Citadel – Dragon Katana

Citadel continues its reputation for meticulously crafted Katana of premium quality with its Dragon Katana and its limited production run of 100 pieces worldwide. The Katana features a Water Dragon theme and is marvelously well balanced and feels both light, responsive, yet decisive and purposeful in the hand. Its blade not only has a deep bohi groove and a fine level of distal taper, but it also tapers from the centerpoint of the blade towards its spine in the cross section – a feature that while painstaking to craft, trims enough unneeded weight from the katana to give it an exquisite overall balance.

The sharp blade is forged from DNH7 High Carbon Steel and its vibrantly visible hamon line belies its differentially-hardened tempering that give it a hard, crystalline martensite steel edge and a softer spine to absorb shock. An attentive hand-polishing with both traditional stones and powders has given the blade a high-quality polish that brings out the hamon in its full beauty. The tempered hardness of the edge is 60 HRc and the body of the blade is 40 HRc.

The iron tsuba is meticulously cut by hand to feature the roiling tempest of the deep ocean waves and the tsuba is finished with a polish so fine that the iron gleams with iridescent hues. Each tsuba was hand cut to precisely fit the blade it was to be matched with for a seamless and ideal friction fit. The fuchi and kashira are likewise crafted to match and the habaki is gleamingly polished copper which was finely finished to match the contours of the blade with the craftsmen going so far as to match and meld with the contours of the bohi groove for a seamless fit – a stunning achievement and attention to detail! The seppa are contrasting brass and are likewise crafted to meld with the blade.

The wooden tsuka grip is individually carved and contoured to precisely match the individual nakago tang of the sword for a seamless friction fit assembly which is reinforced with well-shaped mekugi pegs. The tsuka grip of wood has been overlaid with a full-wrap of highest quality rayskin same-gawa – a rare luxury afforded to few katana available on the market. The raykin was wrapped over with dark blue silk tsuka-ito wrap that was created in Japan. Knotted within the cords of the ito are a pair of antiqued brass menuki.

The saya scabbard is carved from wood and given a finish of glossy and metallic blue lacquer and it has been very carefully carved to match the sword for an excellent fit. The front of the saya has been given a wrap of rayskin which was filled with a deep, dark blue lacquer; its highest points were then polished flush with the scabbard. This is a difficult process to master, but it gives the saya its uniquely spotted appearance. The mouth of the saya scabbard has a koiguchi of buffalo horn that was expertly cut to fit around the wood.

The sword comes with a black cloth sword bag lined with patterned yellow silk. It also comes with a nylon sword carry and storage bag that is padded and zippered – it has a shoulder strap and a zippered external compartment. Included in the compartment of the sword bag is a sageo cord of premium black Japanese silk, a small manufacturers certification certificate and a pair of spare bamboo mekugi.