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It depends on your training style and preferences. There are pros and cons, and you have to figure it out for yourself.
It depends on your training style and preferences. There are pros and cons, and you have to figure it out for yourself.
Yes, but even if it is slightly weaker, the structural strength is still above our design requirement. A blade with a bo-hi is fully covered under our warranty program as well.
There are various theories on the functionality of a bo-hi. At least in the modern sword practice, it causes the sword to make a strong whistling noise when swung down, and the blade alignment is correct.
Select the combination of blackened brass and carved tsuba (such as carved bamboo, carved dragon, etc). Basically, the yellow brass under the blackened surface is showing in the picture.
No. White brass doesn't get blackened.
We apologizefor having a limited menuki selection. You have the following options: with blackened dragon menuki; with yellow brass fittings, we mount yellow brass dragon menuki; and with white brass or silver fittings, we mount white brass flower menuki. We are trying to expand our menuki selection and we will offer more choices in the near future.
No, we don't. We do not have enough experimental or test data on European or Chinese swords and we will not risk making and selling unproven designs.
No.
MAS requires full payment upon ordering a custom sword.
Yes.
No, we cannot. We have experimented with this and the result was less than satisfactory.
Yes, we can engrave letters on the blade or habaki. They can be in the Roman alphabet, Chinese, Korean, or Japanese characters. Other characters are possible if you can send us a picture.
MAS has been in the sword business since the mid-80's. The North American store opened in 2003.
No, we are not affiliated with any organizations. All sword reviews that are on our website are conducted by independent third party martial artists or sword/knife makers.
The forge is located in South Korea. Our sales office is in Toronto, Canada.
The work nature and schedule limit us from answering phone calls during regular business hours. We check and reply to emails frequently throughout the day so please email us if you need to contact us.
The MAS competition blade is one of the thinnest yet most durable blades offered in the market. Because the cutting plane angle of the blade is shallower, a practitioner experiences significantly less resistance in going through a target while performing tameshigiri (cutting test). Just imagine how difficult it would be to use a thick fillet knife in a similar.
This is where MAS really shines. In general, thicker blades would exhibit higher mechanical strength, provided that all other conditions are equal. For example, if you compare a kitchen knife and a razor, you can easily conclude that the kitchen knife is structurally stronger than the razor. The real question is: how do you make a razor that is stronger than a kitchen knife? Here is out answer: it takes advanced metallurgical engineering to reduce the blade thickness while maintaining the mechanical strength. First, the blade must be made of high-grade steel such that it contains an extremely low level of impurities. Unlike most, if not all, production sword companies that use cheaper Chinese steel, MAS exclusively uses modern L6 steel from Japanese steel mills. Please do not be fooled by some companies selling L6 katanas - L6 steel from China and L6 steel from Japan are NOT the same.
Second, the blade must be forged according to the highest possible standard. If a sword smith is forging a blade and the hammer misses a single spot on the blade, then lattice irregularity develops at that point, and that section will become the weakest part of the blade. Some variation in mechanical strength along the length is tolerable in a thick blade, but it is not allowed for thinner blades. Although our master smith is an expert in forging, the MAS engineering design team has decided to eliminate possible human error altogether; instead of using a power hammer to forge a blade, MAS does this through a modern Japanese steel mill, where the blade is forged using a 3,000-ton pressure cold roll machine. In comparison, the typical power hammer pressure is ~250 kg (that's 12,000 times pressure difference!)
Third, the heat treatment must be exact. The steel grain structure changes during forging, heating, quenching, and stress relieving, and the temperature control is the critical element in achieving a high-quality blade. Most forges, if not all, rely on the smith's personal judgment or guesswork for this critical process. MAS has adapted modern engineering approaches to heat-treat our blades precisely without guesswork. In addition to the professional judgment of the master smith (who is a metallurgical engineer), we also use modern industrial equipment to control our heat treatment processes such that the blade temperature is extremely close to the target design values. Have you ever hear about the story of a Japanese smith taking a heated blade from charcoal and comparing its color to the color of the moon, so he can estimate the temperature? Actually, there is a scientific reasoning behind this story, because heated steel radiates variant colors depending on its temperature. In the MAS forge, this process is done using a multi-channel optical pyrometer, and it takes about a second to measure the exact temperature of the blade at any moment during the heat process. This process produces results that are within a +/- 1 degree accuracy.
Each customer has his/her preferences when it comes to sword selection. MAS tries to accommodate all styles.
No. It is not possible due to the limitations associated with the L6 steel heat treatment process.
The curvature is approximately 0.8 inches based on a 28-inches blade. It cannot be customized.
No, MAS does not make folded blades because folding actually weakens the blade. When swords were forged in the past and metallurgical engineering was nonexistent, making a folded sword was a good solution in order to guarantee that a micro-crack in the steel does not propagate along the grain boundary and snap the blade in half. For instance, imagine a steel bar containing some air bubble inside due to poor casting. If a sword forged from such steel is subject to high stress (i.e. clashing with another sword), it can snap at the spot where the air bubble is located. However, if the same steel bar is folded five times to give 16 layers, the crack will be contained to one layer out of 16 and the sword will likely survive the clash. The same principle was used in the making of Damascus swords. Whereas these types of swords were superior to non-folded swords when forging started with low quality steel, the same logic no longer applies to modern swords that are made of high quality steel which does not contain impurities. When a high quality steel is folded with forge-scale power hammers, the quality of the steel actually drops significantly.
