent system....so many options.
Next are screen shot photos of some, but not all, by any means of the www.sinosword.com custom sword ordering system.
JKOO is the name of the sword company (they make their own swords) and www.sinosword.com is the website. Ordering is done at the website.
How does this T10 JKOO wakizashi feel?
Very good in the hand. A good balance between nimbleness and enough heft to cut well. My worries that the bohi would make the sword too light, were wasted worries. The blade has enough mass to cut fairly powerfully.
The blade's edge slices paper as one would expect.
The blade niku was done so well that I needed a straight edge to know it was there...yet there it was, strengthening the blade edge and still allowing the sword to slice single sheets of school binder paper, with little effort.
I have always been a fan of Huawei swords, having have had four (and still having three).
I bought the JKOO tamahagane as eye candy, not for backyard cutting.
And because it's method of forging was close to Japanese traditional methods.
The JKOO mono steel T10 was to be the "ok to get scratched up, beater" for backyard cutting.
The wakizashi so as to have a daisho, by giving it iron furniture matching that of the tamahagane katana.
I chose subdued brass furniture for the T10 katana.
The JKOO tamahagane katana turned out to be indeed eye candy with beautiful shaping, and flawless fit and finish. Unfortunately, I don't feel it appropriate for me to use the mono T10 JKOO katana for back yard cutting as I had planned to.
Why not?
JKOO did too good a job on their T10 katana....giving it a "cosmetic" polish rivaling a professional finger-stones polish and perfectly done furniture, flawless. A particularly interesting type of midare hamon and only a tiny bit of "blade in saya" rattle.
There was no "blade in saya" rattle at all in the tamahagane katana and the T10 wakizashi swords...as in zero. These JKOO swords have better blade-to-saya fit than any of my Huawei swords. Pretty much equal to my Huawei's in all ways, except in sword to saya fit where the JKOO swords are superior to the Huawei's.
All three swords had tuska-ito wrap as tight as the best of my Huawei's.
Fitting of habaki to koguichi was done just right, for smooth iaito practice without the blade falling out of the saya, when pointing down.
Katana nitpicks?
The two katanas had slight blade rust on the last 1/4" of the kissaki....despite the sword blades all arriving with a coat of oil. I used hazuya/jizuya finger-stones and metal polish to remove the rust.
The wakizashi had a little more to nitpick:
.1. The mekugi was almost covered by the tsuka-ito, making it difficult to remove the mekugi.
.2. The blade polish on part of the blade hamon was a slightly more shiny than the rest of the hamon.
The www.sinosword / JKOO Sword custom ordering menu has a lot of options, including "type in what else you want" sections. Next are some pics of not all, just some of the options the customer can have (there are more than I am showing, and with pictures):
Katana choices:
Above: Katana blade length choices (the Wakizashi menu has wakizashi-appropriate choices).
Above: Blade edge choices.
Above: Blade steel choices
Above: Blade shape choices.
Above: Kissaki choices
Above: Blade construction choices (the tamahagane katana was Kobuse & the T10's were Mono)
Above: Blade polish choices.
Above: Tsuka samegawa / ray skin color choices (ito material also comes in a variety of colors)
Above: Hamon choices (Choji not shown but costs extra)
Above: Bohi choices (general or geometric choice is one of the pull down menu's not shown here)
Above: Tsuka ray skin choices.
Above: Saya choices. "None" has various colors of paint and textures, but no ray skin nor rattan wrapping.
Above: Yokote comes in two choices.
Above: Nakago signature (or other engravings) options. "Other" is where you tell JKOO what you want on the nakago.
Above: One of the tsuka options. I chose hashi-gami (little paper triangles under the tsuka-ito "criss-cross" folds).
Above: Tsuka length options for katanas. I went with 11".
Above: Saya koguichi / kirigata / kojiri choices (I went with black buffalo horn on 3 orders and brown horn on my 1095 katana order)
Above: Tsuka length options for katanas. For wakizashi's the pull-down choices are 8 inches, 9 inches or "other" (you decide).
