Low priced bare Katana blades - recommendations?

[Meisenmann]

Hi!


I look for advice concerning bare blades or cheap Katanas.

I need several of these for a project I plan to work on.

I looked into the Musashi swords line and I really like their pricing. But I do not have any real overview of the "sword market" because I usually craft my own blades. At the moment I lack the possibility of working on long blades and to be honest I also lack the time for making anyhting more than knives from time to time. So I want to purchase the blades and work from there.



To sum it up:

The only thing I look for are cheap blades made out of a decent steel with proper heat treatment for the cheapest possible price. Through hardened spring steel or differentially hardened 1060 are great. I will shorten the blade so any imperfetions in the transitional area blade/tang are no problem because I will correct them anyway.



I do not need:

- traditional working methods. I do not care if it was ground out of a piece of rolled steel instead of hand forging it. A modern hardening oven is cool with me - I'd even prefer this over heat treatment in a fire (by a possibly inexperienced person)

- traditional materials. To be honest I would prefer a blade made out of a modern steel to one made of iron sands.

- perfect finish

- nice Saya and fittings. I will make this myself anyway. So at best I would salvage the fittings if they are okay, more than likely I will simply trash it.





Do you have any recommendations for the kind of blade I am looking for?

The Musashi line seemed like exactly the thing I was looking for, according to some. In this forum though, some people wrote that the blades heat treatment was problematic but the fitting are nice and beautiful (exactly the opposite of what I want).

 

[Klok]

I personally would try out a Musashi (bought directly from the website to avoid fakes/misrepresentations)
get a Shirasaya and handle it myself
try spending the 60$ instead of the next level up if you are not happy with it... then its time to start looking at the 200-400$ range

 

[Meisenmann]

I personally would try out a Musashi (bought directly from the website to avoid fakes/misrepresentations)
get a Shirasaya and handle it myself
try spending the 60$ instead of the next level up if you are not happy with it... then its time to start looking at the 200-400$ range

Thank you for your answer.

There are some problems with this though:

This would mean spending a lot more money.
I want to build this sword three times. If I place an additional Order of one of the 60$ blades just for testing out its quality (1045 would not be my material of choice anyway, I can already guess that the blade will be very soft), my project will effectively be 150$ more expensive when including shipping costs and taxes.

The only slightly more expensive line with 1060 steel (shirakawa line) would be very interesting for me. If the steel was properly heat treated, it is quite perfect for long blades. The 200 to 400$ range does not seem very interesting to me. I do not care for the fittings and the only other things they have to make their higher price reasonable is hand forging and pattern welding - both things I do not need but cost a lot more money.

 

[Klok]

sorry I personally do not own a musashi with 1060 steel so I can't chime in about the quality of its HT. The one i do have I choose a softer steel intentionally would rather have cheap sword bend rather then shatter.

I would like to hear opinions from owners of any in the shirakawa line myself.

 

[crimsonfalcon07]

Cheness offers bare blades, I think in 9260. But really, lets be honest here. "Cheap" and "decent steel with proper heat treatment" do not go together. If you want cheap, cheap is exactly what you're going to get. What exactly is this project? What do you need, and where are you located? What does "decent" mean to you?

Personally, I'd keep my eyes peeled for a Ronin bare blade, or something similar. Not cheap, but a bargain for the quality, IMO.

 

[Meisenmann]

Cheness offers bare blades, I think in 9260. But really, lets be honest here. "Cheap" and "decent steel with proper heat treatment" do not go together. If you want cheap, cheap is exactly what you're going to get.

I beg to differ on that. Maybe the market is that way - but I do not see a reason for that. Price of material is a very small percentage in the price of the final product. 1060 is a very common and cheap steel anyway. A proper heat treatment is very easy and should not come that expensive (even considering depreciation allowance for the oven). If you produce professionally you have a temperature controlled oven and even an inexperienced worker can do it of you show him what to do and what to look for. The musashi guys can do it for a bargain price like we see. A proper heat treatment does not necessarily take longer than a sloppy job, it is more a question of work ethos. I just do not know if the guys there have it.

