It was the very first sword in Jason Woodard’s Doomsday Series and it stretched the capabilities of Chris Palmer’s small family business forge in every capacity – creating these swords with longer blades that he specializes in. And over time, it became apparent that not every blade leaving his workshop was receiving the benefits of the heat treatment that was the foundation of the toughness his short bladed swords were famous for..
It was a rocky time as swords were recalled, refunded or exchanged. And out of the ashes it rises once again – the Badlands Katana Version 2.0
The remaking of the Badland Katana
After learning that the longer blades were hit and miss in the heat treat department, Jason Woodard went back to the drawing board to redesign his flagship sword. Below is a picture of the original Badland Katana 1.0:
To ensure it had the same basic mass and cutting power, Jason widened and shortened the blade – optimizing it for the cut and creating a unique design that still keeps to the spirit and the cutting power he first envisaged.
After discussing the design features in detail, Chris went to work cutting out the basic shape that would be the template for all future orders of this design – grinding the beveled edge, drilling holes for the multiple steel pins that peg it all together and adding a shallow fuller to the blades spine.
From there it is given a proper heat treatment – something that proved difficult to achieve a consistently good temper with on the original Badland Katana, but is more reliable and predictable when making the shorter blade styles like version 2.0. Below you can see clearly how the steel looks very different where it has been tempered and where it has been left as is to allow for a shock resistant handle.
Once tempered, the sword is cleaned up, refined, polished, sharpened and mounted by pinning and epoxying in Black Mircarta scales on the handle, later bound with deerskin.
I think the end results speak for themselves..
Available to order below, the other previously discontinued swords in the Doomsday line are also in the process of being redesigned and updated, so stay tuned! But in the meantime, check it out below:
Some more good news! Following hot on the heels of the successful relaunch of the Forge Direct Custom Katana we are pleased to see the second major restock for Cas Iberia, one of the largest sword companies around whose brands include Paul Chen’s Hanwei Forge, A.P.O.C., Kingston Arms, Dragon King and more..
With this restock, we see a temporary increase of sword stock across the board. However, as there is a LOT of pent up demand, many of the best and most popular items are not going to remain restocked for very long..
As such, NOW is the perfect time to check what is currently on offer in each of their restocked product lines. So take a quick look and see for yourself if something has come back that you had your eye on now is the best time to pull the trigger because despite a lot of pressure to do so, we have NOT raised our prices yet – and the most popular items are likely to sell out in a matter of days:
The only catch? The volume of orders while managing the actual restock and processing backorders may mean that there could be a delay in shipping until early next week.
But it is a small price to pay to secure some of these popular swords before they are all sold out once more..
It has been over a year in the making, but we are over the moon to advise our customers that one of our best quality products – our flagship of the Forge Direct Japanese Sword line – the Custom Katana, is finally taking new commissions!
The biggest change between the current version, the Custom Katana 4.70 and 3.0 is we have had to re-release it with a standard blade length of 28″ (measured from the munemachi – the back notch of the habaki to the tip, add around an extra 1.5″ if measuring from the guard) which is pretty much the default for a comfortable feeling sword for the majority of modern practitioners (who are on the average, a fair bit taller than historical Samurai).
While we realize that this may preclude some people with specific blade lengths in mind from ordering this time around, it was either this or order 400 saya just to be able to take the first order, so for those of you requiring different blade lengths, please wait until we release a specific new sword design in a specific blade length (feel free to email me with suggestions as to what blade length you might need).
For everyone else who just wants a REALLY nicely made blade in beautiful custom fittings (now with hishigami as standard, plus buffalo horn kurikata on the saya), the wait is finally over and it is time to fire up the forge..
We already mentioned it, but there are four main changes between the current incarnation of this sword (version 4.0) and when we closed off on new orders in June 2020 (version 3.0):
Fixed blade length of 28″ (this is non-negotiable)
Hishigami triangles now used as standard
Buffalo horn kurikata on every saya (the higher end ones often have more)
And we have narrowed down the saya selection to only the most popular models
To this end, I want to preserve the old pics of the previous saya options in case previous customers need it as a reference, so here it is. The old saya options from the Custom Options Page (which has of course been updated to reflect what is on offer for version 4.0).
FOR POSTERITY: The Old Forge Direct Saya Options
S1 – Maroon Brown (Free)S2 – Pure White (Free)S3 – Red with Gold Maki-e sparkling (Free)S4 – Standard Glossy Black Saya (Free)S5 – Textured Saya, good for minimizing appearance of knocks and scratches (Free)S6 – Black Glossy Saya with subtle red ‘claw’ marks at two locations (Free)S7 – Glossy Black with luminescent green colored bamboo theme engraving (Free)S8 – Glossy Blue Saya (Free)S9 – ‘Kill Bill’ themed sword with Oni engraving (Free)S10 – Glossy Red with Black Speckled Maki-e (Free)S11 – Glossy Brown with sparkling gold maki-e finish (Free)S12 – Natural Wood (Free)
Elite Saya (additional charges usually apply)
We absorb as much and sometimes ALL of the extra charges we face with these higher end to truly Elite level Saya. Because of this, they are not sold separately and only one saya can be ordered per sword.
