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Post by shepherd214 on Jun 17, 2021 23:06:20 GMT
In a very general and vague sense, thicker spines, full niku, a secondary bevel, etc. As opposed to the really thin flat grinds with a single thin bevel and edge. The blade can still be wide. What do you mean by secondary bevel here? Because in my experience that doesn't help when slashing and slicing through a target of any kind. But maybe you just mean a blade with a shinogi? I suppose there are two bevels in that sense. But I think of a typical folding knife or kitchen knife with the extra angle right on the edge. That isn't ideal for a slashing blade, screws up the blade geometry. As for bamboo cutting the OP asked about. A harder edge with plenty of niku. It may seem like a better idea to go TH for a softer edge, however a nicely heat treated edge from 1095 DH or T10, to use common examples, but higher carbon content only makes a harder edge if heat treated well. Yes it will be easier to chip a hard DH edge but they usually don't roll the edge which I find more common on production katana than any other type edge damage. 1060 and 9260/5160 I've seen a few TH blades from Ronin, Musashi, even a cheness 9260TH(of course they do have QC issues) roll some edge on softer targets than bamboo also. But then again I've still not seen a Hanwei Raptor roll an edge or chip on any type target. I'm sure of you tried to cut a rock or gun barrel you would find some damage. And Raptors are made of 5160 and tempered to flex a good bit, still they are thick and have presence(ha niku) behind the edge. Even with a sword that has a geometry meant for mat cutting, still isn't like to take damage on even a thicker piece of green bamboo until you misalign a cut. And it is my general opinion to prefer a DH blade with hard edge in general, I also like a true hira niku. So I may have some bias here. But the width shouldn't matter, as in motohaba, kasane will matter much more. By secondary bevel I mean secondary bevel. This may be a shock to you but blades with a secondary bevel can still cut extremely well. In fact, niku is the exact same idea as a secondary bevel but it's just more "blended" with the polish as opposed to a sharp angle change toward the edge. A secondary bevel can come in many angles. A 30 degree angled bevel is obviously a bad idea on a katana but a blended 15 degree bevel can still cut very well while having a bit of reinforcement behind the edge for durability. I'm not saying a secondary bevel for a katana is optimal but if done right it's not the end of the world and alot of Chinese makers just put a blended secondary bevel on the edge and call it "niku".
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Post by shepherd214 on Jun 16, 2021 4:40:41 GMT
That depends on what you want from the blade. If I had a choice of steels with all other things being equal, I would take the 9260. It will not have a hamon, and it won't take a polish very well, but it will be next to impossible to break. For brute toughness without regard to being pretty, 9260 is tops in my book. If you want a traditional hamon and polish or whatnot, then I don't see any real difference between the 1060 or 1095. Tamagahane steel is closest to 1095, but it's not an exact analog if that sort of thing matters. Bottom line is that this Roman agrees (for once) with the mindless Barbarian; go for the cheaper of the two. Problem is that alot of the Chinese sellers don't harden the through hardened blades very well. They are hard enough to be springy but they don't hold an edge that well.
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Post by shepherd214 on Jun 13, 2021 2:11:03 GMT
They are so busy and in demand that they can literally just ignore some people's emails lol.
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Post by shepherd214 on Jun 13, 2021 2:09:06 GMT
In a very general and vague sense, thicker spines, full niku, a secondary bevel, etc. As opposed to the really thin flat grinds with a single thin bevel and edge. The blade can still be wide.
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Post by shepherd214 on Jun 6, 2021 20:56:27 GMT
I think the guy and i stay with Zombie Tools for this niche... There's a lot of good quality "tactical" or "post-apocalyptic" blades out there, and thinking you will receive a properly tempered blade as claimed by the maker is not falling for buzzwords or hype. Scorpion Swords ads aren't even lurid in comparison to APOC or Zombie Tools ad copies. It's just that nobody thought a durable spring temper was an unrealistic expectation for these handmade-in-the-USA thick, slab handle swords. Exactly. I'm a knifemaker and I was certain that i could modify mine of it didn't like it. But the massively warped blade was too much for me to want to try. I just wanted a good heat treat on a long blade that I'm unable to make myself. My heat treat ovens aren't long enough.
