The Konron katana tested to the bone
Introduction
Dave, of the Samurai-Sword-Shop has offered me the possibility to test the Konron 9260 Katana. I have tested the version without bo-hi.
I will start with this review with the looks and finish of this katana. After that I’ll tell you about the real deal. The testing, something these katana’s are build for.
The Looks
Konron katana Nicely tight sageo
The katana fits tightly in his saya. Nothing will rattle when you shake it. Yet he is easily drawn from his saya. As well on the traditional way (first pushing it open with your thumb)
Curious about the new Japanese Swords we talked about ?
It’s been some time since (well actually since last week Thursday I believe ) my last post about tying a sageo, but too many thing going on at the moment and no time left anymore to keep up with the writing here.
We have some reviews of the 9260 steel Konron swords coming up. At this time, we only have them available in Dutch and you can find this very nice review (Goedkope en functionele katana) with pictures and cutting video’s (don’t we all like that…) on our Dutch blog.
They’re working on the English translation so just have a little more patience. There are more reviews coming soon so keep an eye on this blog if you’re interested in this kind of material. Read more
Tying a sageo on the saya of your Katana isn’t that hard, a tutorial
Upon general request, we decided to make a tutorial on how to tie a sageo around the saya of your samurai sword. Now note that this is an ‘presentation’ knot and you won’t see it very often when martial artists are actually using their katana.
The sageo is that ‘piece of rope’ you can generally find on your saya (scabbard) and throughout it’s history , it served many different purposes :
- The original and most known way of using the sageo was to tangle it around the belt (obi) and saya so that the saya stayed where it was put in the belt without moving around when ‘drawing’ the sword
- Tying up the sleeves of the kimono before starting to ‘draw’ with the sword
- Tying up prisoners
- Actually I believe it was used to do all kind of ‘tying-up-things’ Read more
Tamahagane, the original steel used by the Japanese swordsmiths
Steel is iron that contains carbon, so the more carbon a steel has , the harder it is. Most of the Japanese sword smiths are working with the traditional steel that is better known as tamahagane. In Japan there’s only 1 official smelter left. This Japanese style smelter is called a tatara. The tatara relies on the propensity of very hot iron to combine with carbon in its vicinity to produce steel.
In the tatara, it is the burning charcoal that supplies the carbon. These typical Japanese smelter is made of clay, about 5 feet wide, 48 inches tall and 15 feet long, where it’s walls are 10 inches thick.
One operating cycle of the tatara takes 5 days. One day to build the walls (clay and sand), 3 day’s to smelt and 1 day to remove the iron out of the tatara. In this 5 days process , they need about 13 tons of charcoal and 8 tons of satetsu (black sand) to produce 2 tons of iron and steel, which is called Kera. Read more
The Japanese sword (Nihonto) - part 2
Since fighting and wars continued throughout
The Japanese sword (Nihonto) - Introduction
Lately I read a couple of good books on the histroy & making of the Japanese Sword and tought it would be a good idea to shear that with our readers so I decided to write a few posts about it. If you found something incorrect or you like to add something, don’t hesitate to leave a comment !
The technology that led to the development of the Japanese sword originated in China and was brought to Japan in the 4e-5e century A.D. At that time these swords were known as chokuto and did have a straight blade. There are scholars that do believe that a lot of these swords were made in China. By the Heian period (794-1185), the Japanese smiths made great process in improving their forging techniques and the straight swords changed to curved blades.
The main reason for this (changing from straight to curved) was the fact that the warriors that fought from horseback were in need of a ‘slashing’, and not a ‘trusting’ sword. The sword also had to be slightly longer and light enough in order to use it with one hand. So the Tachi was born. A nicely curved blade (with more sori than the katana we all know now) tapered strongly from the base of the blade to a very small point. These swords are also worn with the edge down, where the katana are worn with the edge up. Read more
Samurai Sword Ban in The UK
This thing is ‘hitting the samurai sword collectors and practitioners for a long time now and it looks like the UK government is really going to execute that plan. Starting april 2008 there will be a ban on the import, sale and hire of samurai swords and once the law is in place, those who violate it could face six months in prison and a £5,000 fine.
We all know politicians are kind of weird with a strange look on things so they came up with a ban that will only affect single-edged, curved blades. So whenever you buy a straight bladed sword (a ninjato for example) or double-edged katana, there’s no problem at all ! It also looks like the ban is only for the cheap look-a-like samurai swords you can buy on ebay for €30. I’m wondering where the line will be drawn and what will be considered as a piece of junk and what not… Read more
9260 steel katana review
After days of rain, we had a sunny day so it was time to get our new 9260 steel katanas and play a bit. The new delivery arrived last week but we were so busy with organising our little sword show that we didn’t have any time left to give you a closer look.
Besides the traditional forged carbon steel swords(more on those one later) we also have to 9260 spring steel swords in stock now. These blades are known as flexible and very strong. Since they are through hardened, there’s no hamonline to be found.
The katana with bo-hi is black ‘themed’. A black ito over a white rayskin and a black saya. The iron tsuba does feature a crane where the fushi & kashira and the menuki (all made of copper) have a flower theme. It’s a very light and fast katana with a very good cutting ability. Read more
Look what we have here
December is the month of Santa Claus and lot’s of gifts….For the first time we don’t have to wait until end of December here. Since he’s a very busy men and already start to stress by thinking at the end of the year, he decided to come more early here and he brought us a new delivery of fresh and totally new swords.
As you could read in our previous posts about the new sword samples that arrived and our cheap budget katana, we finally have some of these models in stock now. It will take some time to get things right but we will ‘officially’ announce these new swords on our little sword show (December 22th, Gent)
For the folks that placed a pre order, don’t worry, as soon as we figured out which one is yours, we will contact you and send it your way !
Stay tuned !
Here under one of the many different models we have available now : Read more
Paul Chen Praying Mantis Review
One of the newest creations of the folks at the Hanwei forge, the Praying Mantis Katana. Although I didn’t immediately felt in love when I took the sword out of the box, it definitely had ‘something’ which I admired. I just didn’t figured out what…. The blade is the part of the sword that has least of my interest. I just don’t like the finish of this blade, it’s too dark for my taste but perhaps that’s because of the fact that the famous L6 / Bainite steel is used to forge it.
One of the first times I heard about the L6 steel was back in 2005 I believe. And one of the most famous Japanese smiths in the USA was very well known for using this kind of ‘hard to master’ steel for his Japanese Blades. Read more
