[Nate C.]

Hello All,

I ran across a link to Cicada Forge's web page and I am curious about the company. I gather that it is is in partnership with liveblade and Rick Barrett? Other than gathering that liveblade retails swords from Cicada Forge, I cannot find much info. Maybe I'm just complicating this, but what I'd like to know is who makes the swords, has anyone owned/used one of these swords, how was the ordering experience, and what impressions did you have about the sword.

Thanks for your help.

[Jeremy Scott Steimel]

Cicada Forge was originally a joint venture between Rick Barrett and Fred Chen's shop in China (not related to, or to be confused with, Paul Chen). As Rick started dedicating more and more of his time on his custom pieces, Liveblade eventually began to handle the U.S. side of the operations for Cicada Forge through an agreement with Rick. For any details beyond that, I'll let Rick answer if he happens to see this thread.

I handled a pretty large number of Cicada Forge pieces, but that was when Rick was at the helm, so keep in mind my impressions are from 3-4 years back. Anywho, I was very pleased with everything I handled at that time. The katanas came in quite a bit of variety, but they tended to be a little more on the beefy side, although they were still well balanced. I honestly don't remember if I cut with a kat or not, but I know everyone that I know who has cut with a Cicada Fordge kat has said that they go through targets with great ease. I'm also a very big fan of the o-kissaki wakizashis they were making at the time, which were incredibly well balanced, great looking, and deadly in the cut (I do know I cut with at least one of these). Another blade that impressed me at the time was the Gold Carp jian. I don't have any experience with historical jians, so I can't vouch for authenticity of handling, etc, but they were extremely beautiful swords which, not knowing how a Jian should handle aside, felt just great in the hands.

Hopefully some people who have experience with Cicada Forge during the Liveblade version will have more recent impressions.