Spring Sakura Katana Review and Test Cutting by Nikki - Dragon King
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 เม.ย. 2024
- @nikkishen heads the review of the Spring Sakura katana by Dragon King, which is an offshoot of the sword company Hanwei. and inherited Hanwei’s many traditions when it comes down to swordmaking.
The Spring Sakura katana has the sakura theme is woven throughout the design of the hilt. Instead of the typical sakura-themed tsuba that has perforations or gold paints to depict a mass of flowers and sometimes even cherry tree branches, this tsuba fashions a single sculpted blossom instead, and has a lot of 3-dimensionality in its form-rather than the most typical flat disk. The edges of the petals and even the stamens are crisply defined. The petals curve slightly upward towards the direction of the blade, and the thickness tapers by following the forms of the petal. On the side that faces the wielder, even the sepals that are the small leafy parts cradling the corolla are depicted geometrically.
This sakura tsuba is one of the most unique tsuba designs I have seen, as it defines the look and feel of the sword as a whole. It has a blackened matte finish to match the fuchi-kashira, and looks quite striking in contrast to the silver seppa and habaki, which in turn mirror the color of the silver menuki pair that also portray a mass of cherry blossom.
The fuchi kashira on this sword is a set that happily lets other hilt components take the spotlight, and adopt more streamlined designs. The pair of kashira-gane are also made of silver. I like that the overall design of the hilt has emphasis, and directs your eyes to certain parts, while not overwhelmingly busy.
The tsukamaki is done competently, with tight alternating knots, and even squares. The color has a very distinctive carmine shade with a very subtle purple tint. The ito goes very flush with the fuchi and the kashira with no ledge or overlapping.
The genuine samegawa panels are inlaid into the tsuka core. However the tsuka is bulky like many Hanwei and DK models, starting at 4cm at the fuchi, and tapers to 3.5cm at the kashira. Unlike some Hanwei and DK swords which have wide but thin tsuka, this one has a regular thickness, which makes it a bit too big to grab onto. Overall, the hilt is still well done with a balanced and tasteful design that’s not overly gaudy.
The distinctive hilt design is not to diminish the merits of the blade. It has a very typical shinogi-zukuri blade geometry, of an average length of 28" blade length with the habaki included, which leaves a nagasa of 2.25 shaku. It has a very modest degree of curvature (2cm sori), and there is no bo-hi to lighten the blade. Both the profile taper and distal taper are very evenly done throughout the blade. With a thirty-three percent profile taper and thirty percent distal taper, it feels like a very average Edo period katana. When mounted, the sword weighs 2.4 lbs (1110g), with the PoB at 5.5" (14cm) from the tsuba. When swung, it feels like an authoritative sword, with medium agility.
The blade has a smooth mirror polish as no fancy hazuya polish is needed to highlight any metallurgical fact on this mono-steel through-hardened blade. It is made of tried-and-true 5160 spring steel, and tempered to a mono-hardness of 57. So that’s slightly softer than the edges on traditionally made nihonto, but still quite hard to keep an edge well enough, while not being as brittle.
Unlike Hanwei, which is well known for using different exotic steels, such as wootz, L6, S7 and K120C Swedish powder steel, Dragon King only offers blades made out of folded steel, differentially hardened T10 tool steel, and 5160 spring steel. While the Tenga-fubu katana has a nice hamon from the clay-tempering of the T10 tool steel, this Spring Sakura’s blade doesn’t have any hamon or hada, which is fine. I like how straightforward and unpretentious it is, and modern steels-when heat treated correctly-are more durable in any event. The edge bevel is one flat grind from the shinogi-ji to the ha without any niku.
The saya following Dragon King’s tradition, offers buffalo horn koiguchi and kojiri, but not any metal furniture. Unlike the Tenga-fubu’s saya that features a horn kurigata, this one only has a wooden kurikata, but it is affixed to the saya and has lacquer painted over, and features a pair of silver shitedome that’s glued in. Other than that, it’s a very standard and simple saya with black lacquer and black sageo.
It handles light targets with ease, though not necessarily with as much grace as some of our lighter and faster katanas. The fit and finish of the mounting is excellent, with tight assembly showing almost no gap between components anywhere. Nevertheless, I can certainly recommend it to people who enjoy the sakura theme, though it might be a more interesting sword if you can remount the hilt onto a less generic blade.
Sword in question: casiberia.com/product/spring-...
BGM:
Mizuki - Bad Snacks
Evolution - Dead or Alive 2
The Shooted - Dead or Alive 2 - กีฬา
Well done! Nice footage and well presented
Thank you!
This is another fine sword.
Beautiful.
Thanks for posting the video.👏
Thank you for watching and commenting on it!
Great to see Nikki doing another review! You should definitely review the Chevalier.
Thank you! And we will see more of her, for sure!
I’m telling you Nikki, Kane’s got competition. Either you both could start a podcast or you need to do a spin-off sword review channel ;-)
Great overview of a lovely sword and I appreciate the points you show for how it could be improved upon.
I feel the pinch of the competition, haha!
Dragon king really nails it on every sword. Good point about the tsuba it is really different. I have a new appreciation for it, and this sword. I always overlooked it but it is actually really pretty.