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Post by shepherd214 on Jun 5, 2021 21:13:09 GMT
Drew hasn't responded to my comments on here about my broken pommel, nor has he responded to me on Facebook. That feels to me like he is purely here to market and not to gain actually knowledge and feedback. The swords are much better without the pommel anyways. I filled my handle with solid epoxy and the balance and feel is way better now. He does ask for feedbacks from members of the community, including me. But Drew is not the designer, or the one calling the shot, he is a community liaison. Whatever decisions are made, are done by higher-ups. They might take into consideration that many of the swords having this design are already out on the market. But I hope the designers do take this into consideration in the future iterations. I know what you mean. It's just that a quick "thanks, we will look into this" response would feel good lol.
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Post by shepherd214 on Jun 5, 2021 4:05:30 GMT
Now it makes me wonder if the Swords of Northshire, although some say they are overpriced, are actually worth it because maybe, in my case for the sword that I ordered, if I paid the $125 more that SoN wanted, would be getting $125 worth of better sword and fixtures? No, you'd get the same identical sword with the same identical goods and bads, and your bank account would simply be $125 shorter. I disagree somewhat. The quality various from these brands, but I've seen some really nice looking swords from Swords of Northshire(because they probably sourced those from better places) and I've never seen a Hanbon that even came close. Most hanbon blades look ugly and they especially have some of thr ugliest mountings I've ever seen whereas again Swords of Northshire sometimes has some decent offerings for the money.
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Post by shepherd214 on Jun 4, 2021 23:42:17 GMT
I emailed Drew today saying that I'd noticed a lot of people reporting pommel breaks (and I made my own observations in the grosse messer review). I asked if there are plans to change the designs and offered to brainstorm possible ways to do the pommel in a cost effective and durable way. I'll tell you if there's a response on that. I was pretty happy with the rest of the build durability wise, so I'd hate to see this be the achilles' heel of the Honshu swords forever. Drew hasn't responded to my comments on here about my broken pommel, nor has he responded to me on Facebook. That feels to me like he is purely here to market and not to gain actually knowledge and feedback. The swords are much better without the pommel anyways. I filled my handle with solid epoxy and the balance and feel is way better now.
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Post by shepherd214 on Jun 4, 2021 23:16:36 GMT
Furthermore to chime in on Troy's sword, there's a lot of odd things. I don't know why you would use 1095 as an overbuilt chopping material. I mean they can definitely be used as choppers but something else like 1075 or 1084 would have been better and easier to heat treat. I don't know why you would say case hardening, I don't know why you wouldn't just buy 5 gallons of parks 50 quenching oil which is really high quality and just heat up a bar of 1084 and quench it in park's 50. Three minutes of testing his Day Walker sword would have revealed how horribly soft it is in the center, Since a thru hardened bar of 1095 should not take a set at all if anything it should nearly snap before it takes a set if it was heat treated right. I don't know why you would quench 1095 at 1500゚ which is the wrong temperature for that steel type. I don't know why you wouldn't mention where you source your steel? I don't know why you wouldn't talk about normalisation cycles. It sounds like this guy should not be selling blades because not only can he not get his terminology right but he also doesn't really have any of the blade making process correct either. A professional blademaker would say to go back to the drawing board and learn somewhere before you start selling to people.
