Reviewing the Swordis ShadowDancer Lite Sword Builder App and Sword

In this article I will be reviewing the remodeled ShadowDancer Lite sword builder app on the Swordis website, along with the custom katana I ordered with it.

I was asked by Swordis if I would like to give my thoughts on the ShadowDancer custom sword builder app and katana and I was happy to do so. The product I will review today was chosen by me and provided by Swordis.

The custom katana builder is a web app using a series of options with dropdown menu choices for the customizing of individual parts for your sword, allowing the final assembled sword to be more unique. So far, there are three builders available on the Swordis website, one for Hanbon Forge, one for ShadowDancer Lite and the last one for ShadowDancer Pro. I was asked to review the Lite, so that’s the builder I used.

This is some info from the Lite builder site:
“Shadow Dancer brings a decade of craft rooted in traditional methods, aimed at collectors and dedicated practitioners. The Lite line uses quality materials and proven parts; customization focuses on components we can swap from stock. Blade-level changes like length or specialty geometry aren’t included, keeping price and lead time in check.”

I assume the hope for this builder was to make it easier to order a semi-customized functional katana based on a limited number of options so that you can make it unique but for a fair price and fast turn around as well. Sounds good to me. Going in, I know there will obviously be limitations so I’m fully prepared for that but I’m also going in with what I would personally be focusing on if purchasing a katana, my personal preferences from more of a customizers point of view rather than a practitioner’s or collector’s.

The first step is choosing between six offered steel types. There are steels well suited for through-hardened blades as well as differentially hardened ones. Since I don’t actively cut with my swords I don’t really need the “toughest” blade options available but I still want the blade to be fully functional so I’m looking at one well suited for a clayed hamon. I’ve had plenty of 1095 steel blades before but only a few made from “crucible steel”, so this is what I chose. Will there be a noticeable visual difference from 1095 or T10 to crucible worth $100 more? We’ll see.

There wasn’t much to look at from the few pictures they provide, though you can see a little more detail if you click the magnifier. The crucible steel looks dark grey while the example of the 1095 looked almost a little purple. I personally would like to see better and larger pics, at least for the ones with hamon or grain patterns.

Next I chose the shinogi-zukuri blade style, which was the only one available to me. The note on this page is:

“9260 spring steel is the only steel that allows for zukuri other than the standard one, shinogi-zukuri.”

Next step is choosing a hamon style. There are seven hamon style to choose from and to be honest, this was a difficult choice for me since I pretty much like them all. I wound up going with a gunome hamon because I feel it’s bold and flowing and it’s a good choice to show off the skills of the craftsman. Again, I’d like to see more of the blade when choosing something like hamon.

Next was sharpened or unsharpened, I went with sharpened.

For the next step, I had to choose a tsuka ito material. Now as I mentioned above, there was purpose behind a couple of the options I went with for this sword, mostly from a customizing viewpoint. I knew before I began ordering that I was going to want to rewrap the tsuka on this sword so I didn’t see any point in ordering any expensive upgrades in this step. I chose the most basic option, which was black rayon ito. I personally don’t like synthetic ito but it’s not going to be on the tsuka for long anyway. You can see the rest of the choices below.

Next is to choose the maki style. It was literally a coin flip between hineri-maki and katate-maki, and hineri-maki won. Again, it didn’t really matter to me since it was coming off.

Next I had three options for hishigami, none, standard and pro. I went with none.

Next I had three choices for samegawa color, white, black and red. From my experience, black samegawa from many manufacturers is the tanned version, leathery and highly polished. Other colors are typically either thinly dyed or painted and will show through or eventually begin to chip off. So I went with white.

Next step is choosing the metal type for the tsuba. They offer either iron or brass and while both are fine functionally, I often just prefer the understated appearance of iron. I also like iron and steel fittings because I always have the option of applying a forced rust patina.

Out of the 66 tsuba designs they offer, MDT-10 is what I chose, which basically looks like a copy of the tsuba from Hanwei’s Momo No Saru katana, which I always liked. I also went with this one because the picture showed nice detail and I wanted to see how close to this the actual piece would turn out. This is by far the most choices I’ve had so far and it would be hard to imagine someone not finding something they liked.

Next it’s on to menuki. There are 32 sets of menuki to choose from, not as many options as tsuba but still a decent amount. I thought the ox/cattle set in antique brass (MG-09) looked nicely detailed so this is what I chose. I also went with this set because it was one of only a few sets that were a matched pair, meaning one was made for the omote side of the tsuka and the other one was made differently, but within the same theme, for the ura side. Matched menuki pairs are probably the most commonly seen configuration but they weren’t always matched historically, many sets had identical menuki, maybe most commonly seen on military swords. Although I’ve seen many of these designs before, these menuki look like they’re a bit more detailed and refined than average and I like that they offer two colors.

Now we go to fuchi and kashira. This time I we have 48 sets to choose from, in the same two colors, black and antique brass. I thought the details on the flower petal (sakura?) and nanako set FK-26 looked crisp and I also wanted to see what the black finish looked like so I went with this f&k.

I went with the brass habaki in the next step since I really had no idea yet how I was going to self customize the sword later on so I felt brass was pretty neutral since it’s so common. The other two choices were copper and nickel, both for a $15 upcharge.

Same three choices of metal for the seppa and again I went with brass.

For saya, there are two general lacquer categories they offer, lacquer and urushi imitation. I didn’t see any descriptions so I really don’t know what the difference is, other than price. I kept it simple and went with one of the lacquer models which featured a black on black paint spatter effect, BSY-06.

Next a sageo must be chosen. The two categories are synthetic silk and Japanese rayon. Just to be clear, both options are synthetic silk, the main difference being the overall quality of the materials and craftsmanship with the Japanese kakucho weave version clearly being the top choice. Again, I was keeping things basic so I went with a synthetic silk sageo in “blanched almond”.