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Post by Roscoe57 on Jul 18, 2023 20:22:34 GMT
Z-Sey QC issues I have bought 3 Katana’s from Z-Sey. 1. S7 Chinese version. Excellent mat cutter. $500 2. LD International version. Advertised as a mat cutter. Not the best mat cutter. $800 3. Z-Sey Tuoyuan MKIII International version. Now this one came with some issues. Kashira ledge, Very loose unfitted Habaki, and the biggest issue was the blade veered to the right {not straight}. Plenty of saya drag and the closing fit was off by almost ½ inch. After I straightened the blade the fit is now perfect. $899 Tuoyuan reviewI cut with all my katans’s. Worthless to me if they can’t cut. The Tuoyuan was a major disappointment. Fact is in my early days of sword buying cheap $200 - $300 swords were far better QC than the Tuoyuan. Z-Sey did give me a discount of the Tuoyuan, being I wasn’t totally happy with the LD. They said the Tuoyuan was made for mat cutting and they said the same thing about the LD. And in the end the Tuoyuan was free, due to the bent blade. They did offer to make another for $$$. I declined to make another. Sad to say I am done with buying from Z-Sey. They stopped production of the S7 and the LD. My conclusion of Z-Sey are beautiful expensive wall hangers for the most part. I was looking at a two more. How did the Tuoyuan do on cutting Tatami mats? This will happen next week. Pictures of the 3
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Post by jyamada on Jul 18, 2023 21:36:00 GMT
My conclusion of Z-Sey are beautiful expensive wall hangers for the most part. I was looking at a two more. Your conclusion is sound imo. They make good looking blades with a nice polish and mounts for the price point. Maybe a good alternative to Huawei for a little more $, also an alternative to Kaneie/Kurin for their higher priced stuff. The dimensions and geometries of their blades are like the average multi-purpose cutter Chinese blade, with nicer polish and possible better shaping details. As for "mat cutter" label, it depends on what the maker considers a mat; i.e. beach mat, soft brown wara, Mugen Dachi class mat (like Kageyama imports, Nine Circles "tatami"), or used Japanese tatami omote. There are significant differences in resistance across the various mat types used for cutting. Most any decent Chinese kat with a good edge will do fine on everything up through the Mugen Dachi class mats. Sounds like they responded to the issues in a reasonable manner imo. Thanks for sharing your experience, as you are one of the few buyers that cuts used Japanese tatami omote and have experience with other higher end swords used for cutting.
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Post by MessengerofDarkness on Jul 19, 2023 1:36:58 GMT
That's unfortunate, I've had my eye on the Tuoyuan for a while now and have even been considering a custom blade from them for some time now. Still a tough decision to make, but that bend is really quite significant.
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Post by Roscoe57 on Jul 19, 2023 14:10:11 GMT
That's unfortunate, I've had my eye on the Tuoyuan for a while now and have even been considering a custom blade from them for some time now. Still a tough decision to make, but that bend is really quite significant. Z-Sey does have excellent customer service. Still at the end of the day my Tuoyuan was sent with major defects. Maybe because they gave me a 50% discount on the Tuoyuan? Half price = bad quality? I did send them the video short of the habaki being very loose. No reply. Loose Habaki
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Post by MessengerofDarkness on Jul 19, 2023 21:45:36 GMT
That's unfortunate, I've had my eye on the Tuoyuan for a while now and have even been considering a custom blade from them for some time now. Still a tough decision to make, but that bend is really quite significant. Z-Sey does have excellent customer service. Still at the end of the day my Tuoyuan was sent with major defects. Maybe because they gave me a 50% discount on the Tuoyuan? Half price = bad quality? I did send them the video short of the habaki being very loose. No reply. Loose HabakiYeah that's a good bit more loose than I think should be really acceptable for a sword at this price point. I've seen $300 Hanwei blades that have a tighter habaki fit than that. In reality it should be easy enough to shim the inside of the habaki with some JB weld to tighten it up, though I'd also be pretty irked by needing to do that myself. I guess it's still not horrible considering the steep discount, but IMO they should have been more upfront that it would be a factory second/third. Do you have any plans for this blade? Just out of curiosity.
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Post by Roscoe57 on Jul 19, 2023 23:02:07 GMT
Z-Sey does have excellent customer service. Still at the end of the day my Tuoyuan was sent with major defects. Maybe because they gave me a 50% discount on the Tuoyuan? Half price = bad quality? I did send them the video short of the habaki being very loose. No reply. Loose HabakiYeah that's a good bit more loose than I think should be really acceptable for a sword at this price point. I've seen $300 Hanwei blades that have a tighter habaki fit than that. In reality it should be easy enough to shim the inside of the habaki with some JB weld to tighten it up, though I'd also be pretty irked by needing to do that myself. I guess it's still not horrible considering the steep discount, but IMO they should have been more upfront that it would be a factory second/third. Do you have any plans for this blade? Just out of curiosity. I took care of all the problems except the Kashira ledge. As for future plans, the cutting test is coming up next week.
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Post by blairbob on Jul 20, 2023 0:11:04 GMT
im not sure i've ever seen a habaki with that much play
i want to say the ppl buying their swords are more interested in the aesthetics than performance.
for performance above 2k, they just buy a Motohara unless they want something folded.
hmm, come to think of it...Skyjiro also is in that niche of beyond Hanwei to shinsakuto prices. I don't remember how they cut at all though that guy on reddit loves them (kenzaigakusha).
i do remember their customer service reputation seems to have been trashed by their user experience here on SBG. But apparently they don't give a semprini.