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Post by shepherd214 on Jun 4, 2021 22:46:27 GMT
I don't want to make a huge deal out of all this, but Paul keeps saying stuff like "the two people in this thread are the only people to ever have an issue" which is wrong, there's way more on Facebook, but I guess I'm the third now. I bkught the Dark Ninjato model. I was sent a bent blade and a half ground bevel compared to the website photos. You can see my detailed analysis of the sword in my email response photo. Overall, the customer service wasn't bad but the extreme reluctance to admit that the blade is horribly bent is maddening. No good blademaker in their right mind would say that warp is acceptable. I did receive my money back and they did try three different times to "fix the sword". I declined because there's not very much that can save this thing anyways but they keep refusing to admit that the blade is bent and I can grind the bevel myself and probably do a much better job anyways since I am a knifemaker but I can't fix the bent blade and neither can they. I'm not even confident that if they fixed the bevel themselves and made it higher and thinner, that they wouldn't ruin whatever heat treat was done to this thing By grinding it too fast and heating it up. There's a lot of things that don't add up with how these things are made. Many things that were already brought up in this thread in earlier comments but also if you look at certain things in my emails, other things do not make sense either. For example on the website it says "Made in the USA by Chris Palmer" . But in my 1st email response from them he says "one of the other guys" in response to how my bevel was ground.. So which one is it? Was my blade made by Chris Palmer or was it made by "one of the other guys" who's being thrown under the bus? But then in one of my last emails he goes back to saying "I don't know why I would have done the bevel like that." How have you made thousands of these swords like you claim but you didn't even notice that the bevel is barely on the sword? That makes a massive difference in weight and cutting performance. On the website photos the bevel takes up at least half of the blade with whereas on my sword it takes up a quarter of it. How do you not just look down the spine like an arrow just to make sure it's mostly straight before you send it out? It makes me think that they don't even make these things and they are out source to somewhere. If we can't get consistent information on how they are made? I can't get consistent information on who even made my blade. Finally the thing that concerns me the most is both me and Troy were asked to take our bad reviews down. Because I posted my review in the All Swords FB group for fear I would get attacked on SBG for saying I had an objectively bad product.. I consulted with high quality swordmakers like Tom Kinder and Andrew Hunton, Jeremy Boulder Valentine, and several others on on Facebook forum and they all agreed on the bend and the subpar work. How can Paul Southern come in here and gloat and brag and boast about making so many people happy when hes trying to suppress the bad reviews? That calls into question their integrity. We honestly don't know how many people they have upset because they are trying to take down any bad review they get. Meaning when you brag about good reviews that means nothing because you try to hide the bad reviews even when they are deserved. The customer service is mostly fine. I mean they did get very defensive when I 1st came to them with my concerns as if it was impossible which seems in line with sword buyer's guide the last few years. Very defensive, we can do no wrong, it's you and not us, etc. Furthermore I would say it looks bad on your business if every time somebody has a concern all you do is fight them with numbers like that. Yeah Damascus pot metal blades sell by the thousands every day that does not mean they are good products. I feel like most of their customer base does not really know their stuff and wouldn't have noticed my issues. I feel like they thought I would not notice the bend in the blade and they tried to save time, money and abrasives by not grinding a real true bevel on the sword. They did a semi decent bevel on the prototype stock model for the website but they didn't stay true to it for the ones they actually sent out. Because I definitely know how much money sanding belts cost and I definitely know how hard it is to fix a warp at a longer blade and how time consuming it is. It's not like these things are really that much money, but this sword only costs 75 dollars less than a Zombie Tools Zakasushi which is also USA made and also in thr same price range for overbuilt tank swords. And they would never ever send out a half ground, bent blade.. I knew to expect a roughly sharpened bar of metal but I thought I would get a bar of metal that looked more like the website photo and I thought at least they would send me something that was straight because all this really is is stock removal which is far more simple than forging. And even in the very last email where they try a 3rd time to send me a replacement rather than refund me they still don't admit that the blade is bent when they put it on a flat table. Anyone can see that that blade severely points to the left. I keep repeating this part because I just don't understand how they have not admitted that part yet.
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Post by shepherd214 on Jun 1, 2021 23:36:31 GMT
The simple truth is that blademakers can lie to you about steel type and most consumers would never ever notice unless they had it tested. A good steel that is heat treated by a good maker, the differences in steel type are minor. In most cases.
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Post by shepherd214 on May 29, 2021 4:08:45 GMT
Update: Was quoted $318 + $60 shipping and an 80-90 day build time. Does that seem in line for Jkoo/Sinosword? It's my first time ordering. Yes that's very standard for them. They always separate the shipping charge from the sword price while most others hide it within the price of the sword and it almost always takes about 3 months, give or take. Make sure to ask them for lots of pictures when it's done and ask them to do a quality check on it before they ship. Sometimes you get something really solid from them. Sometimes you get more flaws than you'd like. They are honest though.
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Post by shepherd214 on May 24, 2021 2:51:53 GMT
Thanks everyone for your thoughts. 👍 I'm in Orange County, California, so, short of leaving it in the car at the height of Summer🥵, I don't have to worry too much about extreme weather. If you go with an HDPE polymer bokken like what I suggested before, they can withstand temperatures over 230F and -100F. Seeing as how there's rarely a scenario where they will be in those Temps I think i they will hold up fine.
