Not sure how you feel about the weather but it has been sunny & warm over here for the last couple of weeks so you won’t hear me complaining 😉
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