As for traditional Japanese sword (nihonto) smiths, they do it for traditional and aesthetic reasons. After all, folded swords were the better swords a few centuries ago, and they also produced nicer looking blades. As for other production sword companies, either they do not understand why swords were folded in the first place or they just want to gouge the customers with hyped products, since the myth of folded swords allows them to justify their high price tags.
Yes, we can customize the weight to some degree. Usually, up to 200g reduction/gain is possible.
All blades are covered under a lifetime warranty. If the blade chips, bends, or breaks during normal martial arts practice (which includes performing patterns and cutting tatami or bamboo), we will replace it free of charge. Other sword furniture such as saya, tsuba, tsuka, menuki, fuchi, or kashira are considered wearable parts and are not covered under warranty.
MAS swords are inspected independently by at least three different inspectors, and it is highly unlikely that a defect is not caught and corrected during the inspection. However, it can happen, and in such case, we will replace the defective parts or the whole sword free of charge, shipping included.
Any physical object in the world can be damaged in one way or another. For instance, if a customer accidentally hits the sword on a nail in the tatami stand, the blade can chip. Someone might drop a sword on concrete and damage the edge. All kinds of accidents can happen. In such instances, you can send the sword back to us and we will repair it. The repair cost will be based on the actual labour and part cost.
Yes, we have inspected thousands of swords to date and we know what an abused sword looks like.
If it is an original MAS product, we will repair it. Some saya cannot be repaired if the damage is extensive. The cost of repair is around $150 (including return shipping).
Yes, we can, but it could be costly. Since we make the saya to fit perfectly to the blade, you will also have to send the sword back to us. The cost of making the first replacement saya is $500 (including return shipping) and each additional saya will cost $100.
Yes, unfortunately, that is the case. Please consider getting an extra saya if you are placing a custom sword order.
Sorry, we will not service any non-MAS products.
Yes, we will replace MAS handle wraps. Please send us the handle (NOT the whole sword). The replacement cost depends on the handle wrap material.
The traditional geometry blade is 6 mm thick whereas the competition geometry blade is 5.5 mm thick. The thickness is measured at the habaki end.
Yes, you can, provided that the fitting sizes are compatible with our products. Please check with us before sending your fittings. There will be an administrative charge of $70
It is measured from the tip of the sword to the tsuba (i.e. we use draw length as the length measurement).
We will limit our response to the design of the products that we sell here because there are a lot of differences between "traditional Korean swords" and "traditional Japanese swords." The main difference between MAS Korean swords and MAS Japanese swords is in the handle construction. Whereas a Japanese katana handle is fixed with two bamboo pins, a Korean jingum handle is fixed with a bamboo pin and a bolt. The other difference is in the sword tip geometr; a Korean sword has a rounder sword tip compared to a Japanese sword and it does not have the yokote (the line dividing the tip and the blade body on a Japanese sword).
No, all MAS Korean swords are in competition geometry. MAS Korean swords are optimized according to the needs of Korean sword art practitioners to provide the best pattern and cutting abilities.
Yes, you can. You only have to push out the bamboo pin from the handle and unbolt the end-cap by turning it counter-clockwise. However, MAS does not recommend the disassembling Korean-style sword handles because it is difficult to put back as tight as the original setting.
Yes. Our Jikdo is a straight sword especially designed for Kuk Sool practitioners. Please note that our Jikdo is thoroughly hardened so that it does not develop curvature during the heat treatment process.
The delivery time is 2-5 days to Continental USA or Canada. To Europe and Asia, it's typically 5 business days. The delivery to Mexico may take up to 4 weeks because we have to ship it via broker.
The lead time is approximately 10 weeks.
Yes, we do.
We have shipped our quality L6 swords to customers in USA, United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Ireland, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece, Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Finland, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Luxemburg, Norway, Czech, Singapore, Hong Kong, Israel, and Brazil.
MAS ships all our swords via FedEx only.
We use a thick mailing tube to ship our L6 swords to prevent any damage to the blade and fixtures. The swords are put in a cotton or silk sword bag, then wrapped using a 3/16-inch bubble wrap sheet and put in a mailing tube. The tube is sealed at both ends with plastic plugs and taped multiple times to prevent it from opening during the transfer. Several fragile stickers are placed on the tube to caution the couriers. We tested the integrity of the package by dropping it from a 7-feet height and the content did not suffer any damage.
FedEx is generally very reliable. However, our experience shows that about 0.5% of the shipments (1 in 200) gets damaged, lost, or stolen during shipment. For your peace of mind, you can purchase the insurance. But if you would rather take the chance, then do not purchase the insurance.
Yes. Some of our customers ask this question because of the sword ban in UK. The ban is applied to "cheap imitation samurai swords from China"; however, our products are considered as collector's items and the sword ban does not apply to our products. We have successfully shipped products to customers in UK since the ban came into effect. If you do not receive the sword, we will send you a full refund, so there is no risk for you in ordering our products to UK.
Customers are responsible for paying customs duty/sales taxes. Whereas we can accommodate the customers' requests, please keep in mind that what is written on the invoice is the maximum insurance protection we can purchase/claim in case of damage or loss. So, if any shipping problem occurs, you will not be able to receive much compensation for it.
