I do believe in the existence of energy/chi/kai or whatever you want to give that baby a name. And i witnessed some pretty impressive things first hand but i don’t believe (at all..) that you can control and use it in a way as this Kai Master try to play it

He was very lucky that his opponent took it easy on him…

In this newsletter i’m going to cover these items :

• Forgive- don’t forget
• Tsukamaki tutorial
• New stuff in our shop
• Interesting links

Forgive – Don’t forget

I wrote about this a couple of days ago but long story short : Paul Ufema had a couple of Japanese WO2 swords (which he got from his father and he got them from his father) somewhere in a closet and he wondered how cool it would be to return them to the rightful owner in Japan and making a documentary of the whole journey.

Since he and his friend Bard were both video producers, the idea soon became a realistic plan and today they gathered a lot of pieces of the puzzle and are looking for some ‘extra help’ in order to make it happen.

More info on the project and the interview i did with Brad can be found in the article :

Forgive – Don’t forget , The return of a Japanese Sword to Japan

Tsukamaki Tutorial

If you follow me on facebook, you probably saw the pics i’ve posted there on the rewrapping of a tsuka (handle) . But i took some time today and bundled +60 pics into a tutorial with some explanation.

So if you want to give it a try or you’re just curious, check the tutorial :
How to rewrap the tsuka (handle) of a Katana

New stuff in the shop

As usually, new stuff comes and goes sometimes faster than i can handle and therefore it don’t get placed on the site
Anyway, 2 new pieces did make it so far :

• Seashell katana : a T10 steel blade with choiji hamon and blue suede ito
• Bamboo katana : a rather simple katana with a through hardened hira zukuri blade

I have 2-3 other pieces here, as soon as i find the time i drop them on the site…

There’s more worked on at the forge at this moment, guess they will arrive here within 6-8 weeks…

Interesting stuff

Articles

• Nobunaga’s Kanō Free-Market Decrees: A Reconsideration If you’re interested in some history facts
• Tatara Seitetsu’ of Master Akira Kihara
• Nice write up from a Japanese Smith on making Oroshigane
• Made in Japan iaito = Superior?
• The Itto-ryu Book of Oral Recollections Pt. 1 there’s also part 2-3-4 there
• Samurai bling is his thing Ford (hallam) was rewarded with a first price (first non japanese artist ever) at the annual NBSK Shin-saku competition (Tosugu division) with his beautiful Under pines, beneath the moon tsuba

Videos

• http://vimeo.com/25899671 The whole docu can be purchased here for €2.5/$3
• Sword swinging fail this is what can happen if you watched too many movies and start to swing a sharp sword as an idiot
• Master Lee gumdo & sword cutting this on the other hand is someone who knows how to handle a sword
• Katana vs. Euro weapon
• Different (Batoo Do) tameshigiri techniques demonstrated
• Forging of a katana (docu)
• Jon Bluming talking frankly and freely about Judo, Kyokushinkai and debunking some of the myths that are still making the rounds today.
• Epic Fail

That’s enough for now..

Talk to you,

Speaking about that, if you think you can contribute something valuable (an insight, do it yourself thing or some historical facts,etc) , don’t hesitate to let me know and i will set you up with an author’s account !

A side note: the books&video and community part of the site still need to be completed…

I also have a few ‘personal’ articles in the queue regarding to running ‘a swordstore’.

Lot’s of people think it’s awesome (and it is, especially when a new delivery arrives ) but from time to time it can give you a lot of headache so i decided that it was time to give you a few insights behind the curtains.

By the way, i wrote a bit more about my personal story over here…. yes that’s me in the pics…

I also have some bad news …i told you running a swordstore is not always fun..

I’m not sure if i told you about the problems at the Hanwei forge ? In case i didn’t, long story short..

In march 2011, the biggest part of the Hanwei forge burned down and production and deliverability of most of their stuff became a huge problem in 2011.

Soon after the burn down, they told us that they started to build a brand new factory and that the production schedule (and the troubles) should solved by end of 2011 at last..

You already feel something… ?

Two weeks ago i talked with them and they told me a couple of things you might be interested in :

• since a lof of their machines were destroyed, the kami and tiger katana has been taken completely out of production and it’s not sure if they ever will return.
• they were unable to complete the new factory before winter time so the entire production will be stopped until April. Yes you read that correct !
• with immediate effect, they raised all of their prices with 20% and once the factory is up and running, they do expect a higher number

A round up : their stock is (already)very very low and since production has stopped as we speak, we don’t need to expect any new delivery coming out before summer time. On top of that an immediate price increase of +20% that can become 25-30% once production has started again..

