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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]