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Post by shepherd214 on May 29, 2023 15:41:44 GMT
So I went to have a look at this sword. I really like the design. The sword looks great. The castings are very nice. The sword deals like a powerful cutter but still well balanced. The tsuka feels good in the hand, much better than Hanwei axe handles. The katana had a natural Hamon, while there was also a wakizashi that had a weird chemical enhanced Hamon. The tsuka, tsuba, fuchi and kashira were all very tight. There’s a beautiful end cap at the bottom of the saya that was also nice and tight. Unfortunately: the Ito was quite loose. You could easily move it with your thumb. The saya fit was also quite bad, if you hold the sword vertical from the tsuka, the saya would just fall of… In my opinion, with better quality control, this could have been a great sword. Ito tightness can easily be fixed by coating it with some polyurethane. The saya tightness can also easily be fixed with a shim of thick paper glued inside.
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Post by shepherd214 on May 28, 2023 2:27:29 GMT
You could never convince me to deal with this stuff nowadays. I used to buy from them. A year wait time was annoying but understandable. Now it's becoming common to hear about a 2-3 year wait, with zero communication, random refunds, etc. IDC what their excuse is, they could at least respond. They aren't getting hundreds of emails, I don't believe it. If they are then it's from the same 20 people asking where their stuff is. Maybe a few dozen emails at most "Jackie" doesn't make the swords, and if he/she/it/zhe/they/zit does make the swords, then thats yet another lie because their emails always say "hi friend, yes good friend, I will communicate this to the smith". So Jackie isn't doing anything other than answering emails. I seriously doubt they do any of the custom work. Probably order the materials and supplies? Again we can only speculate.
The point of my rant is that, we don't know who makes them, don't know who we communicate with, don't know when we are getting a response, don't know when we are getting the sword, don't know if we will get punished and get a sudden refund if we send more than two questions per year, we are fearful of asking for an update once every 10 months for fear they will just randomly refund, or maybe not get a refund at all? Who knows. At this point it's insanity to give them money. "Ohhh but they have nice geometry and polish, who knows about the heat treat, it's shiny! It cuts milk jugs and soft mats, it must be good! And MY sword came out well, and IM okay with the 2 year wait time with no responses, which makes your argument invalid and silly". I'd rather buy from a vendor like Sinosword or hanbon, whos a fraction of the quality but at least respects the business relationship enough to at least respond. Or a good custom maker that maybe has some flaws but good communication and at least a functional weapon.
Take your own risk, but every couple weeks we will keep seeing threads like this and more and more people will begin to regret placing an order. recommending this brand is literally doing damage to the sword community at this point yet some people still won't add them to the naughty list of brands for various reasons. Imagine if you waited three years for your medium quality sword. The likelihood of you passing away before you ever receive it is moderate, lol.
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Post by shepherd214 on May 17, 2023 20:07:30 GMT
Price dropped to 160 shipped
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Post by shepherd214 on May 13, 2023 3:40:32 GMT
Thanks. I will inspect it before buying it. So I should be able to see if the mounting quality is good. Main concern I have is the heat treatment. I intend to cut green bamboo with it, so if the edge is not well made, it could chip or roll… You'll get some people here super picky about cold steel because they are biased, but Ive never seen a heat treatment issue with their blades. Their mounting is hit or miss, but when I had my warrior series swords, I just fixed it all by filling the tang area up with epoxy and coating my ito with polyurethane varnish. Stiffens the wrap up to have almost no movement and makes the handle and fittings solid and indestructible. These swords are meant to be used hard and trained with daily so it's not really a big deal to me.
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Post by shepherd214 on May 12, 2023 1:48:30 GMT
Hey guys. I have this up for grabs. I've had it for over a year and haven't really used it. It was a custom order with my custom specs. I requested the blade be wider than normal. Width at habaki is 35mm wide and 29-30mm at yokote. Despite this, it's still light and fast feeling while having a substantial feel. It has all the typical pros and cons you would expect from Sinosword, like rough fit and finish and when I first got it the saya was tight but I guess the wood has settled in so it's became very loose. But a thin shim will tighten it well. But it's overall nice for the price. The only thing to note is I did test cut with it, to make sure it's safe to use. I cut some thick branches so there is a bit of a cosmetic blemish just under the yokote. But no edge damage. Specs: 19 inch blade with habaki, 8.5 inch handle, 8mm thick blade at habaki, 5mm at tip. Green leather wrap, hishigami, black rayskin, real iron fittings instead of the zinc alloy stuff. Asking only 180 shipped. This was about 240 when I ordered it plus like 8 months wait time since they screwed up the order twice before the third time lol.
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Post by shepherd214 on Aug 24, 2022 5:21:03 GMT
To comment on the HEMA thing, Shad has never consistently trained in HEMA, only attended a few classes and events. He seems to think he's educated in it though, as Shad dug himself a deep hole with Scholagladatoria and refused to admit defeat when Matt was confronting him about certain details about the subject.