Like I said - I can see that maybe the market does not work correctly as it is not that big. In my opinion the greatest part of the sword prices are really brand names and "Katana mythos" - at least as far as "mass"-produced china blades are concerned because material costs and wages are very low.

Take for example Mora Blades or Opinel - they are extremely cheap and affordable. But they are made properly and have a high quality.

I have a Cheness Tenchi. A nice sword. The blades are not much cheaper if you take the bare ones though. I have already emailed them and the price will be too high. They do not ship to Germany anymore. I would have to use a freight forwarder who will make it more expensive. Afterward I have to pay a tax that takes into account shipping and the cost of the freight forwarder, making it even more expensive.

What exactly is this project? What do you need, and where are you located? What does "decent" mean to you?

Personally, I'd keep my eyes peeled for a Ronin bare blade, or something similar. Not cheap, but a bargain for the quality, IMO.

I live in Germany. I need three Katana blades. A decent steel wil be 1060 or 55Si7 for example. 1045 is too low in carbon content for my liking. A decent heat treatment means...well. There are only decent HTs, bad HTs or "No HT at all". Decent means the blade was heated to the correct temperature in not too much time to cause coarse grain, quenched and tempered according to the needs of the used steel. If hobbyists can do it, a professional business should be able to do it too. Mythos, brand name, fittings, finish and hand tools are not needed for me and only make the price higher.

Historical accuracy aside:

The plan is a "modern Ninja sword". I want to do an amalgam between what you would use today (a shorter, lighter blade, a minimalistic, small Tsuba, ...), modern materials and more practicality but I want to keep some characteristics of the traditional Katana (Same and wrapping). I have some pictures in my head, I still look for ideas for what kind of sheath I would make. Everything finished product with a "tactical" in its name is not what I have in mind.

 

[crimsonfalcon07]

Whuff. So much wrong here.

You seem to think that it's just heat treat and steel cost that goes into a sword blade, and that's simply not true. There's a reason there aren't that many custom makers who do swords, and a ton that do smaller knives, and it's not just the market. Materials cost+heat treat, before grind time, for a sword blade, tends to be at least 100 dollars for me, and it's substantially more work than a smaller blade. You also have to worry about warping, and sword blades require a lot more finesse in the heat treat, because they have substantially different demands than a knife. More, there's a lot that goes into the geometry. Things like points of percussion, harmonics, and distal taper become involved when a maker need not be concerned when it comes to knives. You need to try making your own sword blade and then you can talk about how cheap they should be. Moras and Opinels are nice, but not really the best analogy.

China blades are cheap because they tend to use mystery steels and hit-or-miss heat treat. You never know what you're going to get. QC tends to be non-existent. If Cheness, Hanwei, Kris, or Musashi don't pan out, you're likely SOL. I repeat. Cheap and quality are words that tend not to go together, and even less so with swords. It's not just name brand. It's the sheer amount of extra work that goes into it. Warping is probably one of the single biggest factors that makes your simple heat treat not. On a knife, if your grind is off a little, it won't matter. On a sword, if your grind is off a little, you're probably going to end up trashing the blade. I've had to throw out quite a few because my grind was off, and I couldn't straighten the blade after it came back warped from a PROFESSIONAL heat treat.

 

[Meisenmann]

Whuff. So much wrong here.

You seem to think that it's just heat treat and steel cost that goes into a sword blade, and that's simply not true. There's a reason there aren't that many custom makers who do swords, and a ton that do smaller knives, and it's not just the market. Materials cost+heat treat, before grind time, for a sword blade, tends to be at least 100 dollars for me, and it's substantially more work than a smaller blade.

Well. Everybody is entitled to his own opinion. Material cost of simple steels in bulk is not that big of a matter. And you simply can not compare the price you yourself would have to take for making the blade (I just assume you are one person without a factory) with the possibilites of a business with professional equipment and extremely cheap labour can do. There is a reason why handmade stuff is much more expensive, and rightly so.

