- Joined
- May 7, 2014
- Messages
- 3
Ok, just with the way I am going to start this post I hope I don't jet get attacked for it, because I am pretty sure I am about to set off every red flag out there.
Anyway, here goes. I don't care, nor am I expecting this katana to be valuable or even appreciate in value, I know it was very cheap and is practically guaranteed to be of low quality. All I want to know if it's still a "usable" katana, or too low to even be used for cutting anything without the risk of the handle or blade breaking and it suddenly turning from a sword into a very dangerous missile flying off into a random direction. I only wanted to get a katana that was "functional", not one that was an investment or collectable.
I knew pretty much nothing about swords at the time (strike 1) and got it at an anime convention of all things (strike 2) about a year ago. Recently I had run into some tutorials and guides on telling if the swords you had bought were any good, and I am pretty sure I overpaid for junk at this point. I had purchased some purely decorative (and decoration was the only intended use for those) cheap katanas before from these guys, but last time I went there I wanted to also get a real one that could be used for cutting. I told them what they would recommend since I don't know what to pick (strike 3) and they showed me a $100 and $150 katana, they said the main reason the other was $150 was because of the engraved design on the sheath (strike 4 and 5). Anyway, I got the $150 one, whether it's real or not I am pretty sure I overpaid for whatever quality it is, and I know it's not going to anywhere near even most other low-end functional katanas at that price, but like I said, I just want to know if this can even be used to cut anything safely.
The real confusing thing is about the place I bought it from. First of all, the charge on my card says Dragon Song Forge, and half their booth was purely decorative weapons (mostly of characters from TV shows or videogames) while the other half was parts and real? weapons. Thing is, when I go to their website (which feels very rudimentary and behind) they ONLY have the option to have a katana custom-built for you, nothing pre-made despite their booth being entirely pre-made (well, I guess they can't exactly build one to order right on the show floor for you, but you'd think they would have pre-made ones on their site). And depending on how you customize it, they can go anywhere from $500 at the lowest to almost $3000, yet, their entire inventory at the show floor was basically just re-selling other brands. Second, I pretty much can't find any decent reviews on them, especially any made recently. There are only a few forum posts that even mention them from 2008 to 2010, and half of them are linking to the other forum posts that appear in Google's results, dead links, and more or less banter back and fourth on if they are a ripoff or legitimate.
Also, I noticed that another manufacturer I couldn't get reliable reviews on was called Musashi, and I noticed that some of the Musashi swords (but apparently not all) were renamed to Musha. The sword did come in a Musha branded box, but I don't know if that was it's original box since if they didn't have a box for a sword they sold they would just use any empty one that fit.
http://i.imgur.com/T2g6elK.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/VGDifNx.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/uxU63gG.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/iipHu0V.jpg
So anyway, on watching a DVD by Daniel Coglan on how to tell if the katana is any good (... that's... probably another strike... I hope I am not making myself look like a fool at this point), I tried to determine as many of these as I could from the one I bought:
Wooden Sheath - This I can confirm, it is made of wood
Wooden Handle/leather wrap/full tang - I cannot confirm this since I don't have a way to remove the pegs to check (yet, the hammer is on it's way). And yes, this means I cannot confirm the length of the tang either, although they told me it is a full tang and there are two pegs in the handle. They also claimed the handle is wrapped in rattlesnake skin (although they claimed this was to absorb moisture/sweat although the DVD said it's so the leather when it dries holds the handle together). I... have no idea if this is true because I have no idea what any snake skin looks like, it honestly looks like bubbly plastic to me though. The cloth used to wrap the handle feels like something cheap too, pretty sure it's not silk or leather.
Temper Line/sharpening scratch marks - Has a curved temper line (not triangular like angle-grinded ones), the scratch marks on the back of the blade all face up, on the edge if you turn it one way in the light they all go up, if you look at it in the light just right though I can also see some scratch marks going parallel towards the edge of the blade. Not sure what this means since the tutorial said they are sharpened/polished parallel down the edge first... but that then they are sharpened/polished up over that until the scratches going parallel should be wiped out.
Carbon Steel - They said this is what it was made of, I tried wiping it down and there was some silvery residue on the towel, but I don't know if that is oxidation or just dirt that was already on the blade since I basically haven't taken it out of the box much since I bought it, and certainly haven't cut anything with it.
Balance - It feels tip-heavy. It mostly stays balanced when I take it to a fully vertical slowly to a fully horizontal position, but once I get it below horizontal it feels like it wants to drop. Kinda hard to tell if it's balanced when pointed vertical or the blade feels like it has extra weight then.
So, I know that this isn't a good sword, and that I likely overpaid, but is it at least an actual usable sword? Or should it just might as well be a decoration?
