Cheness Summer Shutdown Schedule

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Just a quick note that the Cheness Cutlery warehouse will be closed from the 31st of July to the 8th of September 2015 as they will be visiting suppliers and service providers in Asia.

During this period there will be no shipping of any Cheness Cutlery products, so we STRONGLY suggest that if you have your eye on a particular sword of theirs you order now to avoid disappointment.

The last day to order before the shutdown is midnight the 29th of July, 2015, Eastern US time..

Order Now While You Still Can!

Custom Katana Update

Hi Everyone, update time – and we do have quite a bit of news to get through..

First off, a quick look at the current delivery schedule for batches 32 and 33 shows we have a bit of a bottleneck occuring due to some issues earlier on sourcing the tsuba and fuchi kashira sets. While the blades are well and truly finished, the difficulty sourcing all the necessary components threw a spanner into the works for timely delivery..

To make matters worse, communication with the forge right now is hampered because my primary contact there and good friend since this whole project began some 7-8 years ago recently ended up in the hospital for an extended stay following heart valve surgery (the poor guy is only in his mid twenties too, though it is a genetic condition – so best it is dealt with when he is young and fit).

Anyway, these two factors combined have slowed down the shipments and made it very hard to determine where everything is up to when customers (understandably) request updates..

As such, please bear with us while we get everything back on track. It will take a while until my contact is out of the hospital, so for a week or two we may be “going blind”. During this time we will only know when a shipment is coming in, and will only know what is in it when we physically open and inspect it.

My apologies for these unexpected delays.

In truth batch 32 is only around 3 weeks behind schedule, and batch 33 is not actually quite yet due. And our two man team of inspection and shipping agents are standing by to spring into action as soon as the first shipments come in, so hopefully the delays will not be too much longer.

But as we have a lot to sort through and cannot provide much information during this period, we hope for your understanding and assure you we are doing our best to minimize the delay as much as humanly possible (I suppose it is not that bad, custom orders of any kind often run behind schedule, and in the sword industry delays of months to years are not at all unheard of, so in the grand scheme of things we are still doing ok. But we feel the pressure acutely and really do push hard to make sure you guys get what you paid for as soon as possible while minimizing mix ups and delays as much as we possibly can)..

Because of these delays, the current batch that is open for orders will be the last one until we have caught up on the backlog and are back on track again with all batches coming in smoothly again.

So please rest assured, we are doing our best and will continue to provide updates as best as we can until things are running smoothly again.

Thanks for your understanding. Will update you all again shortly (phew)…

– Paul Southren

 

Project X Katana – Preview Pics

The Project X Katana are on the way from the forge and a lucky few will be able to grab one of these stunning Soshu Kitae, mastersmith forged swords in a few weeks time..

We will post an update on the blog when they are available, but in the meantime, here is some serious eye candy, with some photos taken on site at the forge of model #001.

Enjoy!

Model #001 in Saya

Model #001 in Saya

Close up of the laminated blade, geometric kissaki and active hamon!

Close up of the laminated blade, geometric kissaki and active hamon!

More information on Project X

Oops, they did it again… Raptor Katana Blowout Sale Round II!!

Raptor-sale-headingIt looks like the latest incoming batch of the Hanwei Forges’ Raptor Series Katana were on the ship before they had a chance to address the Quality control issue with the slightly short Rayskin..

This time, its EVERY model that has been effected – and this time, just like before, this unfortunate incident is your chance to save over $100 off our already heavily discounted price (from $220 to $260 off the MSRP!!).

So if you missed out last time, or even want to grab a matching Wakizashi or Tanto with the same issue with the same discount, well – now is your chance..!

I am pretty sure that this will be the LAST time they will be offered at this discount and the last time this minor defect will surface. So if you want a serious, heavy duty Japanese beater sword with a barely noticable defect – well, you know what to do..!

Here are the 6 swords in the series.

Check them all out and read more at our HOT SPECIALS page here

P.S. We also have fresh stock (literally came in 2 days ago) of the perfect Rayskin versions of the same sword. PLUS some of their most popular medieval swords from the Tinker line, the Claymore and the Rheinlander have been restocked as well – at new, even LOWER prices..!

Never been a better time to grab a bargain, that is for sure..

New Look Store..!

You may (or may not) have noticed some cosmetic changes at SBG over the last few days..

Mostly cosmetic, with the goal to make the store (and main site) responsive, easier to navigate and a tad more modern and attractive in appearance..

We are still tweaking a few things here and there, so if things don’t look quite “right” please bear with us.

Also note, the sites security is priority number one – and no changes are being made there, so you can still order as usual without any security concerns.

Hope you like the direction we are taking. If you have any problems, questions, comments or suggestions, please feel free to contact us!

Thanks all!

– Paul