Indeed. They really have some good tasteful designs for the koshirae and their casting quality are among the highest within the reproduction industry. If only they could innovate a bit more on the blade geometries.
@@FortuneFavoursTheBold @FortuneFavoursTheBold aesthetically and thematically they really know how to make, a really cool sword. I'm not sure if they will do that. Maybe... I mean it would be great if they did. But hanwei already makes a wide variety of different geometries. It kinda seems like dragon king is "sexy" hanwei, You know? They are more focused as a brand on like, curb appeal let's call it. Unokubi, deep sori, etc. Probably not going to be a thing with dragon king. I think they might have an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Approach to the blades. There's a lot people who love the performance of their blades even if they are all 26-29" plain old katana. Maybe they're playing it a bit on the safe side, but hey you never know. The modern katana is pretty dressed down and performance oriented. So maybe they'll try playing around with blades geometries soon.
Indeed. In terms of blade geometries they are playing too safe. Seems that the owner wants the focus of the brand to be the hilt designs and they have been coming up with some quite attractive designs on that front. In the past people don't ask for a lot outside the comfort zone of the tried-and-true shinogi-zukuri standard length katana. The most you can do is to put a bo-hi on it. But the market is evolving so maybe they will take note of that. I've heard that the modern katana has a hira-zukuri blade so maybe that's good news for the brand.
Outstanding review and editing
Thank you!
Did I sound like a Japanese 🫣
Did I sound like a Japanese 🫣
Japon-ese~~
Nice review, I've always liked the Tsuba that Dragon King designs, trying to tell myself not to buy any of the DK on sale at RVA right now lol.
And yes, a Nikki review of the chevalier would be much appreciated, beautiful piece.
Thank you, and duly noted! Nikki will review the Chevalier and it’s official.
Oh wow. Dragon king is more than just hype 👍
Yeah they make some katana with great hilt designs and executions. I only wish their blades can be a bit more varied.
Yeah they make some katana with great hilt designs and executions. I only wish their blades can be a bit more varied.
Nice. I'm going to Japan in two weeks, so this was a timely review for me.
Going to Japan! Cool! Though the sakura season just ended.
FOR THE ALGORITHIM
Thanks!
@@FortuneFavoursTheBold Your welcome, Great Review to!
An oriental flower she is!
Thanks! Quite the Master Yoda you are!
Beautiful lady holding a beautiful sword!
Indeed! Thanks!
When I was looking at (relatively affordable) antique katanas, I decided never to buy one. Not because I don't like katanas, but because I don't want to like katanas. Between antiques, sharps and trainers, keeping the hobby confined to the European continent is the only way to impose some semblance of control on my collecting impulse.
Due to those cheap katana reproductions you see in some souvenir shops, I developed a dislike to thematic katana designs. But I have to admit, the sakura flower motive works pretty well for a tsuba. And I agree with Nikki that keeping a spring-steel katana blade simple is fine... and way better than painting a hamon. I found out recently that this is a thing on cheap katanas, and it made me proverbially puke. In my opinion, that's not a design choice, that's simply fraudulent. What's next, painted wootz, painted fullers? No!
Nikki, yes on the next review. And when you help Kane film the cutting tests, please step more often in front of the camera and do a cut or two as well. No joke, but because of yours and Kane's height difference, you adapt your cutting stance to be able to use the same stand. That alone results in an interesting additional data point when it comes to a review, particularly relevant for one-hand swords. I think I noticed this on the falchion video, I can't remember exactly, but I know it stuck with me. Old masters reference that people of different heights need to adapt the techniques. I know this fact sounds obvious, but it's nice when one gets to see the obvious in a visual form, when the eyes get to see what the mind has already accepted as truth. And it is still rare to see examples of cutting tests from people of different heights back to back.
Yeah I probably need a better built adaptive stand for cutting. I like this corner stand as it is lightweight to be carried around and has a platform so it’s more stable for the target, but the height is more suitable for my height but not Nikki’s. Time to get an adjustable proper wooden stand that can be used for both tatami mat cutting and bottle cutting. Sadly I haven’t been able to do a lot of the former as tatami mats are insanely expensive here. I need the stand to be adjustable as different cuts require different target height as well. A scheitelhau to the head obviously demands the target to stand taller than the typical oberhau or unterhau.
@@FortuneFavoursTheBold "Yeah I probably need a better built adaptive stand for cutting... the height is more suitable for my height but not Nikki’" Nah, let Nikki struggle with the taller stand. Then put her in the tracking suit and capture her animations as well. After all, games need female enemies as well, and they tend to be shorter. 😏
But you are right about different cuts needing different targets.
"...tatami mats are insanely expensive here." Same for me. It's infuriating! I guess the age of cheap shipping across the oceans is over. I am even wondering if corn stalk bundles would work as cutting targets... we need some locally produced biodegradable (so grass based) targets to keep the costs down in Europe. And unlike Japan, we don't have a culture of using rice tatami mats indoors to generate a ton of cheap tatami. But we do grow corn and wheat...
@FiliiMartis most raw plant fiber when bundled and soaked should work pretty well as cutting targets.
And yeah I plan having her do some motion capture as well. We already did a trial run and it works rather well.