Anyway, here goes. I don't care, nor am I expecting this katana to be valuable or even appreciate in value, I know it was very cheap and is practically guaranteed to be of low quality. All I want to know if it's still a "usable" katana, or too low to even be used for cutting anything without the risk of the handle or blade breaking and it suddenly turning from a sword into a very dangerous missile flying off into a random direction. I only wanted to get a katana that was "functional", not one that was an investment or collectable.
I knew pretty much nothing about swords at the time (strike 1) and got it at an anime convention of all things (strike 2) about a year ago. Recently I had run into some tutorials and guides on telling if the swords you had bought were any good, and I am pretty sure I overpaid for junk at this point. I had purchased some purely decorative (and decoration was the only intended use for those) cheap katanas before from these guys, but last time I went there I wanted to also get a real one that could be used for cutting. I told them what they would recommend since I don't know what to pick (strike 3) and they showed me a $100 and $150 katana, they said the main reason the other was $150 was because of the engraved design on the sheath (strike 4 and 5). Anyway, I got the $150 one, whether it's real or not I am pretty sure I overpaid for whatever quality it is, and I know it's not going to anywhere near even most other low-end functional katanas at that price, but like I said, I just want to know if this can even be used to cut anything safely.
The real confusing thing is about the place I bought it from. First of all, the charge on my card says Dragon Song Forge, and half their booth was purely decorative weapons (mostly of characters from TV shows or videogames) while the other half was parts and real? weapons. Thing is, when I go to their website (which feels very rudimentary and behind) they ONLY have the option to have a katana custom-built for you, nothing pre-made despite their booth being entirely pre-made (well, I guess they can't exactly build one to order right on the show floor for you, but you'd think they would have pre-made ones on their site). And depending on how you customize it, they can go anywhere from $500 at the lowest to almost $3000, yet, their entire inventory at the show floor was basically just re-selling other brands. Second, I pretty much can't find any decent reviews on them, especially any made recently. There are only a few forum posts that even mention them from 2008 to 2010, and half of them are linking to the other forum posts that appear in Google's results, dead links, and more or less banter back and fourth on if they are a ripoff or legitimate.
Also, I noticed that another manufacturer I couldn't get reliable reviews on was called Musashi, and I noticed that some of the Musashi swords (but apparently not all) were renamed to Musha. The sword did come in a Musha branded box, but I don't know if that was it's original box since if they didn't have a box for a sword they sold they would just use any empty one that fit.
http://i.imgur.com/T2g6elK.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/VGDifNx.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/uxU63gG.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/iipHu0V.jpg
So anyway, on watching a DVD by Daniel Coglan on how to tell if the katana is any good (... that's... probably another strike... I hope I am not making myself look like a fool at this point), I tried to determine as many of these as I could from the one I bought:
Wooden Sheath - This I can confirm, it is made of wood
Wooden Handle/leather wrap/full tang - I cannot confirm this since I don't have a way to remove the pegs to check (yet, the hammer is on it's way). And yes, this means I cannot confirm the length of the tang either, although they told me it is a full tang and there are two pegs in the handle. They also claimed the handle is wrapped in rattlesnake skin (although they claimed this was to absorb moisture/sweat although the DVD said it's so the leather when it dries holds the handle together). I... have no idea if this is true because I have no idea what any snake skin looks like, it honestly looks like bubbly plastic to me though. The cloth used to wrap the handle feels like something cheap too, pretty sure it's not silk or leather.
Temper Line/sharpening scratch marks - Has a curved temper line (not triangular like angle-grinded ones), the scratch marks on the back of the blade all face up, on the edge if you turn it one way in the light they all go up, if you look at it in the light just right though I can also see some scratch marks going parallel towards the edge of the blade. Not sure what this means since the tutorial said they are sharpened/polished parallel down the edge first... but that then they are sharpened/polished up over that until the scratches going parallel should be wiped out.
Carbon Steel - They said this is what it was made of, I tried wiping it down and there was some silvery residue on the towel, but I don't know if that is oxidation or just dirt that was already on the blade since I basically haven't taken it out of the box much since I bought it, and certainly haven't cut anything with it.
Balance - It feels tip-heavy. It mostly stays balanced when I take it to a fully vertical slowly to a fully horizontal position, but once I get it below horizontal it feels like it wants to drop. Kinda hard to tell if it's balanced when pointed vertical or the blade feels like it has extra weight then.
So, I know that this isn't a good sword, and that I likely overpaid, but is it at least an actual usable sword? Or should it just might as well be a decoration?
- also, that isn't "rattlesnake', it's "faux manta ray".
