Paul Chen Praying Mantis Review
One of the newest creations of the folks at the Hanwei forge, the Praying Mantis Katana. Although I didn’t immediately felt in love when I took the sword out of the box, it definitely had ‘something’ which I admired. I just didn’t figured out what…. The blade is the part of the sword that has least of my interest. I just don’t like the finish of this blade, it’s too dark for my taste but perhaps that’s because of the fact that the famous L6 / Bainite steel is used to forge it.
One of the first times I heard about the L6 steel was back in 2005 I believe. And one of the most famous Japanese smiths in the USA was very well known for using this kind of ‘hard to master’ steel for his Japanese Blades. Read more
A ’special’ Hanwei Naginata came in today.
As the end of the year is coming closer we’re feeding our stock in order to get everybody happy 
Among some other stuff that arrived today there was this beautiful Hanwei Naginata. We had some of them before but none of them could match this piece here.
In Hanwei’s catalog, they describe it as a “hand forged 1065 high carbon steel weapon” and there’s nothing said about folding the blade. But it looks like this one here is folded because it really shows a kind of pattern that you can’t find in any other monosteel sword they are offering. Read more
A Low budget katana is coming…
The winter is coming and it’s getting harder to go outside and take some nice pictures when new swords are coming in… This morning started very nicely and we had a about 15 min. of good sunlight to take the new sample out and make some pics. It looks like the incoming flood of samples doesn’t stop.
The one that arrived today was a 9260 spring steel katana. We never had any katanas in our shop that were forged with that kind of steel and it’s hard to find a forge who is using it (You don’t want to know how long it took us ). Anyway, while it’s a real (read REAL) low budget katana, it’s a great sword to hold with a great balance ! Read more
Paul Chen Practical Katana
For all the folks out there who are not sure which sword is suitable for their needs, we decided to make a small guide. In the first articles we will discuss Paul Chen’s swords range and we will begin with the practical Series. Tree years ago, there were only 2 models available, the practical katana and the practical plus katana. Later on they added the Practical Pro katana and last year the new “cutting models” came on the market.
Practical Katana
The practical katana is a great sword if you’re a starting collector. After all it is a ‘real’ sword and you can’t compare it with any other stainless steel look alike. So in that sight, it’s a good deal if you have a smaller budget but you want something that is going the ‘real deal’ direction. Read more
