The first time I was trying to duplicate something that has worked before: Knuckle Dusters (which the game made a flail and is currently in my inventory.) Used the exact same name as before, or different descriptors, the result was usually the same, jewelry for days. I get why it associated knuckles with rings, but if it worked before, I don't see why it wouldn't now.
Tried coaxing or pleading with ooc/chat/AI, no real difference there. Specified that it is a weapon, not an accessory, or ingredient, or hammer tool. Same deal.
So after wrestling with that for a good dozen tries, I tried something simple: A spiked baseball bat. The dialogue was amusing, but once again it ended up being an ingredient.
So then annoyed at the whole thing, I wrote: Sword. Just a basic garden variety sword. Basic, no embellishments, nothing fancy, no narrative backstory.
Tried three times, no dice. Very strange.
On a whim I tried to make a ring, and it repeatedly gave me ice elemental alchemy parts instead. Eventually got it to work after another dozen tries. May just be rose colored glasses looking at earlier versions fondly, but I swear this was easier before, haha.
Since 1.4.1, the game compares the name of the item the NPC intends to give to you to a very large list of related terms, and for weapons and equipment specifically, skips calling the LLM for categorization completely. Evidently this doesn't work that well or there wouldn't be someone talking about it 3 days after the patch, so I'll revert this change (or rather have the LLM call as a fallback).
Less niche terms like items containing "ring" or "sword" in their name should always match with fitting items though, and this did work flawlessly during testing.