So i have no other chance than to raise the prices in the store as well. I will fix that somewhere during next week so if you were planning to buy something, next week is your best bet..

Speaking about bad news…this one can count right ?

Here are some pics of the dissaster and the ‘building up’

[Show as slideshow]

On the other hand, i see it as an ideal opportunity to push our own swordline of Zhuifeng to the front line.

There’s an article coming about that topic as well where i will try to show (as good as possible ) the differences between the 2 forges and why i think they’re better
You can see all of the models i have in stock here and as a bonus, you can get 10% off if you use this coupon code : caching when checking out (until march 15).

Since i’m already talking too much again, let me end by listing some very interesting stuff i’ve found the last couple of weeks :

Articles

• So what exactly IS a tsuba? What’s the big deal?
• Tenouchi for men cutting
• The Master Dragon Painters 
• The lie of a Tamahagane myth

Pictures

• Attire of Samurai : very nice photo collection but you need to be logged in on facebook to see them
• Katana making : Nice serie of pictures by Pavel Bolf (facebook login necessary to see them)
• A great collection of Utagawa Kuniyoshi 
• Tokyo National Musuem 

Video

• Rare Footage: Haga Junichi, Genius Swordsman of Showa Period Kendo
• Making of a katana by Jesus hernandez (an interview with jesus is scheduled soon…)
• Vintage Budo : Excerpts from years 30-40′s of Sumo, Kendo, Kenjutsu Jujutsu, Judo, Karate, Kenpo
  
• Forging a chokutō
• Jules Brunet – The Last Samurai , the true story 
• Yumi bow-making 
• Red Sun (Full Movie)
• Ninjutsu is Bullshit 

That’s it or now… talk to you later and let me know if you could help us out with providing valuable insights, articles, tutorials,etc All help is welcome !

PS: if you feel this post has some good stuff inside, please share with your friends

Feel free to let yourself go and let me know how you really feel about this tool  in the comments below

In this issue you can find some of my rands about pictures, my trip to china, the movie 13 assassins and of course the link resources as usual.

Good weather makes me happy and makes we want to take swords out of their boxes to make some nice pics. Last week I’ve took the kami katana out and shot about 100 pics. Some are posted on facebook already, others will be added to the slideshow on the productpage and the rest will end up in my recycle bin…

Speaking about pictures, i’ve posted about 20 historical pics (old japan & samurai) here on facebook

As you know (or not)..i’ve travelled to China in March to visit some folks in Longquan . Yes I have pics and video’s but just didn’t had the time yet to do something with them. Longquan is a nice and crazy place with lot of ‘garbage swords’ and great food…haaa

Overview of longquan

Long story short, while there, I decided to stop all cooperation with the Folks at Konron and focus 110% on Zhui Feng. The disaster is just too big there and there’s no organization at all anymore. The only way to make it a success story is moving over to there for some time to get a descent planning and follow up and I’m just not willing to do that so it’s better to stop this whole adventure rather than running something on 25% of it’s capabilities and get highly frustrated..

So as soon as the Yoshan serie is completely sold out , Konron will be removed from the site forever. Custom sword projects are been taken over by the guys at Zhui Feng since last year already. Definitely need to post some detailed pics from some custom projects as well…damn why are there only 24h/day …

Speaking of Zhui Feng, had a great time over there, had some good conversations, made a lot of plans and lot of new stuff is already in the pipline… What took me 6 months at Konron takes a few weeks at Zhui Feng…

Polisher doing some foundation work

We’re having a prototype of a monosteel sword passing some schools at this moment and the feedback we’ve got so far is nothing but positive. Still need some very small tweaks but we’re almost there and ready to make a batch.

We’re also working on a choji blade and last week I’ve received the first pics. Not sure what you think but I feel they’re ‘not bad’ at all and a few should go into production soon. Still doubting if we will only offer them with stone polish yes or no.

Choji blade full

Choji Blade detail

The problem is that with a standard/mirror polish, you just can’t get the same nice effect and it just doesn’t make much sense to offer a sword that doesn’t show it’s true beauty.

So far the Zhui Feng stories for today..to be continued…

I’m not sure if you did hear about the ‘new’ samurai movie “13 assassins”. In short :

Cult director Takeshi Miike delivers a bravado period action film set at the end of Japan’s feudal era in which a group of unemployed samurai are enlisted to bring down a sadistic lord and prevent him from ascending to the throne and plunging the country into a war-torn future…

If you didn’t see it yet, it’s a must see (just saying…) You can find the official site here.