Please also note that the hand painted swords may add additional time to the total lead time as each colored layer is allowed to dry.
S13 – Red Wood Grain Style with Speckled Mother of Pearl (+$39)S14 – Glossy Black with Gold Leaf Star Patterns (+$39)S15 – Black Glossy Scabbard with Mother of Pearl Bamboo grove pattern (+$49)S16 – Wood grain style Red Saya with Mother of Pearl Fire Breathing Dragon (+65)S17 – Black Glossy Saya with Mother of Pearl Sky Dragon (+$65)S18 – Black Glossy Saya with Mother of Pearl Branch and Cherry Blossoms (+$49)S19 – Red Wood Grain Style with Mother of Pearl Bamboo Grove theme (+$49)S20 – Red Wood Grain Style with Small Mother of Pearl Dragon ($49)S21 -Red Wood Grain Style with Mother of Pearl Branch and Cherry Blossoms (+$49)S22 – Medium Sized Mother of Pearl Dragon on Red Wood Grain Style Saya (+$59)S23 – Gold Saya with maki-e sparkle and real gold floral imprints (+$39)S24 – Glossy Red Saya with Black Rattan Wrapped upper section (+$39)S25 -Black Glossy Saya with Speckled Mother of Pearl (+$39)S26 – Black Glossy Saya with Medium Sized Mother of Pearl Dragon (+$65)S27 – Glossy Black, Inlaid real gold hand painted Tokugawa style pattern (+$69)S28 – Black Glossy base saya with hand painted Japanese village and hills scene (+$79)S29 – Hand painted Autumn leaves (+$79)S30 – Glossy Black Saya with the Shinto Demon God Fujin (+$79)S31 – Glossy Black with stunningly detailed hand painted Dragon (+$89)S32 – Gold and Gold Maki-e hand painted Sakura theme (+$89)S33 – Black Glossy Saya with Rayskin Wrap and Buffalo Horn (+$89)S34 – Red Saya with highly detailed Sakura flowers in full bloom (+$89)S35 – The ultimate (+$99)
While it does seem a little sad to have to reduce the saya options down from 35 choices to only 8 – when we checked our records we found that time and time again, our customers selected almost exclusively from the 8 saya we selected. And so being forced to have to try and make saya ahead of taking orders to keep production times tight, we let our past customers good taste guide us and so what is available is the most popular designs around.
It seems that while the other saya are nice to look at, the 8 we settled on are the ones that people actually want to own..
When I see what they choose from, I have to admit – our customers have good taste!
What is better than introducing a new sword? Introducing TWO new swords from our friends at Ryujin Swords that are pretty much guaranteed to be instant classics..
The first is as much, if not MORE of a symbol of the Samurai warriors of ancient Japan as the Katana, especially during their most heated and violent periods. I am talking of course about the Tachi – the sword that dominated the battlefield and later came to represent the power and authority of the Daimyo, the Lords of Feudal Japan who had subjugated the country and ruled in peace for nearly 400 years during the Edo period.
This faithful replica of an Edo period Daimyo’s Tachi sports a differentially hardened 1060 carbon steel blade with solid brass Tachi Koshirae fittings, and a very heavy wood core, brass encased and engraved saya guaranteed to be unlike any in your collection – plus a nice display box and cleaning kit – for just $299.99
The second sword is, pardon the slightly confusing phrase, the second sword of its type in the Ryujin Chinese Sword line up – with the first Han Dynasty Sword (out of stock right now, listed here if you want to compare) with black fittings, and this new version shown below, with more a muted, classic styled appearance.
Amazingly light weight at just 1.9lbs, it is hard to believe that swords of this type existed over 2000 years ago – and even harder to believe this fine 65mn Spring Steel blade is available for just $149.99
Our friends at Ryujin had quite a few other miscellaneous items come in with their most recent restock – though not everything that they have brought in was to SBG standards, and we had to reject quite a few swords that we did not feel met the necessary minimum requirements to qualify as an item for sale in our store (as you may know, we “only stock swords we would buy ourselves” – and some of the new blades were just not ‘SBG material’).
But we did find ONE that most certainly qualified – and while it is not technically a sword, it is most definitely a very effective traditional Chinese battlefield weapon..
Unlike most other budget Pudao with whippy stainless steel ‘Wushu’ blades, this baby sports the real deal – and at just $159.99 is a real bargain and a great addition to our growing selection of affordable Traditional Chinese Weapons.