But for those who don't want to wait for 2 to 3 months for a custom sword, there are already made swords one can buy:
Above: For those who don't want to wait 2 or 3 months for a custom sword....go here.
Quality?
Quality of these JKO swords is Huawei level (better than Huawei for the blade to saya fit).
Notice the good lines of transition....shape of sword to flows smoothly into shape of saya:
Above: View from above. The saya and the tsuka are shaped to flow well into each other.
Above: Side view. Good tsuka to saya transition. One flows smoothly into the other. Pleasing the eye. Good design.
And the interesting "lava shooting out of volcano" features of the midare hamons on the T10 swords:
Above: JKOO midare hamons on my two T10 swords have this attractive feature.
So in conclusion:
JKO mono T10 midare hamon wakizashi:
Good: Pretty much everything. Fit and finish excellent. Handling very good. Pleasing to the eye in shape and design.
Best custom ordering menu I've seen anywhere.
Bad: Tsuka ito wrap partly covers the single mekugi.
Minor uneven polish on part of the blade hamon.
Thanks for reading.
Robert in California
August 2018
p.s. (October 2018) I have started writing a review of the 29 inch, T10 mono-steel, midare hamon JKOO / Sinosword katana.
Above: JKO / Sinosword T10 Wakizashi ordered via the www.sinosword.com custom ordering menu
Recently I received three JKOO swords.
Two katanas and a wakizashi. All three with blade niku, single bohi and geometric chu kissaki's.
All three with JKOO's midare hamons. I could have asked for other hamon's. Although it is not on the menu, I could have asked for a choji hamon (ref. JKOO FaceBook site). Choji and togari hamons are about $30 more than the other hamons. Price for suguha, midare and notare I believe are all the same cost.
Above: JKOO's midare hamon on a mono T10 tool steel blade.
Above: This is how the JKOO package arrived. Four single sword boxes taped together.
One katana was tamahagane (made from pig iron, not iron sands) with midare hamon, for $518.
The second katana was T10 mono steel with midare hamon for about $300.
The third sword was this T10 mono steel wakizashi with midare hamon for almost $300.
The fourth single sword box had, for $30 more, a spare gloss black saya for the T10 katana, including black sageo and buffalo horn furniture.
Prices included shipping from Longquan, China to California.
Above: the big box was four single sword boxes....3 swords and a spare saya
Above: The swords arrived in black, nylon type sword bags.
The tamahagane katana had JKOO's best and most expensive polish, a hazuya finger-stone polish.
Both the T10 katana and the T10 wakizashi came with "cosmetic" polishes, less expensive than the finger-stone polishes, but still much nicer looking than a basic mirror polish. JKOO's "cosmetic" polishes are like the polishes that my Huawei sword came with, quite good. Not quite hazuya/jizuya fingerstone polish level, but closer to a fingerstone polish than to a mirror polish. The hamon features are brought out nicely with the "cosmetic" polish. Better than a mirror polish.
I used the www.sinosword.com custom ordering menu for all three swords.
Pretty much every sword specification one can think of, can be ordered from the custom sword ordering menu. This is because the www.sinosword.com custom sword ordering menu has "what else do you want" sections in addition to the pull down menu choices, where I could type in "what else I wanted". It was fun playing around with it. So many choices.
Anyway, I was just tire kicking and messing around with the menu, to see what could be done with it, and I ended up doing an actual order. I helped fund my first JKOO purchase, via the sale of one of my Huawei katanas. I had two nice sughua Huawei katanas, virtually identical except one had a 28" blade and the other was 29".
My first JKOO/Sinosword menu purchase was the tamahagane katana, because I never had one and the sinosword site information about their more traditional "tamahagane" method of making, intrigued me. My second JKOO custom sword was to be a custom menu T10 backyard "beater".
But the T10 katana turned out so much nicer than I expected, that I can't bring myself to regard it as anything other than eye candy, like the tamahagane, to admire but not scratch up. This wakizashi was the third JKOO custom sword I ordered. If I had ordered just one sword, my wait time would have been about two months. JKOO completed all three in about 3 months and sent them together. Along with the spare saya for the T10 katana.
