Well KC's stuff I like..."out of box" it doesn't really impress me, but they do make wonderful "project swords" if one's willing to invest a little elbow grease and cash into making something for themselves. They can also probably beat the hell out of it like a machete if they want, but I don't advocate that crude behavior whatsoever under ANY circumstances. But get some files, some sandpaper and a piece of glass or ceramic tile...do some reshaping to clean up the lines more appropriately, give it a fair polish. If you get one of the better of the bunch, it'll be fairly well balanced and the minor reshaping and polish will go even further to improve the look and feel.
In fact, I was thinking of acquiring a KC wakizashi and carefully reshaping it from the quasi-shobu zukuri it was to a hira zukuri (no ridgeline, just simple convex V from spine to edge). This'd reduce the weight a bit, bring balance point back a little, it'd give me a bit of freedom in very lightly adding distal taper (5160 hardens relatively deeply I believe, some surface removal probably will not be a big detriment). It wouldn't be easy, but what I'd wind up with would be a high quality, handmade hira-zukuri wakizashi that I can use. And by use, I don't mean it's utilitarian. It's a martial arts tool.
But then I could suit it up with a nice handle, give it an OK polish, slap on a half-ass saya that I'd carve and finish myself, and I'd have myself a semi-custom sword that I was a part of, and that is comfortable for me to use. Plus it looks and feels good (not traditional heat treat but that isn't so important if you have proper shaping and cross section).
But that's how I feel. On the other hand, yeah there's lots of "swords" out there that I do deem as machetes. I'm not obligated, or necessarily even allowed to state which ones those would be, but they're out there, and people buy them.
Ahh well, nothing one can do about it.
Shinryû.
