Question about Bugei Dragonfly
 

Hi... sorry if this isnt the right place but im new here! I was wondering if anybody knows if the dragonfly from bugei has ever been made with anything other than the powder steel... I hav an opp to buy a used one but the hada is not as impressive as the one on the bugei website... He has all the paper work... even the teeshirt lol. Other than the grain... it feels great... looks great... but what bugs me is the product number is also off s40662 is the one he has... the one on the site is s40660. Thanks for reading and for any help...

I've had two myself (one was a defect), and two of my dojomates also have owned one each. None of them had as blatant (garish) hada as the ones on the website; chalk that up to harsh flash conditions in the photo studio that day. I wouldn't suspect the owner in question to be pulling a fast one, if that's what your concerned about. And all of the Dragonflies are recent offerings, made with the Swedish Powdered Steel.

Is this to be a cutter or an iai blade? Does it come with hi or not? (this could be the reason behind the model number being different) My personal one doesn't have it, and is stout enough for almost all cutting. The hi versions are very light and great for kata, but have a tendency to bend if you screw up the hasuji on the cut. But both models are well-made..

Hey Brian... Its going to be a cutter (after much more practice) and it does have a hi. Good point with the model number... no the guy who has it has been great... just was kinda suspect when I looked at the site and the hada was crazy... I have a tiger from paul chen and the hada is beautiful. Thanks for your post... its set my mind at eaze!

Hmmm The plot thickens! So it turns out the dragonfly is a custom job... its powder steel but its not folded... totally bummed out!

At this point, I'd suggest posting on Bugei's web forum. It doesn't sound right that someone'd special order a production-level blade and request that it not be folded; would it be worth the extra cost? But that doesn't mean it didn't happen. If you posted over there, I'm sure one of the Bugei folk'd tell you if the story's legit or not..

Question:
Why Bugei?

Yeah... I wrote bugei and told them the situation... they only wrote back saying all there dragonfly are powder steel... lol... nothing more so I shot them another mail... I feel they maybe less than helpful due to the fact im not buying directly from them... but we'll see.

As far as I know, the Bugei Dragonfly has always been made with powdered steel in a folded construction with visible hada.

That said, the hada will vary from blade to blade - no two blades are identical. I used to own a Bugei Dragonfly with bo-hi. Fantastic cutter - but prone to bending if your hasuji is off, and the edge was brittle for cutting hard targets - it really is only for soft targets like tatami.

The only explanation I can think of in the model numbers you quoted is that the very first production run of the Dragonfly had the wrong color same and tsuka-ito. They were all supposed to be black same and brown ito, but the first run came with white same and black ito. It could be the other model number was used for this limited first run.

fwiw,
Erik Tracy

Thanks everybody for your posts... I got the sword... I love it and you all are correct... Brian you were right on ... the numbers are different because of the bo-hi... there was some confusion with the og owner but after we all talked (bugei included) It all got cleared up... Posting on the Bugei forum was key! Thanks all!
Aaron