Review: $287(& $51 shipping) JKOO/Sinosword T10 katana
Nov 12, 2018 22:23:13 GMT
Post by Robert in California on Nov 12, 2018 22:23:13 GMT
Review: JKOO/Sinosword 29” T10 tool steel Midare Custom Katana 12 November 18
(Cost: $287usa + $51usa shipping)
This is a review of a JKOO (www.sinosword.com) sword. This one a 29 inch, forged mono-T10 tool steel, midare hamon katana.
Above: JKO / Sinosword custom T10 katana
Above: closer view of JKO / Sinosword T10 katana (non-folded blade)
Above: JKOO T10 midare katana - black and white theme
Above: a closer view. Traditional style.
I used the www.sinosword.com custom ordering menu and JKOO met all my specifications. This sword is longer than average at 29 inches (30 inches including habaki). I could have ordered a longer blade, but at slightly over 6 feet tall, 29 inches feels good, as tempting as a 30 inch blade is to me. Personally, since I am not a skilled swordsman, I fear really long blades in the hands of non-experts are more likely to get a bend in the course of poorly executed cuts.
Above: JKOO T10 katana, view of the other side (note: edge down was tachi style)
Above: JKOO T10 katana, a closer view of other side.
The longer katana length added weight. The sword alone ended up at 2.4 pounds (without the ½ pound saya). Balance felt light and agile despite its length and weight. Very slightly lighter and quicker in feel than my 29” midare JKOO tamahagane (forged out of chunks of pig iron, instead of iron sands) katana. All three swords (this katana, the wakizashi and the tamahagane katana) all came in black nylon sword bags.
Above: Black sword bag of two layer, nylon material
Holding and wielding this JKOO katana, how does it look and feel?
This JKOO / Sinosword T10 katana feels “average” in the way that Fredrick J. Lovret, a Kenjutsu and Aikido Sensei out of Los Angeles, described koto Bizen katanas as “average” in the August 1980 Bujin:
Referring to the Bizen School of sword making:
“This school takes its name from the village of Osafune in Bizen Province (Japan). Although it never produced swords of the quality of Ko-Bizen or Ichimonji, it made up for this in quantity. Osafune village turned out a LOT of swords. The entire village, for long periods of time, was centered around the sword making business. It is sometimes referred to as the ‘Ford Motor Company’ of swords.
The swords produced in Osafune share one important characteristic. This is their ‘averageness’. (Is there such a word?)
They were made for a wide range of customers. Whereas the blades from other schools tended to be made for a relatively restricted clientele, the Osafune school sold to everybody. This resulted in their blades not having any ‘exotic’ characteristics which could turn off any group of customers. So, when you look at an Osafune blade, no matter what you are looking at, it will be ‘just about right’. Length, curvature, hada, hamon, kissaki, boshi, or whatever, they will be made to suit just about anyone. You won’t see the delicate grace of a Yamashiro blade or the ‘gaudiness’ of a Soshu. What you will see is a good, solid, and above all, average blade. It would be something that a samurai would feel comfortable wearing, either to war or for daily wear.”
That is what JKOO swords make me think of, based on my JKOO T10 katana, JKOO T10 wakizashi and JKOO tamahagane katana. Not the lightest, not the heaviest, not the fastest, not the slowest. Good, solid “average features” blades for the “middle class” samurai.
Previously, I posted a review of my JKOO/Sinosword T10 mono-tool steel midare hamon wakizashi. I had used the www.sinosword.com custom sword ordering menu, the best such I’ve seen, to order all three JKOO swords. I plan to review the tamahagane katana also, since it represents the most traditionally-made of JKOO’s sword forging methods.
JKOO’s tamahagane blades are not the most complex, I think. Probably JKOO’s soshu kitae blades would be the most complex and difficult in construction.
Now having my three JKOO / Sinosword swords for a few months, here is my overall impressions.
.1. My JKOO/Sinosword blades are equivalent in quality and workmanship to my three (had four but sold one) Huawei blades.
.2. The saya workmanship quality (saya shape, saya paint, koguichi, kojiri, kurigata) of my JKOO’s and Huawei’s are equivalent.