And to finish this edition, here are some very nice resources I came across last weeks :

Articles :

• Thoughts on Tameshigiri from famous swordsmen : interesting perspective on tameshigiri and some worth reading comments at the bottom of the post
• Shirasaya : Nice how to article with lot of pics
• Polishing and Conservation of the Japanese Sword : written by Guido Schiller
• A Lineage all but Forgotten: The Yushinkan (Nakayama Hakudo)
• Building and operating a traditional tatara : an how to article (with lot of pics) i’ve posted on the blog several weeks ago
• Quenching Process of Japanese Sword : very detailed explenation here
• Various types of tsukamaki : nice and clear pics
• “Polished Steel – The Art of the Japanese Sword” : written by Kenji Mishina
• Custom made fitting tutorial : great thread on SFI , a japanese tsuba can be found here. Who says Chinese are only good at copying ?
• History of quenching : another quenching article worth reading
• Japanese sword-mounts in the collections of Field Museum (1923) : even in the old days, people were interested in japanese swords

Video’s

• Documentary: Japan’s Secret Empire (Part 1 of 5) : History channel documentary
• The way of the samurai : PBS documentary
• Japanese Swordsmith Matsuda Tsuguyasu Part 1 : the importance of the traditional fuigo or bellows
• A Guy breaking a Nihonto while cutting : the Japanese owner is not really happy
• What is the japanese Sword (part 1 of 3)

I’ve posted more of these interesting links on facebook, just too much to mention here..

That’s it for today..over and out…

Dave

ps: Hojo, our little samurai kiddo, is still alive and kicking

When I started the first check on Thursday I came across a few unexpected guests. The boxes where slightly smaller and when I opend them, there was just a sword with a cleaning kit, there was no 2e saya included. When unsheating the thing, a hamon showed up on the t10 steel  blade…

Something went wrong since we didn’t shipped any hamon swords from the forge.

Long story short, they guy responsible for the dispatching at Konron included a batch (10 pcs) of hamon swords that had their final destination in Mainland China, not overseas

What’s the difference you might think between a sword for China and oversea ? Well..in terms of quality none at all so these swords are all build to take some serious cutting exercises, are having iron fittings, a solid tsuka and even a real yokote.

But I personally have a few issues with these swords :

1. The polish is kind of basic
2. Don’t like the way they enhanced the blade to bring out the hamon

Since we’re working on a hamon line that has much higher standards than these , this is definitely not something that fits in our ‘plan’.

Now shipping them back is just not an option, too much costs involved in that so we’re only left with 1 option. Offer them to you at a very attractive and low price !
So….we have 10 pcs available ( 5 pcs white and 5 pcs black) at the price of 275 euro. For that amount you will get the :

1. Sword
2. Cleaning kit
3. Nice storage box

If you need a good cutter and you like to have something more than the cheap through hardened pieces, this might be a good opportunity for you.

They had some very skilled people there and it’s not because the management of Konron screwed up the whole thing (and gave me and some of my clients a lot of troubles) that the people who worked there need to pay for that too. I still have faith in them.

We have a lot of plans together, which I won’t reveal here yet because I learned to not be too excited about this stuff since you never know what will happen. Dealing with Chinese people and companies is not an easy task, I can ensure you !

So you will only hear from me when plans are executed and a delivery is on it’s way to here.

The first thing on our todo list was creating a good and budget friendly sword that was somehow a bit different than all of the other swords on the market today. Since it’s hard to make a budget friendly sword very different than others , we decided to make some kind of “complete sword kit”.

We came up with lot of different variations and finally decided that the kit as we present it here would be the way to go. I can already tell you now that besides these 50 pcs that we have made, there won’t be a second batch which is exact the same. Both in items that are included as well as the price ! So if these are sold, it’s over …

So 2 weeks ago, the shipment has left China (finally because there’s another story attached to that…) and are on their way to the warehouse here. 1 piece was send by express mail in order to announce the good news and give you the opportunity to get a good discount on top of the already cheap price we will sell it for.

