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Test Review of
Sandata Crafts Ironwood Bokken
This review was written by Sensei
Keven Cecil, head of the White Heron Dojo (www.whiteherondojo.net)
located in Reno, Nevada, USA. White Heron Dojo is a Muso
Jikiden Eishin Ryu Iaijutsu school. Sensei Keven is also
the sword tester of the Last Legend line of Japanese swords.
All in all I was surprised at the
quality of these bokken. I think they are very nice and
have a nice "heft" to them.
I measured the bokken
individually for sori and length. Again Im surprised as
I find that the bokken, each hand made, are nearly identical.
Also I note that the bokken  have
a nice shine to them. After a little work I believe this
to be a hand rubbed polish. I believe this due to the fact
that the shine wears off a little after some use, and yet
no stain or polish comes off on my hands or other bokken.
The bokken we received
were two Ironwood Daito bokken and one Shoto, and one ironwood
tsuba. The First Daito is of standard design, 40 inches
overall and a smooth handle. The second Daito bokken was
a little different having a dragon carved into the handle.
The Shoto bokken was of standard design. The tsuba, I found
interesting. It was of the same material as the bokken,
but thicker than the kind of tsuba I'm used to. At first
I didn't care for it. But I quickly came to admire if for
the style it added to the bokken.
Initially I took
these fine bokken out for a test spin with a little kata.
They are very dense and a little luggish.  But
then again I'm comparing them to red oak, golden oak, and
some white oak that I'm used to. Still the vendor assures
me that these bokken come in at about 880 - 900 grams. And
although dense, I find these bokken to be well balanced
and functional in every aspect. Nothing about them is a
turn off. Now we will have to put them in the hands of the
students and see how they fare.
Our first test was
in the dojo. Bokken to bokken to see about the crush factor.
First we put the ironwood up against a white oak bokken.
Edge to edge in full speed Tachiuchi no Katachi. And we
looked at the impact points in the respective swords. The
Ironwood took good marks. Not deep though and no breaking
in the grain at any point. The White oak bokken in question
had been used for some time in the dojo and still took some
lumps.  Our
next subject was an Ebony bokken from Bujin Designs. After
noting that the wood grain and coloration was similar we
took it again to the test. Ukenagashi Tachiuchi no Katachi.
Again full speed. The end result was slightly different.
We noted that the impact marks on the Ebony bokken were
slightly smaller than the ones on the Ironwood bokken. After
some assessment we determined a crush factor was involved.
In our theory, a bokken will take over time a compression
to the "cutting" or leading edge. Thus over time this area
will become more dense and less susceptible to impact marks.
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