New products coming soon from Ronin Katana

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I mentioned briefly in the previous post about some new products and projects in the pipeline for Ronin Katana, so thought now would be a good time to extrapolate on that post.

Next month will see several new and exciting products due to be stocked at the SBG sword store from Ronin – and as their exlcusive partner and distributor I am very excited about what they have lined up for December.

Along with a restock of their original Dojo Pro Models 1-6, there is also a 1060 Dojo Pro Ko Katana, 2 Wakizashi, a slightly longer 29″ nagasa blade and the return of the O-Katana, so time to share some pics..

First up on of my favorites from the new series, the new 29″ blade Dojo Pro with black rayskin and brown silk ito:




Not all that far behind is the extremely mean looking Ko-Katana, with black silk on black rayskin – a real dark beauty!




And here’s a couple of pics of the Wakizashi, one which matches model 2, the Ochou, and the other which matches model 3, the Tsuru:

Both of these blades are identical except for the choice of fittings (which of course, is also true for all the Dojo Models 1-6).

The O-Katana will be the same as it was before, though without a full wrattan wrap this time (too expensive).

ANIME LINE!

More of an artistic take on them than direct copies, Ronin Katana have also created a few 1045 Anime themed Katana – partly for a bit of fun but primarily to help younger first time sword buyers realize that there is more to a sword than just stainless steel and cheap, rattly fall apart fittings that you usually find on Anime inspired swords..

While they might not be to everyone’s tastes, the last two in particular are serious enough looking swords that even people who do not care in the least for anime will still find these swords to be quite eye pleasing – but more importantly – solid enough to do some real cutting with..





These swords should all be available by mid to late December (they are in transit as I write this post) so stay tuned, some of them will likely sell out VERY fast, so if there is a model that you are interested in get ready! (we will not be taking pre-orders as Ronin wants to check each shipment carefully, get the stats, etc before we start taking any orders – just another example of their steadfast commitment to quality).

Speaking of quality, Ronin and SBG are currently working together to create a line of HIGH END katana that pull out all the stops.. The kind of blade that until now most of us only ever dreamed of owning.. And while they will not be cheap, for this new project, we aren’t really worrying about that – what we want to do is just do EVERYTHING necessary to make a sword as traditional and as close to a real Japanese Shinken as humanly possible.

More on this in another post..!

Talk again soon.
– Paul

P.S. Nearly forgot to mention, while almost all of our Ronin Katana swords have sold out, we still have a handful of the limited edition models 7 and 11 available to purchase for the greatly reduced price of $249.99 with FREE SHIPPING. Once sold out, these two limited edition designs are gone for good. Check them out here

FAQ added

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Just a very quick update – I’ve been going through and answering as many of the SBG emails and enquiries that have build up over the last couple of months and decided around halfway through, ‘why not write a FAQ here’..

So here it is – the SBG Custom Katana FAQ

Otherwise, everything is going fairly smoothly for both batch 17 (incoming) and batch 18 (about to start taking new orders on the 18th of November at this stage).

More updates soon!

– Paul

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Ok, time for a bit of a format change as the old blog (which I have archived here was getting, shall we say a little LONG..!

Plus, it was about time to add some additional functionality – so at least for the time being this new format will have to do! (I’ll be tweaking it as necessary, but this will do for a start).

Anyway, lots of news to report – for a start we have a couple of cool specials going right now on two of Hanwei’s hottest Katana just in time for Christmas – both the Yasukuni Colonels Gunto and the incredible Bamboo Mat Katana (pictured below).


But there are also a doings transpiring with the imminent lauch of batch 18 of our supremely popular SBG Custom Katana of which I have recently ressurected its dedicated blog right here (looks like I might be getting addicted to blogging as well as swords doesn’t it!?).

Anyway, if you are interested in some up to date information on this batch (as well as a sneak preview of some new limited edition swords being made by the forge) you might want to mosey on over there.

Speaking of sneak previews, stay tuned for a very special sneak preview of some new products that will be in the store towards the end of December by Ronin Katana (well, why not – here’s an advance pic just to whet your appetite a little…

More on this (and MUCH more from Ronin) in another post..!

In other sword store news, I should mention that while many people have been asking – NO, Cheness Cutlery will NOT be having a pre-Christmas sale as their inventory is running too low and the restock has been delayed and will likely arrive only a week or so before Christmas anyway.. I should also mention that their warehouse will be taking a week off normal opearations after thanksgiving, so while orders can be placed during this time they will not be shipped until they resume normal operations.

Anwyay, I’ll be posting here again soon but in the meantime welcome to the new format, lets see how it goes!

All the best,
– Paul

暫くですね　It’s been a long time..!

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Man, I can’t believe that it has been two years since I last posted on this blog.. But then again, I have been doing almost all the SBG Custom Katana correspondence pretty much directly through the SBG private mailing list, but recently I’ve been toying with the idea of creating a blog and linking to it from the site as a lot of new visitors will have no idea what has been happening over the last 2 years, creating something of an information gap.

Anyway, I am rambling as usual – the point here is to say that the blog is back – at least for now – and I have quite a bit of news to share so let’s get it happening..

Current project status

A quick snap from the most recent batch

Our most recent batch of SBG custom swords (batch 17) is currently on its way from the forge to my agent in Canada for sorting and inspecting before shipping out to each swords new owner, so while it is still a few more days before I can tie up all the loose ends and make sure this shipment goes out as smoothly as possible, the next batch (naturally enough, which we will call – er, batch 18) will be taking orders within the next few days so that the forge isn’t just sitting around twiddling their thumbs.

Since batch 15 we have been offering some ‘optional extras’ to the basic $330 custom Katana design, such as folded steel, engravings, etc and this time around we are trialling two more – an optional battlewrap:

And also a cool black leather wrap option:

I’ve actually wanted to add a leather option for a long time but was originally told we can only do it on orders of 100 swords at a time, which didn’t really suit the project of course.. But the forge was able to find a good supplier so I am really pleased to be able to offer this for the first time..

So anyway, we are definitely gearing up and while incredibly busy doesn’t even begin to describe what is going on behind the scenes at the moment, if all goes to plan we should start taking pre-orders within a week!

As places fill up faster and faster each time the custom swords are offered (last time we reached the swords maximum capacity in a week) it is highly recommended to sign up to the news notification list here because this will be the last batch for 2011 and the next one is not likely to open until Feb/March 2012 (as stated elsewhere, it typically takes around 90 days from batching the swords until they are shipped out to you – but this batch may be slightly longer than this due to Chinese New Year occuring in January – an event that pretty much closes down the entire country for 1-2 weeks, so will likely add AT LEAST this additional time to the production.. We may not be the fastest option, but as far as value for money goes and reliability, I don’t want to sound immodest here but this project has been going for several years now and just keeps on getting better and better with each generation)..

One more thing – A Sneak Peak

As you are probably well aware, SBG is involved in a lot of projects, and one of them is to showcase just how far we have come since I made the first SBG custom Katana prototype in 2008..

So this secret project was to recreate the original two prototypes I had made to see what the forge could do – the two swords you see tested on my site here: The original tests

Here’s a picture of one of the original designs:

And here’s a very quick preview of the “Dragon Claw 2.0″…

Ok, well I know you can’t see ALL that much – but let’s just say that the new design is what I would have made the first time (if it was possible back then)…

Only a VERY limited number of these are being made as commemorative pieces, and they will have a lot of the new upgrades that were offered since batch 15.. So stay tuned for this one..!

Time to wrap up this post as there is an absolute ton of work that needs to be done, so I’ll post again as soon as I get a chance.

Thanks for reading.

– Paul

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