New Dynasty Forge Models – First Picks and Special Offer at SBG!

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Hi guys,

This is a bit of a special exclusive offer for SBG store visitors, and especially for anyone who is reading this blog right now (such as your fine self!).

Dynasty Forge are BACK – and they are back with a vengeance! We are proud to present you with several brand NEW products based on Dynasty’s 11 years of experience in the sword industry, and they have kindly offered SBG site visitors the first pick of the cream of the crop!

Additional selected new swords from their entire range will be added to the store over the coming days and weeks, but we kick it off with 3 Katana, one from their entry level monotempered Musha class, the Musashi – the clay tempered and Machine polished Silver Dragon from the Bushi Class and their elite hand polished, differentially hardened and forge folded (with 9000 layers) Daimyo Class Gold Eagle.

The Musashi has been around for a long time, but the new stock we are offering here is the November 2012 version – with a slightly longer blade now measuring at 29″ and standardized fittings creating a much better fit between the various components, addressing previous issues with poorly fit tsuka.

The Silver Dragon and the Gold Eagle are both brand new products – but built upon the solid foundation set by Dynasty since 2003 and take each class to a whole new level.

The Elite ‘Golden Eagle’ – a Katana with the Works..!

INTRODUCTORY OFFER – 10% DISCOUNT!

To celebrate our exclusive release of these swords we are offering all readers of this blog a whopping 10% discount on our first three Dynasty Forge listed swords from now until the 30th of November.

Simply enter the coupon code:

Dynasty10

In the checkout and Save on this exclusive SBG offer!

*Please note – this exclusive discount offer can only be used at the time of purchase, we cannot refund you 10% if you buy first and then see this post.

And Batch 21 is closed..

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Ok guys, that’s it – batch 21 is now officially closed and for the next couple of days my assistant and I will be going over the orders, making sure that everything is entered as it should be and getting the final instructions over to the forge so they can begin work.

Apologies to anyone who was not able to get in on this batch that wanted to – these swords are just too popular for their own good, which I suppose is understandable considering the price (especially as we have had to absorb some recent increases again, which leaves us with a paper thin margin now – but even though it would be very easy to increase the price, I’ll resist it for as long as we possibly can)..

At the same time, batch 20 should be hitting customs now so we will be pretty busy..

I’ll post again soon, but in the meantime to everyone in batch 21 – thanks for your order, I’ll be in touch with you personally very soon!

Thanks all,

– Paul

Batch 21 now open (but not for long)

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It’s official, the short run batch 21 is now officially open and taking orders – though as mentioned in previous posts it won’t be open for long…

If you want to order, best to get in quick – we will likely close very early next week though it really depends on how fast the orders come in. So far, they are coming in pretty quickly so if you want to get in on this batch now is definitely the best time to do so.

I’ll post another update when we close – so talk to you all again soon.

– Paul

Update

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Just another quick update – Batch 20 is well on the way from the forge and we are bracing ourselves for customs.. It’s going to be annoying and intensive, but rest assured we always do our best to minimize any delays..

Because now the forge does not have any custom orders that they are doing for us (though they are doing a few priority remakes on some swords and components that we were not happy with from batch 19) batch 21 is scheduled to officially open on the 31st of October..

As mentioned previously, this is going to be a very small and very tight run – and because there is so much going on (plus at the same time I am struggling a bit with a very nasty cold that will probably take 2-3 weeks to get over) I’m not sure if there will be time to answer all SBG custom Katana questions. I’ll do my best once we open up, but cannot guarantee anything at this point (sorry guys, I am working 24/7 but there simply are not enough hours in the day at the moment).

Got to go, I’ll post again soon.

 – Paul

Custom Katana Update

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Hi everyone,

It’s been a while between posts, primarily because we have been busy concentrating on some stragglers from batch 19 and ensuring that batch 20 goes along as smoothly as possible.

I won’t try to pretend that the last 2-3 batches have not been difficult. Customs gave us a very hard time due to the increased size of our shipments. And the forge slipped up on batch 19 with many more mistakes than usual when putting together everyone’s orders (naturally with a project like this, there will be one or two swords made to the wrong specs or with the wrong fittings in each batch. But this time, because batch 19 was larger than usual due to the projects increased popularity – the error rate shot up, and we are now working feverishly to fix anything that has been incorrectly made).

Anyway, despite all this we are getting everything back on track – batch 20 is completed on time and preparing to ship from the forge as we speak, though sadly we are expecting customs delays again like the previous batch (everyone has been forewarned that around 50% of all orders go out fast, and the others we have to fight tooth and nail for customs to dribble them out a few swords at a time until they all clear)..

So because of this, the much anticipated batch 21 is going to be much smaller and tighter than previous batches, we will only hold it open for a few days at the most and once we fill up, that’s it. This way we can keep the shipments size down so that customs does not cause us such a headache (as part of the issue is, a large shipment with so many different swords and so many different prices combined with the nature of the product, makes them especially stubborn and slow to process) – but also just tighten things up at the forge.

I’ll be posting again in a few days when we will open up on batch 21 – so if you are waiting, please bear with us just a little longer – we don’t like to have the forge twiddling their thumbs for long in between batches, but they need to remake a few swords from batch 19 as top priority, so once these are done we will open up again.

In the meantime, here’s a few pics of some of the swords from the most recently completed batch 20 which are right now being packed up to go to my agent in Canada for inspection and reshipping.

Wearing ‘socks’ to protect the sayas.

Some of the different tsuka combinations

A Chokuto and a battlewrap

Also, before I sign off – a couple more changes to this batch. First up, since the beginning we have been working hard to improve a part of the blade that is often neglected in production swords – the kissaki (tip).

The reason it is often ugly is because it is VERY intensive to polish, almost as time consuming as the rest of the blade – so to keep costs down most swords at around $300 forgo a refined polish and just do it rough. But even though it hurt us financially, we spent extra money on each and every sword to give it a real yokote and a decent polish, but there was still an area that looked scratchy.

But this recent photo of a random sword from batch 20 compared to an older sword shows that we are getting pretty close to our goal of a good polish on both the blade and the tip.

The old and the new polish side by side. As you can see, the new polish is highly reflective.

 The next change is also a positive one, but unfortunately not one that we can absorb the price increase on – and that is the optional extra leather ito upgrade, which is now done by only the most experienced cutlers using the much slower, but much more even and nicely wrapped, Hishigami process.

The jump from $25 to $60 is a big one, but as you can see the end result is much better and we would rather scrap the option than have it less than impressive.

Top, the new wrap – bottom – the old.

Top, new wrap with Hishigami.

Ok, that is enough for now I think! There are a mountain of emails and inquiries to go through (as mentioned elsewhere, I prefer to only answer inquiries for new orders as a batch gets closer to opening up because each batch is slightly different) – and we need to oversee batch 20 going out and get any issues from 19 cleared up as top priority. But once I am satisfied, I’ll make one more post to let you all know and then open on 21.

Talk to you all again soon.

– Paul