.3. The fit of the saya to the sword of my JKOO’s are superior to the fit of the sword to the saya of my Huawei’s. Two of my JKOO’s have zero blade-in-saya rattle and one JKOO has a small amount of side-to-side blade in saya rattle but no forward and back blade-in-saya rattle. The habaki-to-koguichi fit of my JKOO’s is as good as the habaki-to-koguichi fit of my Huawei’s, which is very good. But my Huawei’s have much more blade-in-saya rattle. One of my Huawei wakizashi’s has so much blade in saya rattle that it could also act as a musical instrument.
.4. My Huawei’s slice paper easier than my JKOO’s. Why is that? Perhaps because my Huawei’s lack niku, giving a more razor-sharp blade, at the cost of more vulnerability to dulling on harder targets. My JKOO’s all came with the “sharp with niku” option instead of the “razor sharp” (no niku) option. Which I could have asked for instead. Niku gives an edge a slight “axe” shape in cross-section.
.5. All in all, my JKOO’s are a bit heavier, thicker, more robust blades than my Huawei’s. In my view, my JKOO swords are the sword to have for the swordsman who wants one sword for all uses. General purpose swords.
This is not to say that JKOO’s www.sinosword.com custom sword design menu cannot allow for specialized designs. It does, in the “what else do you want / what do you want different?” sections of the menu.
On to the sword specifications. This midare hamon, T10 tool steel sword was meant to be my “beater” sword for backyard cutting of bottles and such. But it was so nicely made and the blade polish so well done and the hamon so nice, that I regard it as “eye candy”. When I took my Huawei katana apart, among other things, the thin wood shims inside the tsuka would come unglued and fall out when I removed the tsuka, the glue being too weak. Did this JKOO katana have wood shims inside the tsuka? I took the tsuka off, got a tactical flashlight and peered down inside the tsuka. Nope, no shims. A mark of good tsuka build quality. No shimming at all in this $300usa relatively budget sword? Nope, no shims.
There was, however, a small amount of hardened, brittle brown glue on the tsuba and a tiny amount of the same in the narrow, bottom part of the habaki. More on that later.
JKOO/Sinosword is now building me two more swords. A forged, mono 1095, suguha katana. And the same in a wakizashi. They are to be my backyard cutters. They will be reviewed.
Specifications: JKOO / Sinosword T10 tool steel katana with midare hamon
The sword:
Cost: $287usa + $51usa shipping
Weight: 2.4 pounds
Total Length (sword + saya) = 43.5 inches
Total sword length = 41.25 inches
Blade length (not including habaki) = 29 inches
Blade length including habaki = 30 inches
Habaki length = 1 inch
Tsuka length = 11.25 inches
The Saya:
Saya length: 32 inches
Saya width (sideways) at kojiri: 1.5 inches
Saya width (thickness) at kojiri: 7/8 inches
Saya width (sideways) at koguichi: 1.75 inches
Above: buffalo horn koguichi
Saya width (thickness) at koguichi: 7/8 inches
Above: JKOO T10 katana saya's koguichi showing buffalo horn to wood fit.
Saya furniture (kojiri, kurigata, koguichi): (genuine) black buffalo horn:
Above: JKOO katana saya's kojiri of buffalo horn (under the black)
Saya color: gloss black
Saya shito-done: brass
Saya sageo: black cotton
Above: Sageo of black Chinese cotton
Saya weight: ½ pound
The Blade:
Blade polish: cosmetic grade (similar to standard Huawei polish)
Nicer than a mirror polish.
Blade (with niku) sharpness: slices paper
Blade sori: 13/16 inches
Blade thickness at yokote: 3/16 inches
Blade thickness ½ way down blade: 4/16 inches
Blade thickness at habaki: 5/16 inches
Blade width (ha to mune) at yokote: 15/16 inches
Blade width (ha to mune) ½ way down: 18/16 inches
Blade width (ha to mune) at habaki: 20/16 inches
Bohi width: ¼ inch
Above: The bohi
Kissaki length: 1.5 inches (chu / medium length kissaki)
Above: JKOO chu (medium) kissaki showing sughua boshi (kissaki's hamon)
Blade hamon: midare (irregular) (right side of blade)
Above: The midare (irregular) hamon
Above: the midare hamon in places looked gunome-ish (rolling waves) in places
Blade hamon: gunome (waves) (left side of blade)
Above: The gunome (rolling waves) side of the blade
Above: Hamon near the habaki
Blade boshi: suguha (boshi is the hamon of the kissaki)
Yes, the two sides of the blade really do have different hamons. You like rolling waves? Admire the right side of the blade. You like irregular? Look at the left side of the blade and there you go! Such has never been done, you say? I have an est. 200 year old Shinshinto nihonto katana that is similar. Midare hamon on one side of the blade and gunome hamon on the other.