The retail price of this set will be around 245-256 euro but you can get your hands on it for 215 euro only if you pre order today. For 215 bones you will get :

1. T1O steel blade, through hardened with unique serial number

This is no fluffy sword where only display or cutting paper is the highest achievable level of the blade. This is a full functional sword that can definitely have ‘some’ cutting. The sword is made out of 73cm long, T10 steel blade and through hardened (around 58HRC) so don’t look for a hamon, you won’t find it…

The specs doesn’t lie neither, a thickness of 0,75cm at the habaki and a 0,5cm at the yokote with a motohaba of 3,2cm and sakihaha of 2,3cm. Total weight of the sword (without saya) is around 1065 gram and it has a sori (curvature) of 2,2cm and a point of balance at 14cm…pfffiew, that was a long and technical sentence

The tang has 2 mekugi and is nicely finished for a low budget sword.

And of course, each sword does come with it’s own serial number. Same story here, we did like to do it a bit different than usual and in stead of mentioning the number on the tang, we decided to go for the mune so you don’t need to take of the tsuka to check..

2. Double saya, 1 glossy and 1 textured one with a high quality sageo attached

We came up with the double saya idea because practitioners always told us that they felt sorry to put there katana on the shelf at home with a sometimes damaged saya from practicing at their dojo plus the fact that a glossy saya was more preferred to display the sword rather than a structured one, which was more better to practice with.

This is a try out so if people feel happy/pleased with it, we might come up with some better and nicer solutions in the future for the higher end line we’re planning to make later this year.

Although this is a low end production sword, the saya fits pretty well and the blade is not making noise inside the saya wile shaking it.

The sageo is not the usual shoe lace stuff you find on most of the budget katana. Both saya has a high quality two colored sageo attached.

3. Steel fittings

No brass or other low end (alloy) materials for the fittings. We went for iron and I agree the fittings are rather basic and not fancy at all but for this price we really can’t get any better fittings.

Only the menuki are made of brass but think that’s acceptable right ?

We decided to mount the sword with a patterned habaki just to be a bit different than the rest. It fit’s the blade quit well

4. Solid tsuka & real rayskin

On most low end production swords, there are lot of troubles with the construction of the tsuka so we really didn’t want to walk that path too. As you can see here , it’s a solid one and it has real rayskin panels on it of a descent quality.

5. Storage box and cleaning kit

Transportation is a big problem for us and for you as well so we had to look for something different than the cardboard box solutions available in China. After some searching we came up with this very nice and sturdy wooden box, covered with a traditional Chinese motif and foam inside the box so it get’s very hard to get this thing damaged…unless you use your car or a truck to hit the damn thing..

Since the box needed to be bigger to get the 2 saya inside we were left with a little spot in the upper corner and decided to shoot a basic cleaning kit there.

So you tell me after reading all of this..do you feel this is a good deal or a what ?

I expected the whole delivery to arrive around October 20th, depends on a little on the speed of the customs here…
Once they arrived, price will go up to 245 or 265 euro, not sure yet so order it now and you get this baby for 215 euro only !

A few weeks back we received the first monosteel katana sample from the Zhui Feng forge and last week the folded piece came in. Not necessary to say I was happy as a little child. Yeah, still after all of these years, when new pieces come in, it’s like Santa Claus who’s dropping a package )..always super excited !

Anyway let’s dig into this and give you a first review and some facts. This is the piece we’re talking about

Our Handpolished beauty

Doesn’t look bad at first sight right ?

This katana is a forged&folded piece. The forge is making their own steel in a Zuku-Oshi Tatara (high furnace – for the people who can read Dutch, I’ve posted an article about Tamahagane maken here). So basically we can say they are producing their own tamahagane for these pieces.

Second thing I have to pint out is that they are using the traditional method to forge the blade, in other words they are using a lamination method (can’t remember which one but will ask it again) to construct the blade.

And that’s a big difference with some other Chinese manufacturers who are also making their own steel BUT lot of them don’t laminated their blades which results mostly in a very bad edge and or soft blade. So it’s nice to look but not really good if you like to actually use it for tameshigiri.  Still have another tamahagane piece here from another manufacturer with chips in the edge just from some soft cutting (reed !!)…And for a sword in that price range that’s not something you like to see.

I didn’t do a cuttingtest yet with this one but the bending test I did is already promising and the forge is willing to give a nice warranty on this blade. Once they’re back in the forge (Chinese new year now) I’m finalizing this thing but I will try to aim on a very looooong warranty

The beauty of this blade is without any doubt it’s handpolish. To be honest (actually I can’t remember a time where I wasn’t) it’s the best polish I’ve ever seen on a Chinese blade in this price range..period! And have seen quit some handpolished pieces in the last 6 years. This one is very subtle yet prominent … judge yourself :

The Nice HandPolish

The only thing I want to see a little better is the polish of the kissaski but we’le get there…

This piece only feature 1 mekugi-ana where I definitely like to see 2 once they go into production as well as telling them very clear which side they have to start wrapping the tsuka. Typical Chinese to start at the wrong side…But for the rest, very tight wrap and nicely shaped diamonds.

