Mugendo chinese shinken

[roninseb]

Review of my Mugendo Budogu chinese shinken.

Last weekend I just purchased a 2.6 shaku chinese shinken from Peter Boylan at Mugendo budogu. I have to say that I handled or owned blades from various makers in China and let me tell you this sword is way better than most of them in many ways and also in price 600$ US. Instead of writitng some long and cryptic rambling I will instead write my evaluation point by point.


(Mugendo chinese shinken)
BLADE

Price: 600$

Size: 2.3 up to 2.6 maybe also longer.

Balance: at 2.6 with grooves still very light.

Shaping: Identical to a Japanese shinken in sori mihaba and kasane.

Hamon: Regular notare

Polish: Mune and grooves are very well burnished. Then hamon is well defined with a hadori line on top and also when you clean it up you don have the grainy feeling when you wipe it like on the acid enhanced bugei/Paul chen swords.

Groove: No extra charge and goes in under the habaki/ The kissaki is of triangular shape not ronded.

Nakago: Goes all the way in the tsuka until about 1 inch.

Grain: Non folded mono steel blade.


MOUNTINGS

TSUKA
Tsuka length: 11 1/2 inch

Tsukamaki: Very high quality black cotton that is very tight and that has all the diamonds of identical shape.

Same: White good quality same like you would see on a good Japanese iaito.

Mekugi: 1 bamboo mekugi.

Menuki: Golden color namazu (Catfish).

Fuchi kashira: Non glossy steel higo style.

Tsuba: Steel plum brown antiqued Musashi tsuba:

SAYA

Koiguchi/Kojiri: Clear lacquered possibly platic reinforced like most iaito.

Lacquer job: Black ishime (Stone finish) looks very good same style and finish as the Tozando ishime supreme.

Kurikata: Positioned at the right palce compared to the bugei swords.

Length of the saya: No more than 1 inch of the blade in comparison to the dragonfly I saw that had more then 3 inches of wood.


So I can truly say this is the nicest and most Japanese looking blade I have seen in that price range the only thing better would be the swordstore.com shinken for nicer fittings but I don think paying double the price only for nicer fittings is worth it. If anyone else handled this sword it would be nice to hear your evaluations.

[JAnstey]

Hi Sebastion,

Good review! Nice, short, sharp and to the point.

I am astounded to hear you make a comparison to the legendary unquestionable superiority to all things from Bugei, (heavy sarcasm)nice one!

Bye the way i can say this as I own the Bugei Bamboo Katana. Which I am going to sell to buy a more traditional shinken be it Chinese or Japanese.

Your purchase sounds very good and is certainly one I will be considering and perhaps recommending to some of my students.

Thanks

Jason

[Ken-Hawaii]

Very interesting review, Sebastien. Thanks.

Ken

[roninseb]

Thanks for reading my posting.

As far as Bugei goes I think the quality of their blades is very good but the fittings and the way they are put togeter somehow still lacks that Japanese shibui. Now with their new dragonfly they have very traditional looking parts fuchi/kashira/menuki/tsuba but nontheless the way they are put togeter is wrong. One of my students spent some money on a dragonfly and let me tell you the blade is great but the way it was mounted lacks in finition. Sure there is no rattle and everything fits well but I still cannot get over some points that could have been done the right way and that involve no extra cost.

Here are some of the points that were wrong or just plain sloppy.


Tsuka

At the end of the tsuka where the knot is tied you could see some wood between the fuchi and the last part of the ito.

The samegawa was of high quality with a big node but for some stupid reason the node was put nearly in the middle of the handle instead of near the kashira.

Saya

Kurikata is wrongly positioned and also there was a extra 3 inch at the end of the saya that totally breaks the balance of the whole package. Now to finish the sageo looked like a piece of very cheap stiff shoelace.

In the end I can say it is a quality blade but it does say that bugei still needs to improve in their understanding of the Japanese sword's mountings since quality control does not only mean to make sure the blade is good and has no rattle it also mean's to pay attention to details to make sure all the aspects of a true Japanese mouting are respected especially when no cost are really involved.


Have a nice day all!

[Jack B]

How troublesome is the triangular kissaki? Especially in okuiai there are techniques that utilize the curved kissaki during nukitsuke. Does the triangular form help, hurt, make it too easy?

(The photo on the budogu website looks like it has a standard rounded kissaki. Am I misinterpreting, or is yours different?)

[roninseb]

I was saying the hi (Groove) in the kissaki ends in a triangular shape and not just rounded compared to a groove that would have been just machined with some type of router.