Sword Point of Balance: 5.25 inches ahead of the tsuba.
Sword sharpness: Not sharp for the first 2.5 inches ahead of habaki.
(done to reduce chance of koguichi damage)
Paper-slicing sharp elsewhere, despite niku.
The nakago:
Above: Nakago of mono, non-folded T10 tool steel
Above: More nakago pics
Above: Rounded end of T10 blade nakago.
Above: Sword smith signature on nakago
Habaki: dulled gold color brass with diagonal file marks.
Above: Brass habaki
The Tsuba:
Above: Brass tsuba
Tsuba: darkened brass with flowers and praying mantis design
Tsuba thickness: 3/16”
Tsuba length (ha to mune direction): 3 inches
Tsuba width side to side): 2.5 inches
Above: The tsuka, straight with slight taper.
The Tsuka:
Tsuka: full wrap of raw, white, small nodules ray skin
Above: Tsuka with full ray skin wrap and black cotton ito
Tsuka ito: black cotton
Tsuka ito wrap: traditional “criss-cross”. Very tight. Diamonds even.
Tsuka Mekugi: one bamboo mekugi
Above: the one mekugi (bamboo) transverses the tsuka at a slight angle from the horizontal.
Tsuka width (ha to mune) at fuchi: 1 8/16 inches (with ito)
Tsuka width (ha to mune) at kashira: 1 7/16” inches (with ito)
Tsuka thickness (side to side) at fuchi: 1 inch (with ito)
Tsuka thickness (side to side) at kashira: 1 inch (with ito)
The Fuchi:
Above: Fuchi of dulled brass, flowers and praying mantis theme
Fuchi: darkened brass with flowers and mantis designs
Fuchi length: 1 ½ inches
Fuchi width: ¾ inches
The Kashira:
Above: kashira of dulled brass, flowers and mantis themed.
Above: One more view of the brass kashira
Kashira: darkened brass with flowers and mantis designs
Kashira length: 1 3/16 inches
Kashira width: ¾ inches
Above: Another view of the fuchi, and the inside wood of the tsuka.
The Menuki:
Menuki: darkened brass praying mantis
Above: The brass menuki, praying mantis.
My Opinions:
On tsuka length: I am 6 feet 2 inches and find an 11 inch tsuka feels more comfortable than a 10 inch tsuka. A case of larger hands liking a longer tsuka. With a shorter tsuka, my two handed grip has the rear hand covering the kashira. Not my preference.
On kashira shapes: a rounded kashira is more comfortable than a kashira with a flat top and edges. The edges of flat top style kashiras dig into my hand.
Summary (and nit picking):
Overall, this JKOO katana is neither light nor heavy, neither blindingly fast nor slow. It has a pretty good feeling for being a jack-of-all-trades sword. Not a water buffalo head cleaver. Not a specialized mat cutter. Rather a sword that can multi-task well. A pretty good sword and good value for the money.
The Good:
Good: Nice blade. Good balance. Enough heft to cut well. Not enough heft to slow it noticeably. A good looking sword offering good value for the money. A blade made at JKOO’s very own forge, not a blade bought elsewhere and then mounted and sold (yes, JKOO / Sinosword has their own forge). The JKOO custom menu allows a buyer to order a personally-designed sword, blade specifications and furniture choices.
The Bad:
(Small stuff, nothing major)
Bad: Rough edges on one side of the nakago's mekugi ana (drilled hole in nakago for the bamboo mekugi peg to go through). Solution? A couple minutes with a file smoothed the rough edges.
Above: rough edges on the mekugi hole.
Bad: Metal shavings in the tsuka.
When I removed the tsuka, and banged it on a table to shake out any wood and metal shavings inside, a fair about of steel “dust” (tiny shavings) fell out. Some very small wood “shavings” too. Why? Because this shows that the sword was assembled in this order:
.1. Install habaki, seppas, tsuba and tsuka.