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Post by shepherd214 on May 17, 2021 6:23:24 GMT
I really enjoy polymer bokken. I have many cold steel waki and katana bokken, and also have several from a custom maker on Etsy called Vulpes Training, he makes many types of training weapons. I have a jian, two ko katana and two wakizashi. They are super durable, really affordable and feel great to wield with nice heft to them, not quite shinken weight but close.
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Post by shepherd214 on May 17, 2021 6:19:45 GMT
Meh, better than the 6 months I was quoted on a seax. I waited 18 months before cancelling. Never heard of them making a seax. I've seen them make some Jian though.
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Post by shepherd214 on May 17, 2021 6:09:30 GMT
Well, she's going for some wood then I'm sorry.... 😄 That's all right. It was a natural conclusion. MEANWHILE, if anybody still wants to weigh in on the cotton vs. fake silk debate... . I hear, and at this point I don't remember where, that the cotton is less preferred on production swords because it generally tends to be a little thinner than one might get with higher quality swords which included a higher-quality Ito wrap material. I'm sure we're talking a millimeters, or thereabouts, difference here, but that probably DOES make a difference in such things. But as far as the thickness goes, I don't know as that would make much difference between cotton and fake silk on the production swords. Based on what I've come across it seems neither one of them is anything close to plush material. Don't get me wrong, discussion is fun, but alot of this is just overcomplication of things. Tons of different materials have been used throughout the ages on all types of swords throughout the world. On forums like this people really get hung up on getting real silk. It's very popular, lots of people like it. But you don't see it as much on other types of swords. At all really. On others you find textured wood, cord wrapped with leather, wood wrapped with leather, bone or ivory, on some euro swords people heavily grab the pommel with offhand, which is slick metal, etc. So it's not like it's a crucial thing to have genuine silk. What it comes down to is how it's gonna feel on your hands. If you have soft hands, real silk or suede leather or nubuck will probably be best. If you have rough hands, you can basically choose almost anything and you'll be happy. I'm sure of it. Some people really do complain about synth silk being rough but to be it's like, rough but that THAT rough. It's not sandpaper but some act like it is. But some people have marshmallow hands? Idk. Some have said synth silk can be slippery but I've yet to see it. If there's no price difference between synth silk and Chinese cotton I'd go with Synth silk because the cheap cotton feels like shoe string and fuzzes more. All of it can be covered in polyurethane or lacquer to increase durability, so no pressure there.
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Post by shepherd214 on May 16, 2021 6:13:38 GMT
The proportions on this look more like the Honshu Wakizashi, I suspect that's what Drew meant to say instead of Katana. I'd agree the pommels are the weakest part of these designs. From my breakdown of the Grosse Messer, same construction style, I found the tang was perfectly adequate and the rubber grip was bolted on to the tang in a way that made death-helicopter impossible without a blade break, but the pommel has minimal structural support and the way it is attached, it even prevents removal of the rubber grip for tang inspection (despite the bolts being capable of unscrewing). The pommel config isn't something that would prevent me from buying or using one, since it's not a safety issue, but it's a negative point for me. I'd like something more solid that I could do pommel strikes with. The pommel could even be a two-piece slab design where two pieces of pommel sandwich the tang and are secured by a bolt through the middle, it's not much of an engineering problem. Thanks for sharing pics of the Wak tang, Shep. Subhilt design looks good though, I like it. Well for me at least I don't think the rubber grip is enough without my epoxy method. When I swung the waki around without the pommel, I felt a slight amount of movement in the handle, due to the rubbery grip stretching a little against the Chicago bolts. You're right that it won't fly off and kill someone but long term there needs to be some type of stop on the pommel to prevent the rubber from wearing down and stretching more and more and possibly ripping. I used West Systems G Flex epoxy, strongest stuff out there and made to take some flex and shock by design when cured. I simply smothered the tang with it, slide the rubber handle on, made sure to also dip the bolts into the epoxy before fastening them, then kept the sword upside down as I filled the pommel full of the epoxy. It sinks into the handle slowly, engulfing the tang and I kept filling it up more until it was almost flush with the bottom of the rubber grip. The epoxy will also shim the guard reliably, since I had a small amount of rattle in the guard right out of the box. Wiping up any excess epoxy with paper towels and alcohol is crucial for about 30 minutes to an hour, since it will be runny until it starts drying harder. But you will have an indestructible handle, nearly. Also love your videos. The sound and video is high quality, I was shocked to see your subscriber count, I thought you'd have way more with your technical quality and intelligence with how you explain and construct your thoughts. Watching the durability in your grossmesser vid convinced me to try the waki and I'm glad I did. With the epoxy, this is a neat 100 dollar beater.