You also have to worry about warping, and sword blades require a lot more finesse in the heat treat, because they have substantially different demands than a knife. More, there's a lot that goes into the geometry. Things like points of percussion, harmonics, and distal taper become involved when a maker need not be concerned when it comes to knives. You need to try making your own sword blade and then you can talk about how cheap they should be. Moras and Opinels are nice, but not really the best analogy.

Well, I did. And I do not mean to presume I am the one to decide what price every blade should have. I only say that I think it is possible to make blades on the cheap if labour and materials are cheap. You could not do this in the US or in Germany. That is the reason why china is so big on exports.

It is not my point to discuss brands, prices and to be honest I am simply not interested in such a discussion. If you feel insulted by my question concerning cheap blades that are at least decently heat treated while foregoing all other premises like aesthetics, good furniture, handwork, brand name and authentic materials I am very sorry. But I see no reason for feeling insulted by that question. I do not want to spoil anybody the fun he has with his authentically made Shinken he payed thousands of Dollars for. It is not what I look for anyway.

China blades are cheap because they tend to use mystery steels and hit-or-miss heat treat. You never know what you're going to get. QC tends to be non-existent. If Cheness, Hanwei, Kris, or Musashi don't pan out, you're likely SOL. I repeat. Cheap and quality are words that tend not to go together, and even less so with swords. It's not just name brand. It's the sheer amount of extra work that goes into it. Warping is probably one of the single biggest factors that makes your simple heat treat not. On a knife, if your grind is off a little, it won't matter. On a sword, if your grind is off a little, you're probably going to end up trashing the blade. I've had to throw out quite a few because my grind was off, and I couldn't straighten the blade after it came back warped from a PROFESSIONAL heat treat.

Mystery steel. Well. If you say so I believe it. But this is more of a lack of work ethos. The correct steel would come relatively cheap. 1060 is 800$ for 1000kg. A very small part of the final price. Even if you only added 5$ to the final price and the mystery steel was for free, you could build a blade out of proper steel. I can imagine they do not do this anyway and will believe you if you say it is that way. But in my opinion they could if they wanted.
But this is simply not what I really want to discuss.

The question is if there are any other producers besides musashi that sells cheap swords where I can trash all the other stuff besides the blade. Or if somebody has some experience concerning the 1060 swords of their shirakawa lineup.

 

[crimsonfalcon07]

You're still missing the point. The point is that it takes skilled craftsmen to make a blade that long, and skilled heat treaters to heat treat it. It's not as easy as you seem to think it is. That's a limited labor pool, and one that expects to be paid for the time. It's not that easy to just churn out at a factory with relatively unskilled labor. Sure, it could be done for cheaper in a factory with skilled labor and expensive CNC machines. But it's not going to be THAT much cheaper, and even at factory pricing, you're still likely going to be talking at least 300 for a monosteel blade made out of something inexpensive. If you owned your own factory, and sold things at cost, sure, you might be able to reduce that. But the only way that's happening is if your employees aren't getting paid for their time, and if your employees are unskilled enough (read Chinese factory employees) to be okay with that, they're not skilled enough to make a sword blade and do it right.

This is all by way of warning that you aren't likely to find something most on here would consider truly decent at any kind of low price, and an explanation why. You are, of course, entitled to your own opinions, however simplistic and misguided they may be. As I mentioned before, Cheness would likely have been your best bet. Hanwei and Kris may also offer bare blades, but there's no telling whether you're going to have import problems in Germany with those as well. Musashi is about the lowest you'll get, with a sometimes hit or miss heat treat, and if that doesn't do it for you, you've pretty much exhausted the relatively inexpensive makers, and you're better off trying to make your own blade as well from steel (and then you can get an object lesson on why things cost the amounts they do).

 

[Triton]

In summation, I'll say the same thing I've said so many times here in the past. You get what you pay for. This is especially true with swords... or even bare blades. If you buy a 60 dollar sword blade don't expect it to be a 600 or 6000 dollar sword blade. There's a reason for the price differential and it's not just marketing or branding. It may be that the 60 dollar blade fits your needs... cool, but it is what it is.