Should this consitute a return?

Misanthropia

Misanthropia

Joined
Jul 10, 2011
Messages
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Since Yangdu appears to be swamped with all of the orders recently, I figured I would ask you guys first before I email her. I received my Everest Katana in the mail today, and I was hoping other owners could chime in. The tip of my EK came like this:


r1eozs.jpg



That image is from above the edge, looking downwards at it. As you can see, it's completely flat. I don't have the equipment to grind an edge into the last half inch or so of the blade, and shipping it to someone to do it will cost me quite a bit of money. There's also some unidentified black stuff near the tip on the blade that won't come off with alchohol, goo-gone, or 0000 steel wool. Do you think this qualifies as something I should return it for? I can't tell if I'm nit picking or not here, but the chiruwa handles appear to have much worse fit and finish than every other EK I have dug through the forums to look at. Mine was made by Rajkumar, by the way.
 
Misanthropia said:
Since Yangdu appears to be swamped with all of the orders recently, I figured I would ask you guys first before I email her. I received my Everest Katana in the mail today, and I was hoping other owners could chime in. The tip of my EK came like this:

<image snipped>

That image is from above the edge, looking downwards at it. As you can see, it's completely flat. I don't have the equipment to grind an edge into the last half inch or so of the blade, and shipping it to someone to do it will cost me quite a bit of money. There's also some unidentified black stuff near the tip on the blade that won't come off with alchohol, goo-gone, or 0000 steel wool. Do you think this qualifies as something I should return it for? I can't tell if I'm nit picking or not here, but the chiruwa handles appear to have much worse fit and finish than every other EK I have dug through the forums to look at. Mine was made by Rajkumar, by the way.
Click to expand...

Regardless of what you do, it's going to take time either to have the EK fixed or replaced. Therefore you should take it up with Yangdu, and if she's swamped it will just take a little longer.

From the picture, it looks like a piece of the metal might have had an internal flaw and broke off along a fault line, but that wouldn't explain the additional problem with the handle. You might want to take a real close look inside the scabbard, with a flashlight, in case there's a metal fragment in there. Of course that wouldn't fix anything, but it might explain what happened to the blade.

By way of comparison, my first HI purchase, a few months ago, was an Ultimate Fighter by Rajkumar. Both the blade and chiruwa style handle were flawless. I would not hesitate to get more of his work, depending on size and model, of course. Whatever happened here seems to be an issue of shop quality control, which is another reason to take it up with Yangdu.

I'm wondering whether there's a bit of assembly-line going on, where the main kami does the blade and someone else does the handle and final sharpening? That wouldn't be unusual with hand-made craftsmanship, but the shop manager and the person whose name goes on a blade should have some kind of review at the end, since their reputations are on the line. But maybe this was an exception that somehow slipped through the cracks.

-- Dave
 
I think the lack of tip is actually because the left side of the blade is not ground near the tip, it's just flat instead of tapering towards the tip like it should be. The right side tapers and is ground properly. So it just sort of looks like someone forgot to finish the left side of the blade. Here's a picture of what I mean:

20qnuax.jpg


Edit: just found a crack in the handle. Man this is a bummer because I was really looking forward to this thing :(, but I have no fear that it will be resolved perfectly
 
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photos from other angles would be useful
 
Unfortunately the only camera I have currently is my phone, which can't seem to focus very well on the very tip. At this point, I'm just going to return it. Yangdu said a new shipment would be in within a month when I bought this one, so hopefully there will be something in there for me. I'm not particularly worried as I'm pretty patient.
 
best thing you can do is stand say 12 feet away, and use zoom, and take as best a picture as you can in varying light conditions

macro is a tricky thing at best. distance + zoom == better depth of field for that application
 
bummer, everything that Ive ever seen from Rajikumar has been absolutely gorgeous in fit and finish, good luck in a swift resolution
 
As usual, I heard back from Yangdu quite promptly. I guess Bura was the one who originated the Everest Katana, and now that he is no longer with them, other Kami's less experienced with the design have been making them. I've been offered a full refund, which I am taking, but ideally I would just love to get one of those perfect looking Everest Katanas I've seen on the forums here!
 
Thank you for being patience
 
Hey misanthropia, shoot me a message here. I'd be willing to help you with that tip if you don't end up with any other options that appeal to you.
 
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