Commenting about Apoc swords, they are all under 200 swords. Being super picky about them seems really useless. It's okay to acknowledge the shortcomings but you have to constantly remind yourself that it's a fun time, tough sword in a very cheap price point.
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Post by shepherd214 on Aug 24, 2022 5:14:19 GMT
If it's heat treated correctly I doubt you'd be able to notice any glaring weakness. They way most of these Chinese blades are heat treated, with enlarged grain due to not thermocycling to refine grain steucture or quenching them too hot due to poor heat control, who knows
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Post by shepherd214 on Mar 25, 2022 23:16:31 GMT
Oh man, you messed up real bad having such a short tsuka with a 24 inch blade................ Not for a katateuchi. You don't use them like you do a katana, because they are inherently one-handed. Yea but are you really gonna trust hanbon to balance it and shape the geometry like it should be for a sword like that? Lol they probably just took a katana blade and shortened the tang.
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Post by shepherd214 on Mar 24, 2022 6:54:23 GMT
I think Hanwei is considerably average and in many cases below average. They have a few decent models but overall I've always thought they were worse than people give them credit for.
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Post by shepherd214 on Mar 24, 2022 6:51:12 GMT
Oh man, you messed up real bad having such a short tsuka with a 24 inch blade. You need another 2 to 3 inches at least to make it more comfortable. Get them to change it asap.
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Post by shepherd214 on Feb 21, 2022 7:04:55 GMT
I believe T10 is too hard and brittle for through hardening. Better then to apply differentially hardening. That can be somewhat offset by the tempering of the steel after the quench. You could through harden T10 steel and temper down softer to make it tougher. Or temper to make it hard and chippy and brittle due to its high carbon.
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Post by shepherd214 on Feb 7, 2022 7:04:49 GMT
.6% carbon is still a bit on the low side, but still has plenty to be a good sword. The steel could have as high as .8 or .9% and as long as it is heat treated and then tempered correctly, it won't be too brittle. For example, 1095 has alot more carbon than 1060 steel. But you could still temper 1095 to have a similar Rockwell hardness to 1060 if toughness is your bigger concern. Generally though with a higher carbon steel, you'd wanna take advantage of that higher carbon and heat treat with that in mind. If great care is taken in the heat treat and you temper for a high Rockwell hardness, it would still be a pretty tough sword no matter what. Alot of people are so used to Chinese forge heat treat treats that they have no idea what a truly great heat treat recipe is like. I'm sure Rado swords does great work with whatever steel he chooses.
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Post by shepherd214 on Jan 17, 2022 17:33:31 GMT
This is the guy who said quenching blades in commercial grade quenching oil scientifically designed for quenching carbon steel blades is bad. I would just ignore.
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Post by shepherd214 on Jan 14, 2022 2:19:51 GMT
Considering the many hours required to make a sword, a price of 2000-3000$ is very reasonable I would say. Mr Sabatier needs 3 weeks to make a sword. While you can and should use these swords for tameshigiri at some point, I would still advice to also buy a cheaper sword (like a basic T10 Chinese sword) for practising as long as you’re not confident about your skill. And considering the living costs in europe I agree the price is reasonable. Like I said the issue is more about actually using something so expensive. I expect the swords are fully functional but no matter how good you are there's always the risk of accidents, imagine driving your car without any insurance. much much cheaper if you go with mono steel. I think a basic nono steel with basic koshirae is around 1.5 to 2k I asked for his prices and those are the ones he gave me so I assumed he doesn't offer mono steel. did you happen to get the turn around time for Rado? hes expensive but still abit of a deal for the attention to detail you get.
Also lol at huawei, "Jacky" has been telling people 3 months through out the whole pandemic, I get semprini happens, but can't really trust what he says aftter bullsempriniting so many people.
No info on Rado's waiting times but using novak77's order as an example he seems to have a few months waiting time. Also lol at huawei, "Jacky" has been telling people 3 months through out the whole pandemic, I get semprini happens, but can't really trust what he says aftter bullsempriniting so many people.
