Quick Update

Just a quick update as to where we are up to.

Right now we are firmly in between batches 18 and 19. Batch 18 has been a real pain this time around, delayed first by Chinese New Year the 'stragglers' were further held by customs for a ridiculously long period. While most swords have been shipped out, the majority of the sword sets have been sent back to the forge by customs and will apparently need additional documentation (never happened quite like that before, but the procedures for importing blades in quantity are nebulous and change constantly). So we have had no choice but to comply, bite the bullet, and reship them back to Canada.

Anyway, I'm contacting these last few individuals personally after this blog post is finished to let them know and figure out our options.. Not fun I can tell you.. :-(

Fortunately, things are looking a lot smoother for batch 19 (officially batched on the 11th of April). To help customers keep track of where we are up to I have changed the counter on the SBG custom sword page to count down until it is due (must admit, I think I am addicted to these counter things!)

WEBSITE COUNTDOWN WIDGET

I hope to be posting some photos of batch 19's progress on this blog early next month. Naturally, we wont be taking new orders until batch 19 is completed and in transit, so for those who are waiting for another opportunity, for the time being the above counter is a rough guide.

Will post another update soon - as always if anyone has any concerns at all please contact me personally and I will get back to you asap.

- Paul

Batch 18 swords - the stragglers

This post is specifically for people who ordered swords from batch 18 (batched and commenced by the forge on the 5th of December 2011) and haven't emailed me about what is going on. While the vast majority of the swords cleared customs and have been shipped, I hate to say it but we still have a few stragglers that are still stuck in customs (grr) - and the majority of these are for Wakizashi, Tanto and sword sets (though there are still a few Katana).

It's really quite frustrating as batch 18 is now coming up to 150 days since batching, so the last stragglers are some 60 days over the 90 day turnaround time we aim for. :-( However we should have the last ones clear customs within a week and my agent will ship them out as soon as possible, so while I hate to ask for it - please bear with us just a little longer.

Since I am making a quick post, I though I should also mention that batch 19 is coming along much faster - without Chinese New Year to get in the way, batch 19 is 100% on track and I'll be making another post (and sending an email update) around the midway point. In the meantime, if anyone has any questions please email me and I'll do my best to get back to you asap. - Paul