The tsuka is very well constructed (forgot to take some pics of that), has a nice Rikko shape and is covered with real rayskin of course and bleu silk ito. No Chinese ito but the Japanese stuff. And I’m sure because I’ve send them the ito

Same goes for the fittings, I still had some Japanese imported fittings lying around here and I send them with express mail so they could mount them on the sword. First they were only planning to send me the bare blade (since Chinese new year was very very close and they were running out of time) but I preferred to see a mounted sword. Think you have the same feeling about that…

Despite the fact that this sword is a rather big ‘thing’ with it’s 78cm blade and no hi, it still handles very well and has a nice balance.

Anyway, enough for today…we’re back on the track and very soon, the option to make your custom katana will be available again. But this time with a better and more accurate delivery time.

I was so pumped that i had made a video

/p>

Leave me some comments there as well if you can and hook me up there because i have more video’s to come very soon..

For more detailed pics, you can head over here.

For the freaks, these are the specs )

Tsuka	28cm		Sakihaba	23mm
Blade (from tsuba)	78cm		Sakikasane	4,5mm
Point of Balance	15,5cm		Kissaki	40mm
Motohaba	32mm		Weight	1250 gram
Motokasane	7mm		Sori	19mm
Tsuba	Steel		Fittings	Japanese Import

Let me know what you think guys, need some feedback here…good and or bad…

traditional made katana sword box by Konron

Ok just a quick update from Konron since we got a ton of questions about the new shipment that was supposed to arrive end of January – beginning of February. Things got a little delayed as usual (adding more stuff & Chinese new year..)but the forge confirmed that there’s a delivery packed and waiting for shipping at the FedEx storage in China so it won’t take ages anymore before we can get them.

It all depends how difficult the customs are this time…there’s still a lot of inspections and security there.

Anwyay, the shipment will contain 9260 steel and 1070 differentially hardened blades although not sure how many of each. My guess only a little of them are with hamon so they will be sold out pretty fast.

The special serie we added to our original order won’t be included yet, some parts are still missing so it can take a few weeks more before they get here. There’re no super galactic swords, they just have a nice different saya than the usual stuff, battle wrap and entirely …black

The 9260 serie will contain a new model themed with a dragonfly…the forge made a new tsuba which I posted on facebook…ow you don’t have a facebook account yet ? Damn..go create one

Anyway here’s the pic

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3472/3192682288_df4d3917b9_o.gif

I also got a fast movers offer here. When talking to the forge this morning they told me they had a nice surprise for me which they forgot to mention…

They now have traditional swordboxes in stock..Now before you say : “so what..”, just take a look, there’s a big chance you had never seen these kind of boxes !

http://www.samurai-sword-shop.com/konronslideshows/slideshowkonronbox/slideshow.html

Since there’s another shipment leaving the forge within 2 weeks, we can offer these wonderful box for just 120 euro only ! Once in our store the pricetag will exceed 150 euro at least..So if you’re interested, just send me a mail at dave@samurai-sword-shop.com ! You just need to be fast to get one of these…

For those of you who ordered a custom sword, you will get this box for 0,00 euro ! How about that ! The forge started to work on the custom orders so soon you may expect some updates and pic about that too..

Last weekend I was digging in the store and found a lot of swords that are nowhere to be found in the shop. Models that were produced as a prototype but never made the actual production or one time pieces that came in some how , wrong deliveries, etc and while I was planning to do something with most of them I need to face the facts and tell myself that I need to stop dreaming.

Literally a dozen of swords but just no time left here to remount or fix them so I decided to through them in (or out ) to the shop for our loyal subscribers at at ‘Christmas price’. Hey, it feels good if you can play for Santa Claus once a year…you should try it too some day.

Here is the result, click on the pics for bigger one’s (once you have a big pic, you will see a next button on the left so you don’t need to close each time you want to see another pic):

It’s not complete yet and there still 5-8 swords here that are not listed yet but I do my best to get them there within 1-2 days max !

If you’re interested in one of them, just send me a mail at dave@samurai-sword-shop.com or call me at 0032 477 90 36 12. First come , first served so don’t yell at me if your favorite katana just left our building.

If you don’t find a nice one, just keep an eye on the page and you will see that more of them will be added.