Looks like Iron Warrior reviewed by Matt Jensen was pretty solid. 6 more to go lol
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Post by Roscoe57 on Jul 20, 2023 15:26:39 GMT
To the point the Chinese version of the S7 was the cheapest and the best one I have from Z-Sey.
At the price point of the higher end Z-Sey $3000 plus, I would advise people to buy Motohara.
3 days later Z-Sey replied to the loose habaki. "Because it's not handcrafted habaki, this situation is possible." Not sure where I got the idea that all habaki's from them were hand fitted and not just tossed on.
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pgandy
Moderator
Senior Forumite
Posts: 10,296
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Post by pgandy on Jul 20, 2023 16:01:45 GMT
☹
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Post by Roscoe57 on Jul 21, 2023 13:35:01 GMT
On FaceBook:
Zsey-China
Due to continuous losses in our international retail operations, we are currently evaluating the possibility of suspending international retail business. However, our international wholesale operations remain unaffected.
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Post by davelorrez on Jul 21, 2023 15:36:27 GMT
On FaceBook: Due to continuous losses in our international retail operations, we are currently evaluating the possibility of suspending international retail business. Nothing to do with the original thread but sipping, customs and payment providers are becoming a serious threat in this biz :/
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Post by blairbob on Jul 21, 2023 15:54:42 GMT
yeah, I thought z-sey already had some payment issues a few months ago that required bank transfers to be used.
can't remember if that also applied to DragonSword.
i wonder if these custom issues are just between China and the US or China and other countries.
Worst case, we start buying Chinese katana out of Europe. or maybe out of elsewhere in SEA like Malaysia.
there are also some sword shops elsewhere in SEA besides India.
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Post by stalkerfromtheearth on Jul 21, 2023 20:08:59 GMT
Can confirm that payment issue is not only us-china. Bought from dragon sword and shipped to eu, had to request a cashback via paypal and transfer the money to their bankaccount. Second time I bought from them also used the bankaccount.
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Post by davelorrez on Jul 21, 2023 20:22:40 GMT
yeah, I thought z-sey already had some payment issues a few months ago that required bank transfers to be used. can't remember if that also applied to DragonSword. i wonder if these custom issues are just between China and the US or China and other countries. Worst case, we start buying Chinese katana out of Europe. or maybe out of elsewhere in SEA like Malaysia. there are also some sword shops elsewhere in SEA besides India. Any country. In matter of fact, it's against the policy of any shipping company (UPS, Fedex,DHL, etc) to ship weapons. The only reason it's still working now it's because the sender is not mentioning that the parcel is containing a sword and or it's not checked upon arrival at the destination country. Same goes for payment providers (Paypal,visa, etc). And than we dind't talk about the customs yet :/
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Post by blairbob on Jul 21, 2023 21:01:57 GMT
they're just art objects!
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Post by larason2 on Jul 22, 2023 19:20:35 GMT
It's kind of a shame this has happened to Z-sey. All companies have their occasional lemons, but Z-sey was doing some really fine custom work, using tamahagane, actually water quenching, putting a decent polish on the blade, and at least on the higher end good attention to detail on the koshirae. It could be some corners were cut on these last and less expensive blades before closing up because of the shipping problems/financial pinch. Now who is left to cover the higher end segment of the market? The only real competition they had there was Hanwei, but 2 years is a bit long to wait for a sword. Not only that, but the way things are going, how are any of us going to get any other swords from China? I feel like sooner or later, the same problem is going to take out every other Chinese sword company, at least for distribution to North America and Europe, and that's really too bad, because they have some amazing smiths.
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Post by captainharlock on Jul 22, 2023 21:54:35 GMT
Well completely in the opposite end I will say that my Z-Sey sword exceeded my expectations but what I bought was just a pretty wall hanger because I have no intentions of using it (plus you really can’t, it’s a Kenshin movie sword). They knew this but still applied what I would consider a more than acceptable polish, tight ito, decently fitted Habaki, no rattle in saya and even went as far as copying the Mei from the movie. Sorry to hear about your issues but it sounds like they handled it in the best possible way really. If you want a cutting Katana, it’s hard to argue against a Motohara
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pgandy
Moderator
Senior Forumite
Posts: 10,296
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Post by pgandy on Jul 22, 2023 23:06:32 GMT
Out of curiosity, will you tell us when you got your sword captain?
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Post by captainharlock on Jul 22, 2023 23:24:37 GMT
I got it back in May I believe. I was originally quoted 2 months and it did take 5 months before they shipped it though.
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Post by Roscoe57 on Jul 23, 2023 0:06:47 GMT
It's kind of a shame this has happened to Z-sey. All companies have their occasional lemons, but Z-sey was doing some really fine custom work, using tamahagane, actually water quenching, putting a decent polish on the blade, and at least on the higher end good attention to detail on the koshirae. It could be some corners were cut on these last and less expensive blades before closing up because of the shipping problems/financial pinch. Now who is left to cover the higher end segment of the market? The only real competition they had there was Hanwei, but 2 years is a bit long to wait for a sword. Not only that, but the way things are going, how are any of us going to get any other swords from China? I feel like sooner or later, the same problem is going to take out every other Chinese sword company, at least for distribution to North America and Europe, and that's really too bad, because they have some amazing smiths. Do you mean Huawei ? I gave up on them sometime ago.
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