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Jan-Feb orders ready to ship, but small problem with A2 ito color

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Hey folks,

Thanks for your patience – I am pleased to let you know that the orders received in January and February have all finally been completed and are being packed to ship out from the forge within the next couple of days.

They are still a couple of weeks away from delivery as they still have to be sent to by agent in Canada by air, clear customs and then be sorted and inspected for final delivery, but we will do everything we can to ensure that it all moves along as smoothly as possible.

The only problem we found is with people who ordered swords with the A2 ito color (and if you can’t remember, I’ve let you know in the email I sent you if you are effected or not) – but for everyone else, I’ll be in touch with tracking numbers soon. But for people who ordered A2 email, please read below for a situation report.

A2 Ito Problem

The big problem is that the A2 ito color in the original stock photos doesn’t really look anything like what it turns out to look like in real life.

Here’s a pic of the A2 ito from the Custom Katana design page:

And here is what it looks like in ‘real life’:

As you can see, what at first looks like a nice golden ito turns out to be a rather pumpkin colored orange… Some people might like this sure, but if you were expecting the original ito color shown in the stock photos, you might be in for a bit of a shock…!

Anyway, to rectify this the forge has been scrambling to find something that better suits the stock photos (which really is more a fault of the component supplier than the forge) and we have come up with three alternative ito colors…

The first one is truly quite golden – which I call selection one, looks especially nice with a black same background I think:

SELECTION ONE

The other two still look a little orangey, but not as much as the original color:

SELECTION TWO:

SELECTION THREE:

Anyway, please have a look at the selections above and let me know as soon as possible what ito color you would prefer. Of course, you can still select the A2 ito color as shown above or any of the other ito colors from the original Custom Katana Selection here – but please confirm your selection as soon as possible as I’ve had to hold back these particular A2 swords out of the shipment rather than have them come in and lead to surprise or disappointment.

Sincerely,

Paul Southren

Status Update

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Ok folks, a few bits of news in the one post.

The first thing is that after some additional unexpected delays, 98% of the custom Katana from October->December have been shipped out and you should have received and email with the tracking information by now (the main delay was everything was inspected, sorted and handed to a third party shipping agent – who failed to send them out promptly! Naturally, we weren’t very happy with that – but now they are definitely on the way).

The second bit of news is for those people waiting for their Jan-Feb orders. These swords are very close to completion – with only 1-2 weeks before they leave the forge and start flying across the world to my agent in Canada. This means that, unlike the October-December orders, we are pretty much on track (I really can’t believe how long the October-December ones took, hopefully that will never happen again!).

It does seem that this project tends to stray outside of the optimal 90 days from ordering to receiving that we have been aiming for, but we are refining all the time. Speaking of which, the third bit of news is that as soon as the Jan-Feb orders have left the forge, we will be opening up again for another batch – which with several hundred people already on the Custom Katana Waiting List may not be open for long before we get too many swords to be able to fulfil within the allocated time frame…

Anyway, everything does finally seem to be coming together – so to everyone who has been waiting for one thing or another, thank you so much for your patience. I have definitely been doing my best, and this is most certainly a very time consuming project, but oh so worth it when I read the feedback from customers who receive their own, one of a kind differentially hardened T-10 steel Katana for around the $300 mark…

Thanks again everyone,

Paul Southren

Finally!

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Thanks for bearing with me guys.

I am pleased to let those of you who have been so patiently waiting for your swords since October to December, they have finally cleared customs and are with my agent in Canada being sorted for delivery very early next week..! (I’ll be in touch with you all individually soon, so look out for my next email!).

The good news is that it looks like the QC policies that we implemented that were partly responsible for this slowdown were well worth it, as he reports that the quality overall is even better than the very first swords (one of the first ones pictured below)

So hopefully it has been worth the extra wait to you all (though again, I apologize for how long it took).

The other current Jan-Feb orders are progressing along nicely, and that means that very soon, to all the people who have joined the Custom Katana Waiting List that once I am certain that it’s all going smoothly, we will be again opening up for new orders.

Be in touch again VERY soon (and I must admit, I do feel very relieved that they are finally here, the pressure and responsibility has weighed heavily on me as I don’t take the trust you put in our store buying these lightly!), but as always should you have any specific concerns not addressed here just let me know.

And happy Easter too!

Paul Southren

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Hi guys,

First off – welcome to the new SBG Custom Katana blog! This blog was primarily designed to update existing SBG Custom Sword buyers as to the status of their orders, but also to advise when we will be opening up for new orders – as well as information on other SBG custom Katana projects in the works.

Anyway, the meat of this post is to update customers who placed their orders between the 17th of October to the 5th of December 2008 – because as you know we are running behind schedule due to New Years and then CHINESE Lunar New Years Celebrations, plus a whole heap of other delays and complications that we have thankfully sorted out (it hasn’t been the easiest project, I can tell you!).

The blades of all of your swords are now well and truly finished, and we are now just waiting on a few components to come in to finalize the mountings in your custom selections. But while we are waiting, I thought you might like to have a quick peek at what has been going on.

First off, the actual forging:

Followed by the filing and shaping of the blade:

And finally, the polishing and sharpening – all done by hand of course:

So now, all we have to do is get them ALL mounted up (some have been done already, but unfortunatley to be able to offer them at the price we did, we have to wait for them all to be completed before shipping) – quality inspected at the forge, and then sent by air to by agent in Canada.

This is pretty much on track with my last email update to you – but again, my apologies it has taken so long – I did not anticipate the disruption the holidays would have on production, or the necessary pause to help to the forge implement a Quality Control system to ensure that each sword had EXACTLY the same components as ordered (no-one has really done this kind of thing before, sometimes being a pioneer is a bit of a headache!).

But hopefully we will have them all mounted up in march and get them moving to my agent in Canada for final sorting and shipping.

Will keep you posted!

Paul Southren