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Post by shepherd214 on May 16, 2021 5:36:08 GMT
I'm different and weird but I had real Japanese silk once and didn't like it much. Synthetic silk has a rough, grippy feeling that I really enjoy. I have rough hands so I'm fine. I also really love the feeling of suede leather grip. Soft yet grippy, seems to wear a little faster but works and looks awesome.
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Post by shepherd214 on May 16, 2021 5:31:44 GMT
The pommel construction on these is weak. It's a rod welded onto the tang, and the pommel is glued onto that welded rod. Overall the foundation is good. It's a typical katana full tang you see on cheaper models, with a hard rubber tsuka core that fits around the tang. The Chicago bolts holds the construction together. The blade is good, I abuse tested it and it holds together fine. But the pommel for me bent and fell off the second day I had it. If you just make the wakizashi and katana a full tang with scales, and pin bolster scales onto the pommel, it wouldn't cost you any extra money and the design would be 10x more solid. In my last picture, I fixed mine by filling the entire tsuka core with epoxy and smothering the bolts with epoxy as well. Now the steel pommel is gone and my existing pommel is extremely durable solid epoxy. The balance for the wakizashi is way better now, the old solid steel pommel adds way too much counter balance weight and now the overall balance is much better without it. You have really good potential here, just fix the pommel issue Shepherd, thank you so much. The Honshu Boshin wakizashi was the first sword I bought. It looked/looks so cool to me and I like the way it feels in hand. But I wondered how the hilt was constructed. Others claimed to have seen pictures but when I asked for them all I got was crickets. I thought the pommel might have been screwed on a welded on rod but also considered glue. I’ve never done any hard cutting with mine, just water bottles. There is a sword construction/spec thread here somewhere, I haven’t looked recently. You might want to post some info over there. Again, thank you SO MUCH. No problem man. I should clarify that mine is also the wakizashi not the katana. Since these blades have no distal taper and are the same thickness from guard to tip, the katana might need the massive heavy pommel for counter balance but on the waki the solid steel heavy pommel is overkill. With such a huge counterbalance, the blade doesnt have much authority or bite in my opinion. Not only does losing the pommel shave off some excessive overall weight but the blade has more oomf without being overly heavy. I did what I'd consider medium to heavy cutting. I cut small branches, then thicker 2 inch branches and even did some hard swings into huge, dense 4 or 5 inch branches and even smacked the flat and spine of thr blade against a tree several times. All good. No damage. These are solid beater blades, so I'd like to have more. I also posted these pictures on Drew Halls post on Facebook. Still no response, hopefully we get some kind of answer soon? Surely he's came back and read this. A simple switch to sandwich scale/full tang method fixes literally all this. But my epoxy method is working very well too lol. Shouldn't have to though.
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Post by shepherd214 on May 15, 2021 5:01:50 GMT
The pommel construction on these is weak. It's a rod welded onto the tang, and the pommel is glued onto that welded rod. Overall the foundation is good. It's a typical katana full tang you see on cheaper models, with a hard rubber tsuka core that fits around the tang. The Chicago bolts holds the construction together. The blade is good, I abuse tested it and it holds together fine. But the pommel for me bent and fell off the second day I had it. If you just make the wakizashi and katana a full tang with scales, and pin bolster scales onto the pommel, it wouldn't cost you any extra money and the design would be 10x more solid. In my last picture, I fixed mine by filling the entire tsuka core with epoxy and smothering the bolts with epoxy as well. Now the steel pommel is gone and my existing pommel is extremely durable solid epoxy. The balance for the wakizashi is way better now, the old solid steel pommel adds way too much counter balance weight and now the overall balance is much better without it. You have really good potential here, just fix the pommel issue
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