Zen_Hydra
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Born with a heart full of neutrality
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Post by Zen_Hydra on May 13, 2019 0:29:37 GMT
So, granted that we have modern steel and production abilities far outstripping what was available in the classical era, are there any real, testable/reproducible advantages to the various historic katana sugata?
If so, what are your personal experiences with them?
In a time and place without the common use of rigid armor, which sugata lend themselves best to civilian defense?
Is there a sugata optimized for iai/batto-jutsu?
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Zen_Hydra
Moderator
Born with a heart full of neutrality
Posts: 2,629
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Post by Zen_Hydra on May 13, 2019 10:30:06 GMT
Alright folks, there have to be some of you with practical experience using katana with different blade shapes, and the differing cross-sections and mass distributions have to make some difference in performance. Let's see some of your personal anecdotes. meiboku.info/guide/form/zukuri/index.htm
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 13, 2019 12:05:57 GMT
I am no katanaphile, in the grand scheme of things but what I have seen over the past decade or so are profiles that might cater to either ease of cutting lighter targets or steeper, bulkier cross sections to cleave harder targets. The more subtle differences as shown in the link surely lost for a fair amount of the market, as the bling is the most important part of a majority of the patrons. The lack of responses to your inquiry kind of shows that. Historic values compared to modern offerings? Mostly over my head anyway
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Post by randomnobody on May 13, 2019 12:11:48 GMT
I can only offer two antique wakizashi, one shinogi-zukuri and one naginata-naoshi (kanmuri-otoshi?) which have similar nagasa (17.5") but differ in sori, width, thickness, etc. One has complete furniture, one is only a blade.
Between the two, the naginata-naoshi is heavier, with more forward weight, if memory serves. I've got a comparison of them somewhere here that I can never find. This makes it amusing for me whenever I see anybody, and I've seen this a lot, insist that unokubi/kanmuri will be lighter or "better balanced" than shinogi-zukuri because of the taper. Sure, if everything else was the same, and the shinogi-zukuri didn't have a bohi, then maybe...but I'd wager that would be unlikely.
I can't remember the developmental stages of the Japanese sword, save that or began as kiriha-zukuri or hira-zukuri in chokuto, then at some point evolved into the others. The legend of Amakuni and his Kogarasu-maru, the Mongol invasion, and whatever other events "shaped" the Japanese sword all escape me right now, but suffice to say a given sugata wasn't working, so a new one was developed.
Eventually, it seems like shinogi-zukuri was adopted as the "best overall" and this is why we see many more of these than the others.
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Post by Jussi Ekholm on May 15, 2019 18:17:06 GMT
Borrowed from Markus' site, I believe NBTHK has given free use for everyone for this picture as I've seen it in dozens of sources.
Unfortunately pretty much none of the manufacturers give a crap about historical accuracy. And that has been the deal as far as I remember. Darryl Guertin had the great idea of different historical swords but unfortunately his business ventures with Chinese forge went bad and business stopped before 2005... I still think he has had the best idea out of all production katana brands over the years. The truth is that those that actually buy the swords don't care about historical accuracy at all.
Out of that above picture I currently have my own custom designed YarinoHanzo that is late Muromachi and Hanwei Odachi which is modeled after the National Treasure by Tomomitsu (dated 1366) so it is typical of Nanbokuchō shape in above picture. Those are for production swords that I currently have that have an idea behind them.
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Post by Timo Nieminen on May 17, 2019 12:27:57 GMT
Specialised mat-cutters excepted, I think that variations in length and weight has much more effect than any variation in profile and cross-section. This is made worse by most modern katana etc. being of fairly uniform curvature (the point of maximum curvature does affect handling and cutting).
That said, if you fantasize about using a sword against unarmoured home invaders, perhaps a specialised mat-cutter (thin and wide) is the prescription. Absent such "applications", it makes little difference. As far as swordsmanship goes, the katana shows huge commonality with late Medieval European longsword that minor things don't matter that much.
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Post by uchiha998 on May 17, 2019 18:08:41 GMT
It is hard to find many historically accurate examples of sugata from the different time periods. It isn't that hard to find a Unokobi-zukuri, Shinogi-zukuri(of course), or Shobu-Zukuri, even Hira-Zukuri and Naginata-Naoshi are out there. What is hard to find is a Koshi sori blade that matches something a Koto Bizen katana for instance. It isn't easy though to find blades with good Hira-niku though not impossible. I have been look for a reasonbly priced production blade that closely resembles the one in this picture. I cant seem to find anything. I almost just bought this but it I feel bad cutting with it. The bidding on the blade never got up over $4,000 as recall and it was re-posted several times, and I think the seller just took it down, I don't believe anyone won the auction. I forget the smith now but it was Muromachi period blade and had been shortened but still retained the full mei. But that is the basic shape I'm looking for when it comes to sori and nagasa length and taper. Now I wish I had saved more pics of the sword.
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Post by Jussi Ekholm on May 18, 2019 17:53:16 GMT
Here is my duo in pic
Some of the models are just actual Japanese swords as placeholders as the production never got off at full throttle. These were influenced by actual swords and not 100% replicas of specific swords. I do think similar approach would be great one in the future too but the production sword crowd don't care about historical things...
Dguertin Yukiyasu - This was my favorite and I was aiming to buy this but the business crashed. Well now I do have bit later real Naminohira tachi of about similar size.
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