Praying Mantis Katana - L6/Bainite Steel Reviews

5 Rating 1 Reviews

About Swordis:

Swordis, an online retail store, specializes in a wide array of swords, showcasing selections from some of the most esteemed brands in the industry. This emerging startup has expanded its scope by incorporating SwordEncyclopedia, a blog known for its extensive sword resources and recognized as a leading authority in this niche. Swordis' shop section offers an impressive range of over 1000 products in various categories. Their collection not only includes Japanese swords, Historical European Swords, and Military swords, but also extends to specialized items such as Technical knives, machetes, and a fascinating variety of fantasy swords and more. Featuring 19 distinguished brands, Swordis caters to a diverse clientele, ranging from historical enthusiasts to imaginative collectors.

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How's the Blade?

How are the Handle and Fittings?

“Hanwei's L6 Bainite Praying Mantis is a looker. Their choice to use green, brown, and gold works well without too much shiny metal or any black. Add in the shobu zukuri and the false hamon and what you've got is tasteful, but beautiful but definitely is not dressed for duty at IBM. It does have that false hamon instead of a real one because it would be very time consuming and expensive to get an unimpressive looking hamon out of L6. These have a reputation for being good cutters, but I haven't done any cutting, but the blade profile looks right for it and the edge is paper-cutting sharp from the tip to just a few inches short of the habaki. It's definitely got enough weight to it to cut, so I'm just going to go ahead and assume it'll cut until I have a chance to try it. All of the fittings are well aligned with nothing looking like it's a little off or anything like that. The Ito wrap is reasonably tight, but could have been tighter, with even diamonds and no bunching up of the ito near the kashira with smooth transitions between the warp and fittings. The knots are very tight and inspire confidence. The fine texture of the menuki, although pretty and giving nomething nice for my fingertips to frob, does concern me a bit as having the potential to abrade the ito with use. I bought this sword from Swordis and another Hanwei L6, the Hunter Katana, from another store (I'm not mentioning that in this review) at the same time. The sword from the other store came with a dry (not greased) blade with minor marring on the blade. This one from Swordis has no such damage.”

1 Helpful Report

Posted 3 months ago