Yeah, reaching the conclusion that this was my best option I went ahead and ordered one so I guess we'll see. I'll have it remounted in custom koshirae. Just because a smith doesn't want to accomodate a customer's millimeter-specific requests is no reason to write him off. Personally, if/when I can afford it, I'd be happy to ask Josiah to "make me a tanto" or whatever and just trust him do his special thing. Bladesmithing is at least as much art as it is craft; and not all artists may want to be constrained by their customer's specs. And I think that's great. If you'd prefer to have more control/input, then there are many others who will happily take your money. But let's not create a culture of "the customer is always right" when it comes to works of art. Just my opinion. Are you actually trying to censor a smith because he won't accommodate your specific specs and because he is comfortable with his prices? You are exactly the type of customer I'd want to avoid. 110%. I think it's fair to exclude a smith who doesn't do custom work from a list of custom smiths. I'd back up a little and reread how the comment and the attitude with which he presented his reasoning. I got a warning for saying I'd avoid the customer for that attitude and yet the dude is blatantly "vendor bashing", but it's not a SBG brand so they don't flag him
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Post by shepherd214 on Jan 7, 2022 18:48:27 GMT
Been talking to the some of the above and I would remove Josiah from the list. He is not even taking custom orders because he can't be bothered with getting the specs right. He just makes swords and then you pay $3500 for mono $7500 for folded (bare blade) if he happens to have anything you like in stock. So even more if you want it mounted. Rado is €2700 for bare blade and €4000 for basic koshirae. Michael Sabatier is around €2500 depending on what options you want and posssibly a bit unreliable with time. Currently says he has a production time of 6 months. Pierluigi is around $4000 and has a long waiting list, currently 10-11 months before he can even start production. As a reference I also talked to Huawei that explained 2021 had been a messy year for them for personal reasons but they expect to be back on track now and can deliver a sword in 3 months (guess we'll see about that). It's a shame that there's such a leap from china blades to local smiths. I would love to support local and not china but with such an expensive sword I wouldn't dare to use it... I guess Motohara is the only mid-range custom option at about $2000 but I'm not into the micro-bevel on their swords. Are you actually trying to censor a smith because he won't accommodate your specific specs and because he is comfortable with his prices? You are exactly the type of customer I'd want to avoid. 110%.
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Post by shepherd214 on Jan 7, 2022 6:18:49 GMT
That's excellent, thank you. These are really neat designs. I wish they would have taken my advice and make these sandwich tang designs. The current method for the pommel is a cheap weld and wood glue. My Honshu boshin waki pommel fell off, and I think I've seen 5 or 6 other comments on YouTube and review sites say the same thing. The could do rubber scales instead, and pin bolster scales on the end of the full tang instead, would be 10x more durable. For 100 bucks though I might buy and modify for a fun beater. Yeah I saw your post on the damaged HB wak. Still have to thank you for posting that. Had been trying to find out how the tang was constructed. That’s why I was so glad to be able to give you the info you wanted. I don’t do any heavy cutting with my swords so shouldn’t be a problem. Just got this a few days ago. Fit on the hilt is excellent. Pommel has two small scratches on it, not a big deal for me. The blade finish though leaves a lot to be desired. Not very even in several places. Might have a ghost hamon right behind the kissaki. About 5 inches long both sides. Not sure though, could be polishing marks. But for the price ( I got 10% off) I don’t think you can go wrong. I like it and it’s my current favorite. But that could be because it’s new. Haha. Well the pommel didn't snap completely from use. I cut some branches around and inch or so and the pommel bent from the handle pretty severely. So I just helped the cheap weld finally break off. Filling the Tang and handle with West Systems epoxy and then threading the Chicago screws through all that actually made it stronger and losing the super heavy pommel made the blade feel much better. I'm unsure if losing the pommel on the subhilt would leave enough usable handle left though. The grinds in my two Honshu wakis ranged from okay to awful. The kissaki on one pointed severely to the left. The lines were also a little uneven. The geometry was very thick and axe like. I had planned on resharpening them but lost both in a fire among my entire sword collection. So, there went that idea. Lol. For a hundreds bucks though it's hard to complain. I tested the blades and they had strong spring tempered heat treats to them.
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Post by shepherd214 on Jan 7, 2022 5:58:52 GMT
It took me two years and quite a few emails to finally get a response from Pavel. He said it would be late 2022, or early 2023 at the earliest to get to me, and that would be just forging the blade, polish and Koshirae would be another year or so. We were emailing back and fourth about specifics, and he kinda just disappeared. Hoping he is in good health. Cheers Lol that's interesting. Wonder how many customers die or something before they finally have the blade in hand after waiting for 5 years. The chances have to go up you'd think
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Post by shepherd214 on Jan 4, 2022 5:07:02 GMT
How wide and thick is the blade? Width- 36.4 mm near ricasso and 30.4 at kissaki. Thickness- 4.4 near ricasso and 4.6 at kissaki. That's excellent, thank you. These are really neat designs. I wish they would have taken my advice and make these sandwich tang designs. The current method for the pommel is a cheap weld and wood glue. My Honshu boshin waki pommel fell off, and I think I've seen 5 or 6 other comments on YouTube and review sites say the same thing. The could do rubber scales instead, and pin bolster scales on the end of the full tang instead, would be 10x more durable. For 100 bucks though I might buy and modify for a fun beater.
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Post by shepherd214 on Jan 4, 2022 2:36:41 GMT
The recent Huawei thread started a discussion on custom smiths/craftsmen but only named a few so I thought it deserved it's own thread. Here's from the huawei thread as well as some additions of my own: Josiah Boomershine facebook page from US Pavel Bolf katana-kaji.com from Czech republic Rado radoswords.com from from Slovakia Michael Sabatier michael-sabatier.com from France Pierluigi Ponzio japanesesword.es from Spain Does anyone have experience with any of these? And what more alternatives are there? I would remove Pavel Bolf from this list Lol what happened with this one?
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Post by shepherd214 on Jan 3, 2022 4:24:59 GMT
How wide and thick is the blade?
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