Happy New Year! I hope you haven't overdone it... ;-)

2006 is going to be a VERY big year for SBG.

Not only will there (naturally) be many more reviews of the coolest value for money swords (in fact I am just putting together my next order right now!), but in early 2006 SBG will be expanding its horizons to cover some basic techniques for Japanese and Medieval European swordsmanship.

Plus in the latter part of the year, I am organizing to work together with some well known swordsmiths to create an ebook detailing how to customize and even forge your own swords from scratch...

And that's just the tip of the iceberg!

Of course, I'll be keeping you up to date with what's going on with each new issue of the digest, but for now - the current issue has all the latest SBG site news and updates (there's been a few), vid of the month, my favorite forum posts and of course, this months edition of the members lounge - including free sword games, interviews and much, much more!

So let's cut to the chase with the latest SBG Site News:

SITE NEWS

December saw a fair bit of page shuffling and editing, as well as the addition of a couple of new sword demo vids - including a demo of the Practical Plus Katana cutting through 4 water filled milk jugs in one strike and another of the Black Prince chopping a block of wood and then deeply imbedding itself into a thick tree stump - with plenty more vids to come over the coming months.

However most importantly off all - I have started construction of much overdue, all encompassing Sword Buyers Directory which I hope will be an invaluable resource to all sword enthusiasts.

Check it out if you haven't seen it already - it's only in it's infancy at the moment - but I've tried to list only the most trusted, reliable sword selling sites in the industry, especially as a few rather shonky ones have come out of the woodwork in the last few months...

Another change of note is that I have temporarily suspended the monthly addition of new ebooks to the ebook library - simply because it was taking up too much time that could otherwise be spent developing the site.

This doesn't mean that there won't be any more ebooks in the future - but I'd rather take my time to produce a handful of top quality publications along with a few notables of the sword scene rather than hastily chuck a new ebook together every month just for the sake of it.

Future ebooks on the drawing board include such topics as Western and Japanese swordsmanship manuals, sword customisation and construction ebooks, test cutting guidebooks and more - so watch this space - I'll be letting you know as soon as the next one "rolls off the press".

VID OF THE MONTH

Forging of a Production Katana

Watching these Chinese craftsmen hand forge a "production" Katana from a lump of raw steel, to shaping, tempering, polishing and assembling it to the finished product is truly a fascinating and very informative experience. Indeed, it is certainly much more labour intensive and less "factory" made than many people might think.

In this case, the video shown below is the forging of a monosteel "production" Katana from Cheness Cutlery. Definitely worth a look - check it out here courtesy of the "other Paul Chen" from Cheness Cutlery Inc.

INTERESTING FORUM POSTS

WARNING: Unethical and possibly fraudulent CAS Iberia/Hanwei Forge sword distributor alert.
http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=59870

Quick and Dirty Medieval Sword Training
http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=60390

Japanese swords for a Militant Santa! (funny)
http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=60788

THE MEMBERS LOUNGE - JANUARY 2006

January's password to the members lounge is: sabre.

This months Members Lounge contains a very cool, short and somewhat addictive free light sabre fighting game, an interview with Chris Howard from Canadian Sword Sellers, Reliks.com as well as a few random readers questions from last month (and my answers)!

Anyway, I'll see you in the lounge! Until next time, stay safe and have fun with swords! ;)

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