Hello Ladies and Gents,
What a beauty,
The hada is very visable and looks outstanding,(it looks like ayasugi hada). The hamon looks very much like the juzuba style. The furniture is also better than I had thought it would be. The ito wrap is not as tight as would be desired but is fairly tight, alittle movement of the kashira is noticable.
The blade is very well done with an almost perfect flat surface which is rare on production swords forged by hammer.
I did a comparison of the Bushido katana alongside of my Bugei Bamboo and there were a few differences.
1. There is very little (if any) swell of the Kasane at the kissaki on the Bushido. The yakote is pronounce and you can feel it.
2. It is knowticably thinner than the Bugei. My Bugie Bamboo is 8.5mm at the habaki as compared to 7mm on the Bushido.
3. The crossection of the blade is diamond paterned (Muromachi period style), which is nice and is very well done which makes it alittle harder to measure without calipers. I cannot beleive how uniformly flat this blade is for a production katana forged by hand.
4. The tsuka does have that squarish feeling due to the same strips used instead of a full wrap of the ray skin. This is the area that I will have totally replaced, Handle, ito, and same. I cannot compare the tsuka with my Bugei since the Bugei has a full custom tsuka and fuchi-kashira.
Over all it is pretty nice/well done and would not warrent custom work at all. The fuchi-kashira are very attractive as is the tsuba. The Shitodomé are very nice but don't have a very tight fit on the kashira, They will be replaced. Bugei tsukas are the same square feeling with strips of same.
5. The saya is outstanding and I have no complaints and will deffinately not replace it.
6. The tsuka was very tight and I now have two bruised hands removing it, which is a good thing. The nakago is very clean with the traditional cross filing lines and nicely signed by the factory. It looks way better than the tangs on the earlier models review by SFI magazine back in March of 1999. for me to describe it is to refer you to the old forums review of the Tiger wakazashi posted by Kmark, he has alot of pics of the tang which is the same as mine, other than it being shorter due to it being the shoto or wakazashi.
I cannot beleive I got such a nice brandnew peice for only $550.00 compared to what it retails for, even on sale.
I have little experience with tamishagiri so I will not pretend to know how good it might cut, but I do know that it is more stout than the PK, which I have heard, cuts pretty darn nicely.
The new high end Paul Chen katanas are truely very nice and well constucted. I will deffinately not look down on them at all.
This post in no way represents any other swords made by Hanwei besides the high end folded katana they sale. I have heard of dissapointments of some of their lower range swords but I cannot comment on them, since I own none of them.
If anyone is interested in buying a chen sword that wants any more details, just send me an e-mail and I will obligue.
I am very happy with this sword and I can recommend it to others. It recieves the Hillster five smiles review
If I had a digicamera, I would post pics. I will post pics in a few days when I can borrow the camera at work.
Many of you know already what I just described, I just thought mabye some of the newer forumites would like to know, if they were thinking of buying one of the folded Paul Chen katana from CAS Iberia.
Now back to swinging it at my own shadow
Lon
Review of the Paul chen Bushido katana -
03-01-2002, 07:54 PM
(I am currently awaiting delivery of my first folded blade - I haven't actually ever seen one!)