It is a good idea and quite affordable to, at time of sword order, get a spare, already fitted saya.
This review is about the wakizashi, made of non-folded T10 mono steel with a midare hamon.
As time allows, I plan to review the other two swords, the tamahagane katana and the T10 katana. Plus, yesterday I did a custom order for a non-folded, forged 1095 sughua katana (which should be ready in 2 or 3 months).
The wakizashi I purchased has the following specifications:
Above: sword terminology diagram from the www.sinosword.com site.
The T10 wakizashi:
Above: Theme was traditional black.
Weight, sword plus saya: 2.3 lbs
Weight, sword only: 2.0 lbs
ABove: the single bohi, mono T10 blade with midare hamon, "cosmetic" polish
Blade length: 21 3/4" (not including habaki)
Blade sori: 1/2"
Above: Brass seppa
Blade thickness at habaki: 5/16"
Above: The chu (medium) kissaki
Blade thickness at kissaki: 3/16"
Blade point of balance: 3 2/3" past the tsuba
Above: Brass habaki, one of 8 available habaki designs.
Blade width at habaki: 1 1/4"
Blade width at kissaki: 7/8"
Kissaki length: 1 1/2"
Above: Attractive midare hamon
blade edge to shinogi at habaki: 14/16"
blade edge to shinogi at kissaki: 9/16"
habaki: brass (1" long)
Above: Tsuka with full samegawa (ray skin) wrap, brass menuki and iron fuchi, iron kashira, iron tsuba and black cotton ito.
tsuka length: 9 1/2", straight with taper from 1 1/2" at tsuba tapering to 1 1/4" at kashira
Above: tsuba: blackened iron (3" in diameter)
The iron tsuba, fuchi and kashira do not look painted. They look more like "blued steel" in the way gun steel is blued, only blackened, instead of blued.
Above: Fuchi with wave design
fuchi & kashira: iron
Above: Kashira with waves design
menuki: brass, floral design, 1/4" x 1 5/16"
Above: Brass menuki with a subdued, antique look.
tsuka: full wrap, raw white samegawa with black cotton tsukaito wrap and 1 mekugi
Above: Saya
Saya: 24 1/2 " long, gloss black with black buffalo horn koguichi, kurigata and kojiri.
Gloss black saya:
Above: Saya was a smooth, polished gloss black
Above: Koguichi of black buffalo horn. Polished glossy on the sides, unpolished on the top.
Above: Black buffalo horn kurigata
Above: The kojiri was black, polished buffalo horn
Those are the specifications I asked for, and received.
The www.sinosword.com custom ordering menu system reduces chances of getting a sword not in accord with what one asks for. Excellent system....so many options.
Next are screen shot photos of some, but not all, by any means of the www.sinosword.com custom sword ordering system.
JKOO is the name of the sword company (they make their own swords) and www.sinosword.com is the website. Ordering is done at the website.
How does this T10 JKOO wakizashi feel?
Very good in the hand. A good balance between nimbleness and enough heft to cut well. My worries that the bohi would make the sword too light, were wasted worries. The blade has enough mass to cut fairly powerfully.
The blade's edge slices paper as one would expect.
The blade niku was done so well that I needed a straight edge to know it was there...yet there it was, strengthening the blade edge and still allowing the sword to slice single sheets of school binder paper, with little effort.
I have always been a fan of Huawei swords, having have had four (and still having three).
I bought the JKOO tamahagane as eye candy, not for backyard cutting.
And because it's method of forging was close to Japanese traditional methods.
The JKOO mono steel T10 was to be the "ok to get scratched up, beater" for backyard cutting.
The wakizashi so as to have a daisho, by giving it iron furniture matching that of the tamahagane katana.
I chose subdued brass furniture for the T10 katana.
The JKOO tamahagane katana turned out to be indeed eye candy with beautiful shaping, and flawless fit and finish. Unfortunately, I don't feel it appropriate for me to use the mono T10 JKOO katana for back yard cutting as I had planned to.
