{"id":32628,"date":"2025-07-13T08:00:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-13T12:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rainydaymagazine.com\/wp\/?p=32628"},"modified":"2025-07-05T12:02:31","modified_gmt":"2025-07-05T16:02:31","slug":"diy-200-katanatesting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rainydaymagazine.com\/wp\/2025\/07\/13\/diy-200-katanatesting\/","title":{"rendered":"DIY: $200 Katana\u2026Testing"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the beginning of 2025, we started the $200 Katana Project<\/a>. The goal was to see if we could assemble a high-quality katana<\/a> by sourcing all the parts<\/a> from China.<\/p>\n

The project took a few twists and turns, some of them because of us, some because of things waaay above our pay grade. In the end, we managed to build not one, but two<\/a> katanas with components from four separate vendors.<\/p>\n

With the swords now built<\/a>, it is time to see whether we can cut with them<\/a>, and if so, how well.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer:<\/strong> While we have studied martial arts for several decades, we DO NOT claim to be a master at Japanese swordsmanship by any means.<\/p>\n

Katanas<\/a><\/h2>\n

The naked blades<\/a> we purchased were each made from a different kind of steel (T10<\/a> or 1095<\/a>), but the supplier didn’t label them, so we couldn’t tell which was which, or even if they were different…buying on eBay<\/a> is like that \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

It would have been helpful to know, as there are two camps<\/a> of thought on the matter:<\/p>\n