.2. Drill hole through tsuka (and so through nakago).
.3. Install bamboo peg (mekugi)
.4. Done…pack it up and ship it.
The problem? The problem is that when only steps #1 through #4 is done, the drilling to make the hole for the mekugi leaves wood and metal particle waste inside the tsuka. A better way would be to add one more step, step#3.5: “Remove tsuka and shake out any wood and metal bits. Reassemble sword.” Cleaning drill waste out of the tsuka would take a little more time, but is a good enough idea that paying for this extra step would be worth it. It also would be an opportunity for one more check for any tsuka problems, before shipping.
Bad: Hard, brittle, brown “glue” used to help fit the habaki and tsuba.
Above: notice the hard but brittle brown glue used to re-size the tsuba's nakago hole.
Face it, furniture on a $300 dollar category sword is going to be factory produced koshirae, not individually hand-crafted-to-precisely-fit that and only that sword. Tsubas, seppas and habakis that are custom made to precisely fit precisely that one blade, are available. But not for $300 category swords. They are going to be found on more expensive$$$ swords. As in all things, if one wants hand-made fittings, one must pay the higher prices.
How to fix? First I took a small brass punch and with only hand pressure, knocked off the hardened and brittle brown glue. I cleaned with acetone and put a little bit of steel-impregnated JBWeld on the inside of the tsuba's nakago hole. I let it cure for a couple days, used a small hand file to remove excess JBWeld and hooray! A great tsuba to nakago fit! Strong stuff that automotive engine type JBWeld, not easy to file down.
Above: Brass tsuba with automotive grade JBWeld reshaping the tsuba's too large nakago hole to fit much better.
The brass habaki with glued wood shim:
Above: brass habaki with glued-in tiny length of wood in the narrow part of the habaki hole.
This JKOO T10 midare katana had a tiny 1 mm-thick strip of hard brown glued wood or bamboo in the narrow, bottom part of the brass habaki. Without that, the inside of the habaki would have been a very good fit on top and sides but about 1 mm too deep at the bottom. This habaki was about 1 mm too deep for the nakago. Or you could say the nakago needed to have had about 1 mm more “meat”, to fill that last 1 mm of the inside of the habaki.
I pulled the JKOO habaki and got out my bag of spare habakis. I tried a handful of different factory habakis and while they varied in outside dimensions, the inside depth was the same for almost all of my spare habaki's….the narrow, bottom edge of my nakago would have had to be about 1 mm more in depth. I ended up putting the JKOO habaki back on. Nothing I had was a better fit.
The same hard but brittle brown glue was on the edges of the tsuba’s nakago hole. The tsuba I chose, an attractive brass tsuba, had a central nakago opening a little too big for my nakago. So the tsuba hole had been made smaller by a metal punch and the final fitting done with the brown “cement”. The problem was that in taking the tsuba off and on, bits of the brown “cement” cracked and fell off.
Solution? Use the type of steel-impregnated JBWeld that is used for auto engine repair. Much stronger. And is what I did. An easy fix. It is strong enough to be used on engine parts.
Bad: Seppa holes were too big for the nakago.
Before: Brass seppa with too big a hole for the nakago.
So what to do? Simple fix to reduce the seppa holes: I got a steel punch and heavy hammer. I laid the seppas on the top of an anvil and expanded the top and bottom edges of the seppa with punch indentations, which reduced the size of the seppa openings.
After: I used a steel punch to make the seppa's nakago hole smaller for better fit.
Any more bad?
No. A good sword. Full wrap 11 inch tsuka that felt good in the hands. Good balance, medium heft giving power without much slowing down of the cut. Attractive looks. Good fit and finish for a $300 category sword. TIGHT tsuka ito wrap on a fully samegawa-wrapped wood tsuka that had no cracks found and that fit the nakago (tang) very well. This is a very good $300 category sword that I bought to be my backyard “beater”, but it turned out to exceed expectations and be so nicely done that I could not bring myself to do anything with it but admire its looks and cut air and slice paper.
A very pretty sword. How nice? So nice I ordered another custom-specifications JKOO katana to be my backyard cutter instead….a suguha hamon 1095. Which I plan to review after I get it and test it out.
Robert Hamilton, California November 2018