Batch 18 swords – the stragglers

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This post is specifically for people who ordered swords from batch 18 (batched and commenced by the forge on the 5th of December 2011) and haven’t emailed me about what is going on. While the vast majority of the swords cleared customs and have been shipped, I hate to say it but we still have a few stragglers that are still stuck in customs (grr) – and the majority of these are for Wakizashi, Tanto and sword sets (though there are still a few Katana).

It’s really quite frustrating as batch 18 is now coming up to 150 days since batching, so the last stragglers are some 60 days over the 90 day turnaround time we aim for. 🙁 However we should have the last ones clear customs within a week and my agent will ship them out as soon as possible, so while I hate to ask for it – please bear with us just a little longer.

Since I am making a quick post, I though I should also mention that batch 19 is coming along much faster – without Chinese New Year to get in the way, batch 19 is 100% on track and I’ll be making another post (and sending an email update) around the midway point. In the meantime, if anyone has any questions please email me and I’ll do my best to get back to you asap. – Paul

Updates on Batch 18 and 19

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Ok, first off a quick update on batch 19 – by now you should have received an email confirming that the forge has started work on the blades, components are being ordered and the wheels are well and truly turning. One quick thing though that I forgot to mention in this email is that the design instructions that accompany this email are only what was ordered ORIGINALLY – so if you have revised your order or added other components to it since it was first placed, it doesn’t show up here. But do not be concerned, the order details that have been submitted to the forge are as per our most recent correspondence. If you have any doubts, simply shoot me an email and I’ll confirm it for you.

Now, for our delayed batch 18 – the good news is that it should clear customs any day now and as soon as it arrives with my agent to be inspected you will receive an email letting you know where we are up to. Rest assured we will do our best to get them out to you as quickly as possible, though NOT at the risk of sacrificing Quality checks – so please bear with us just a little bit longer.

The waiting is the hardest part I know, but I hope that once you have your sword in hand you’ll agree that it was worth it. 🙂

Talk to you all again soon.

– Paul

And batch 19 is officially closed..

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We just had the countdown to last orders on batch 19 of the SBG custom Katana. There were quite a few last minute ones so over the next couple of days we will be double checking everything and everyone who reserved a sword in this batch will also be getting their first update via email once we have made sure everything as is it should be.

Naturally there is another wave of emails that we will work through during this period – so if you missed out, sorry – but there will always be batch 20 in around 3 months time. Any emails for changes up to this point will be honored, but anything from now on sadly cannot be accomodated as we can’t hold up everyone elses order – we want to get the forge to work on these asap!

Thanks for your patience while we do the final checklist – and thanks to everyone who ordered, looking forward to bring your designs to life.

I’ll post again soon!

Thanks all,

– Paul

Last 24 hours

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Hi everyone,

Update time – with less than 24 hours to go before we close off on batch 19 we are working around the clock to make sure that any last minute orders get added properly, making some last minute changes and tweaks to recent orders and answering a small mountain of incoming emails.

So if you wanted to make any changes or get a last minute order in – NOW is the last chance to do so! (once we close off, we are locked in to production mode and no further additional orders are possible).

While we have a few loose ends to tie up properly before we can officially send the entire batch to the forge and they can start production, the delay should be only a couple of days at worst as we double check to make sure everything is as it should be and deal with any last minute craziness.

I’ll post again once we are closed off and then when we begin batching, so when the forge is in full swing again we can coordinate the shipment of batch 18, which should hopefully have cleared customs by then and be under inspection by my agent for final shipping.

Gotta go, there’s a lot to be done!

– Paul

April 6th is ‘D-day’

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Hi everyone,

Well, I have confirmed that April the 6th will be ‘D-day’ for last orders on batch 19. And a new timer is up and running to commemmorate it!

If we ‘overheat’ with a sudden stampede of orders I will hit a kill switch too cool it down for a day or two while I continue to talk to everyone via email as I don’t want someone to miss out because they have a lot of questions. So if that happens I’ll post here and explain what will happen (as I refuse to take on more orders than the forge can handle).

Batch 18 hasn’t quite come in to customs yet and may be a few more days before it hits customs, so I’ll post again on this shortly too. Customs usually takes 7 days with our swords and we do have to jump through a few hoops, but we do our best to comply with whatever they need and do not envision any serious delays (it’s just a pain – but my agent is gearing up to process them as quickly as possible without missing anything important during the QC checks).

Incredibly busy right now, but as we want to try and get all orders in to the forge as quickly as possible after the 6th please note that the window to make adjustments to existing orders is closing, so if you want to make a change you will need to let me know ASAP. And as paypal echeques take 3-5 working days to clear, at this point I’m afraid that from the time of this post onwards, echeque orders will be refunded once they clear as we cannot afford to hold up the current batch.

Ok, got to go – I’ll be in touch again soon!

– Paul