Some new Paul Chen swords arrived…
I almost forgot about that with all the other things that are going on here..but more than a half year ago we ordered some of the new Paul Chen katana. And gues what we received today in our Hanwei delivery…..yeps..the first batch of the new Paul Chen swords. We didn’t get all of them..’only’ 3 different models but that’s better than nothing after such a long time 
Just consider this as a ‘preview’ photo shoot..which was taken inside again since the weather didn’t allow us to go out to make good clear pictures. Read more
Just did some tameshigiri with the new sword.
What a day….it seems like I just woke up but it’s 0.30am here and no I didn’t sleep for a whole day . We wrote about it this new samurai sword in a previous post and since we were not very patient at that time, we already did a small cutting test with pine branches.
Anyway, today was the big day for our new baby here ! So we took the tatami we prepared 2 day’s ago to see how well it could perform on these kind of targets. The first target, only 1 tatami was really no match for this sword so after cutting a few single tatami, we placed his big brother on the stand. Read more
We received the new sword samples !
Sunday evening, a perfect time to “exit” the week with some good and exciting news. A couple op posts ago, we mentioned that we found a young smith in
Hardening process of a japanese sword - part 2
When the clay coating process is done, the blade is heated again until it reach it’s critical temperature, which depends on the kind of steel that is used but will have an average of 750 - 800°C.
Once the blade reached the 750-800°C, the structure of steel changes to austenite. Now, when the blade is quickly cooled by quenching (in water), austenite changes to martensite, the hardest type of steel. However, because of the clay application, the blade will cool more slowly where the clay is thick (on the back of the blade), turning not into martensite but instead forming ferrite and pearlite, which are softer and more flexible. Read more
Hardening process of a sword - part 1
Lately I was involved in a discussion about the hardening process of a Japanese sword and I did found it very inspiring to write a small piece about that just to give you a better understanding of that part of the forging process.
The hardening process of the blade is in one of the most important and perhaps the most difficult part of the sword making process. It is the correct hardening of the Japanese sword that gives the blade its ability to take and retain an amazing sharpness.
After the blade is forged and finished to it’s final (raw) shape, the differential hardening process can begin. Read more
New Custom made Samurai Swords on the way
Friday and almost weekend for most of us. A couple of minutes ago we received some pictures of a new forge we’re working with for the last 8 months (behind the screen ) and we thought it was a good idea to shear that with you. We stumbled upon this small forge about a year ago when visiting some of our suppliers in China. It’s a very small forge with only a few people working there and the smith is a 30 year old fellow that does some great work. Read more
Paul Chen folded steel Bushido Katana
I must admid that this authentic japanese katana is a bit more ‘flashy’ than most of the other katanas from Paul Chen’s Hanwei forge but personally…I still like the overall look of this sword. Ok it’s more a collector piece rather than a katana for practising but that doesn’t mean it can’t be used for that. It features a nice folded blade with a good visible hada and quit sharp.
The dark brown color that is used to ‘theme’ this shinken, together with the battlefield scenes that are represented Read more
Momo No Saru Katana
Monday..time to work again and I have no idea how about the weather at your place but It’s raining again here. Lucky for all of us (who’re like to see nice pictures..) that yesterday, there was a lot of sun so I took some more swords out to ‘shoot’ them. I’m just happy we don’t carry 100 different kind of katana because it’s a lot of work to make those pics. Yes, you can thank me because I did it on my ‘day off’
This ‘battle ready katana‘ , the Momo No saru or translated in English as the Peach Monkey Katana is a katana that was made in a limited serie of 500 pcs worldwide. As far is I know, the wakizashi are all sold but they still have a few katana available. Read more