Why not?
JKOO did too good a job on their T10 katana....giving it a "cosmetic" polish rivaling a professional finger-stones polish and perfectly done furniture, flawless. A particularly interesting type of midare hamon and only a tiny bit of "blade in saya" rattle.
There was no "blade in saya" rattle at all in the tamahagane katana and the T10 wakizashi swords...as in zero. These JKOO swords have better blade-to-saya fit than any of my Huawei swords. Pretty much equal to my Huawei's in all ways, except in sword to saya fit where the JKOO swords are superior to the Huawei's.
All three swords had tuska-ito wrap as tight as the best of my Huawei's.
Fitting of habaki to koguichi was done just right, for smooth iaito practice without the blade falling out of the saya, when pointing down.
Katana nitpicks?
The two katanas had slight blade rust on the last 1/4" of the kissaki....despite the sword blades all arriving with a coat of oil. I used hazuya/jizuya finger-stones and metal polish to remove the rust.
The wakizashi had a little more to nitpick:
.1. The mekugi was almost covered by the tsuka-ito, making it difficult to remove the mekugi.
.2. The blade polish on part of the blade hamon was a slightly more shiny than the rest of the hamon.
The www.sinosword / JKOO Sword custom ordering menu has a lot of options, including "type in what else you want" sections. Next are some pics of not all, just some of the options the customer can have (there are more than I am showing, and with pictures):
Katana choices:
Above: Katana blade length choices (the Wakizashi menu has wakizashi-appropriate choices).
Above: Blade edge choices.
Above: Blade steel choices
Above: Blade shape choices.
Above: Kissaki choices
Above: Blade construction choices (the tamahagane katana was Kobuse & the T10's were Mono)
Above: Blade polish choices.
Above: Tsuka samegawa / ray skin color choices (ito material also comes in a variety of colors)
Above: Hamon choices (Choji not shown but costs extra)
Above: Bohi choices (general or geometric choice is one of the pull down menu's not shown here)
Above: Tsuka ray skin choices.
Above: Saya choices. "None" has various colors of paint and textures, but no ray skin nor rattan wrapping.
Above: Yokote comes in two choices.
Above: Nakago signature (or other engravings) options. "Other" is where you tell JKOO what you want on the nakago.
Above: One of the tsuka options. I chose hashi-gami (little paper triangles under the tsuka-ito "criss-cross" folds).
Above: Tsuka length options for katanas. I went with 11".
Above: Saya koguichi / kirigata / kojiri choices (I went with black buffalo horn on 3 orders and brown horn on my 1095 katana order)
Above: Tsuka length options for katanas. For wakizashi's the pull-down choices are 8 inches, 9 inches or "other" (you decide).
But for those who don't want to wait for 2 to 3 months for a custom sword, there are already made swords one can buy:
Above: For those who don't want to wait 2 or 3 months for a custom sword....go here.
Quality?
Quality of these JKO swords is Huawei level (better than Huawei for the blade to saya fit).
Notice the good lines of transition....shape of sword to flows smoothly into shape of saya:
Above: View from above. The saya and the tsuka are shaped to flow well into each other.
Above: Side view. Good tsuka to saya transition. One flows smoothly into the other. Pleasing the eye. Good design.
And the interesting "lava shooting out of volcano" features of the midare hamons on the T10 swords:
Above: JKOO midare hamons on my two T10 swords have this attractive feature.
So in conclusion:
JKO mono T10 midare hamon wakizashi:
Good: Pretty much everything. Fit and finish excellent. Handling very good. Pleasing to the eye in shape and design.
Best custom ordering menu I've seen anywhere.
Bad: Tsuka ito wrap partly covers the single mekugi.
Minor uneven polish on part of the blade hamon.
Thanks for reading.
Robert in California
August 2018
p.s. (October 2018) I have started writing a review of the 29 inch, T10 mono-steel, midare hamon JKOO / Sinosword katana.
