Huawei issues.

That is gorgeous, I hope you found it worth the wait. It certainly looks like it is.

I saw your sword earlier today and was admiring it when I was called away before complimenting you on such a gorgeous piece. I'm envious.

Thank you everyone for the kind comments !

I will admit, it has become one of my favorite sword.
It is just...better than any other katanas I own.

Compared to the other swords in my collection, only the Flying Phoenix from LK Chen (!) and Maciej Kopciuch Passau Longsword can compare in terms of liveliness, balance or handling.

I was reading through an old thread the other day and came across your posts. "Haven't seen that name in ages," I thought. Good to see you back.

You can still find cheap stuff, but a lot of the big brands from Back When are more expensive now for the same stuff.

I've been more into antiques, myself. Got several for not much more than a decent Hanwei, for instance.

Anyway, back to Huawei. Been off-and-on wanting to get something from them since they started getting attention, but I was waiting for a few things to be ironed out first. Next thing I knew, I'd missed my chance, and we're at this point.

It's easy to blame the ongoing pandemic, but I'm not sure how much of that is actually the problem in this case...

As my sword arrived today I thought I'd share my experience.

I contacted Huawei late December asking what their production time currently was, since I've heard so many stories about people waiting with no word. I got an immediate reply explaining that they're very sorry for the delays, they've been having a tough time lately for personal reasons but things were now back on track and they were making progress with their backlog.
With some back and forth about the details I ended up ordering a custom bare blade in the beginning of January which was estimated to be ready in three months.

In April I emailed to ask about the progress and was a bit surprised to get a quick reply apoligising for the delay and that the sword was forged and about to be polished. I was given a new estimate of one more month to finish.

Wise from the experience of this forum I refrained from sending another email when May came and went and decided to at least wait until after the summer. Lo and behold a wonderfuld day in mid July I woke up to an email asking for my adress and full of pictures of my finished blade.

But after a week of silence I figured they can't cancel an order that's been finished, so I emailed and asked if the sword had been shipped yet and if there was a tracking number. No reply and after another week I sent the same mail again.
After two more weeks, i.e. a month after the sword was finished, I sent a third email asking if it had been shipped. This time with an explanation that I'm in the queue to have koshirae made and I need to know if I have to postpone that. I don't know if it was this or just random chance that triggered a response but I was given a tracking number and the blade had been shipped early August and soon to be delivered.

Here I could go into a tirade about UPS but won't since the topic is Huawei. But the blade is finally in my hands and it meets all the expectations, I'm very pleased with it.
So my experience seems to be towards the better end of the spectrum, I actually got responses to the (few) emails I sent and most importantly a delivered blade after 8 months. I think this is the key to ordering from Huawei: patience. Give them space and you will get a blade (eventually).

Out of curiosity, what type of Blade was it (do they have a particular name for it) and how much was it?

I basically asked for their High Quality Nami Koshirae Hishi-Gami Suguha Hamon Japanese Sword but with a bohi and some measurements. I paid $350 including shipping.

very nice. Thank you