We’re working very hard on some swordlines with Zhui Feng and this is our first attempt to get some good choiji blades on the market. It’s not easy to find them and the one’s I came across looked ok but failed big time when performing cutting tests.
Their blade was just too soft and it was obvious that they were made for collectors, not practitioners.
Back in March (2011) when I visited the forge we discussed the possibility of Choiji hamon blades and they looked at me thinking : “ you got to be kidding right ?”.. Making these kind of hamon is not easy and secondly, if the forging process goes ok, they will still need more than a standard polish to bring out the best result.
But as with most things in live (when it comes to my biz) I’m serious so they started to work on them and after some trial and error they came up with these first results. They’re not bad at all but there’s still some room for improvement (you can never be satisfied ;) ).
The quality of this blade is more than ok and it is definitely made for the serious (tameshigiri) practitioner. No doubt about it. Fittings are nice too and it has a very solid build tsuka with a thighly wrapped cotton ito. Although this blade doesn’t feature a hi and it’s weight is around 1150 gram, the balance is still ok and it doesn’t feel like you have a heavy stone in your hands.
So where does it still need some improvements ? The blade has a medium quality stone polish but they enhanced it with some natural ‘acid’ and he lines become a bit ‘blurred’ so in the feauture I want them to try to do a better job there.
All by all, a very nice start and very promising for the nearby feature :)
