Cheness cutlery? How are these prices possible?

[Ronin_21]

I was browsing the web, and I came across this site http://www.chenessinc.com/video.htm I was intruiged at the fact that there were selling hand forged, hand polished carbon steel live bladed swords for cutting and iai for under 500, now immediately my instincs told me that it was complete bs, but I watched a video which is on that page I linked to about the forging of these blades and now I dont know what to believe, bugei sells there swords for around the 1200 mark and I know thats the average amount you should have to pay if you want a decent non japanese made live blade. Has anyone dealt with cheness before? What kind of quality do you see in there blades? your input would be appreciated.

[pgsmith]

Hi Ryan,
I purchased one of their Higo blades because, like you, I was curious. I also needed a new dojo cutter and it was inexpensive. The quality, as far as safety goes, is certainly adequate. I place them a step above the cheap Hanwei stuff. It was also sharper than the Hanwei swords that I've handled. Balance was more in line with a kata sword than a cutting sword due to the bo hi. Hamon is fake and etched on. fittings were obviously nothing beautiful, but seemed adequate. Tsukamaki was decently tight, but again not really pretty. Fit in the saya could probably be a bit better, but it was adequate. All in all it was a pretty good deal for the price I paid for it. I gave it to the new guys to use on cutting night, and they didn't even manage to bend it. :)

Was it worth the price ... yep. Was it adequate for use ... adequate. Does it compare to the Bugei swords that I've seen ... no way! The fit, finish, and furniture on the more expensive Bugei blades was far better than the inexpensive Cheness blade. Of course, fit, finish, and furniture are the time consuming parts that generally drive the price of a sword, along with the polish.

[jex]

hello,

for the price, considering the money given to a chinese worker it's not a surprise, what is surprising me by the way is how they can make lot of saya previously if all blade shape are made by humain hands, all blades must have different shape, and look at the tsukamaki part, very quick and probably bad looking if really done like that.
look at the tempering recipient, an old bucket ? a forge with thea on it are you kidding ?
i dont belive either in shaping a blade so fast with two persons as we can see. i do believe this video is a fake or theses chineses guy are very very good.

many tiny point looks weird to me...

my two cents

JeX

[Brian Owens]

...look at the tempering recipient, an old bucket ? a forge with thea on it are you kidding ? i dont belive either in shaping a blade so fast with two persons as we can see. i do believe this video is a fake or theses chineses guy are very very good.
I didn't see anything that would lead me to believe it was not done exactly as shown.

In the early stage of forging a billet, two workers can move quite fast without sacrificing quality. When they cut to the later stage, you'll see that they slowed down.

What's wrong with an old bucket? If it works, why worry?

Regarding the tea pot over the forge; maybe he was heating water for tea, or maybe the comment about "really hot tea" was a joke, and it was actually to create a higher humidity in the room. Again, I don't see anything wrong there.

It doesn't look fake to me, but it doesn't look like a shop of master craftsmen producing national treasures either. It looks like what it's supposed to be: what you see is what you get.