08/06/2026
A lot of questions have been coming in regarding our decision to discontinue our decade old BYO product lines. Allow me to give some context on why and what we will be offering in the new year. Here is a longer read than I like to post but it is a complex issue. And, as always, if it weren't for YOU, our community we wouldn't have made it this far. Thank you.
Why? Our BYO product lines are hand made, cut from 100 grade Domex alloy, FarAlloy 500, 5160 or 4130, tig welded and ground with the rounded edges, polished welds, contours and a smooth cosmetic finish, polished, bright or blackened. Our blades are hand ground by the best fencing bladesmiths around.
These processes take a lot of time, materials, energy and consumables to produce. Many take a full 8 hour day to complete or even longer in many cases. Imagine having 300 or more orders in the queue at a time.
We go to great lengths to provide the best living wage possible for our talented builders despite domestic steel costs, abrasives and consumables having risen in cost 600% in the last 5 years and our overhead quadrupling. We are literally not even breaking even on 60% of our BYO products at this time.
So, we have invested heavily into 3d modeling and metal 3d printing. This emerging tech is the way of our future. Coupled with our unique heat treat abilities, these modeled parts are extremely tough. This also gives us the ability to model and reproduce limitless detail. We can now also offer exact historical replica facsimiles. Many of these new products will move from our limited 2 year warranty to a limited lifetime warranty because we stand behind our people and our new products with confidence.
As of the new year we will be looking to move sales direct from our facility to a network of domestic and international retail partners. This is so we can focus on doing what we do best, build swords. Your next Castille sword could be handed to you rather than delivered to your porch. You could be a Castille partner yourself. Our communication lines will still be open as always but the benefit to you will be having a local supplier with products in stock.
In order to make this successful, we need to simplify our product lines and add a greater compatibility between parts. This is where our new product redesigns will shine. A lot of these new products will be scans of our original BYO parts with added feature and updated benefits while others will be based heavily on antiques. Our Blades will remain unchanged with a few new models.
What to expect:
By the first quarter of 2027-
1. We will break the business into two segments:
Distributorship/Retailership with both large and small accounts. There will be different pricing tiers for each based on a universal MSRP.
2. An internal "custom shop" that will be direct to public and/or through your local Castille rep. These custom shop order builds are meant to keep our master builders busy and challenged and they will include any of our previous generation BYO builds as well.
We will be ending our old BYO production as the new next gen versions emerge from R&D and testing and are ready go into production. Some products will be discontinued sooner than others. Below is a tentative schedule of the four BYO product lines.
Rapiers- Late September to mid October
Basket swords- Early November
Daggers- Mid September
Longswords- Mid September.
These are estimates. If you want one of these limited BYO builds, now is the time to get them.
Thank you all for your ongoing support and understanding, as one of the last domestic large scale HEMA, SCA and WMA manufacturers these changes come with many challenges but it is necessary for a bigger brighter future.
Sam & Crew.
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