Strongblade Deathbringer...
Sept 15, 2008 23:23:34 GMT
Post by Deleted on Sept 15, 2008 23:23:34 GMT
Sword of the Mercenary Review (Tempered Version)
By G. Scott Hoagland, Arizona, USA
I always liked the Windlass Mercenary Sword (which seemed to be an LoTR inspired fantasy sword), but never purchased one and they have long since been discontinued. Enter Strongblade's Deathbringer, a very close copy of the Windlass Mercenary. Same wide, longish cutting blade. Same brass scent-stopper pommel and "plant" shaped (more on that later), brass, downturned cross. Same black leather handle with cord underlays. In all, an accurate looking copy.
Price: $139 US at Strongblade www.strongblade.com/prod/sba-deathbringer.html
Packaging/Opening:
The sword arrived in a long, wide cardboard box with mucho bubble wrap/foam sheeting.
Inside was another skinnier box with the sword zip tied to the outside and the scabbard taped inside, wrapped in plastic.
Also included was a packet with a wipe-down cloth, some Flitz metal polish and Flitz wax, and a sheet of paper with a little fantasy-inspired story to get one in the mood to handle the sword and some mention of historical mercenaries.
Initial Impressions:
The sword and scabbard struck me as a bit cruder than most of the Windlass pieces I've handled/owned, but not terribly so. I was surprised by the apparent (felt) weight of the sword as opposed to the stated/measured weight. It feels heavy. Also, the wavy, bumpy appearance (hammer marks? grinding/polishing marks? whatever) common to Windlass blades is a bit more pronounced here.
The Blade:
The blade is vaguely Type IV-ish, though not exactly, as it remains wider to the point and has a diamond cross section throughout. Length is 31" (79cm), width is 2-3/8" (60mm) at the hilt and 1-1/2" (38mm) when measured about 3-1/2" (90mm) back from the point. Thickness is 3/16" (4.7mm) throughout, with no distal taper until the natural thinning near the point. Part of the reason for the weighty feel, methinks. Heat treat seems excellent at this point. The blade definitely has some flexibility, but it isn't whippy. I flexed it about 30 degrees out of line each way and it popped back straight. Blade comes blunt with roughly 1-1.5mm edge. Typical Indian mirror-esque polish.
edit: Duh! I left out the fullers. ;D There is a central fuller on each side of the blade, running about 24-1/2" (65.4cm) from the protrusion at the center of the cross. They are a consistent 5/8" (15.8mm) wide and are quite straight and even in depth.
The Hilt:
The hilt begins with a cast brass cross that reminds me of the shoots of a plant, i.e., one "growing" out of the previous one, with the segments getting smaller in diameter as they move out toward the tips. The cross is a downturned style and it 8" (20.3cm) wide. The odd aspect is that it is only about 1/2" (12.7mm) thick at its center, so...there is an oblong cast brass disc which sits atop it (I would guess to add some support for the grip, since the cross is so narrow). It sports the ever-present oversized cutouts for both tang and blade shoulders so common to Indian swords, but that's sort of expected.
The 4-1/4" (11cm) grip itself is wood with pieces of cord wrapped at intervals and covered with a stitched black leather covering. The leather is a bit shiny, but not as much as I expected after reading other SB reviews here. It feels pretty decent. It is held in place by a 1/4"-20 (no metric conversion on that, sorry) nut and brass washer. The grip fits rather tightly over the tang, even when not held on by the nut.
Topping the hilt off is a cast brass scent-stopper pommel that is 3" (76mm) long and mushrooms out from 1" (25.4mm) where it meets the grip to 1-3/4" (44.5mm) at its widest. It adds roughly 2" (50.8mm) to the grip length for hand-and-a-half usage.
The scabbard:
The scabbard is not exactly stellar in construction or appearance, but at this price is okay as a "freebie" blade cover for transport/storage. It is wood covered with stitched black leather and capped with antiqued brass sheet locket and chape, which are not mated very well to the scabbard and the locket keeps the sword from fitting properly into it. The scabbard is also about twice as fat as it needs to be. I didn't take any measurment of it, but it's fat! Trust me. The sword rattles around fiercely inside, but it does fit snuggly enough at the locket end to keep the scabbard in place unless one holds it point down and shakes it a few times. At that point, the scabbard will slide off the blade.
Specs:
Blade length: 31" (79cm)
Blade width at cross: 2-3/8" (60mm)
Blade width near point: 1-1/2" (38mm)
Cross width: 8" (20.3cm)
Handle length: 4-1/4" (11cm)
Pommel Length: 3" (76mm)
Overall sword length: 38-1/4" (971.5cm)
CoG (Center of Gravity): 6-1/4" (16cm) from cross
CoP (Center of Percussion) 11" (28cm) from point
Weight (roughly) 3 lbs. (1.36kg)
Handling:
As I said, the sword feels heavy, though it weighed out at only 3 lbs. (1.36kg) on my bath scale (which means it could weigh a bit more or less, since the scale isn't accurate to a fractional degree). The lack of distal taper, I'm sure, is one apsect of this and the CoG of 6-1/4" (16cm) from the cross is the other. Not a bad CoG for a wide cutting sword, but combined with the lack of taper, it makes for some tiresome one-handed use. Fortunately, there's enough length in the pommel to allow a solid two-handed grip by all but those with monster hands (Hotspur's 2XL gloves come to mind ;D). Handled this way, the sword swings much easier. I was unable to cut, since I haven't had time to sharpen the edges, but this sword feels like it would cut with authority. In the hand-and-a-half mode, it goes from somewhat heavy and sluggish to simply feeling like a powerful, dedicated cutter. When the sword arrived, the hilt was a bit loose, but I torqued down the nut and reattached the pommel to snug things up and it didn't loosen after that, though no contact/cutting was done, so that's based on just some dry swings. There are no sharp areas on the hilt and it feels fairly solid when snugged up via the retaining nut.
Addendum: In prep for this review, I decided to take the hilt all the way down to comment on the fit of the components and to get photos. I discovered something rather disturbing. A couple of pics, first:
The end of the tang showing the retaining/tightening nut. Looks okay so far:
The naked tang (perhaps you'll already see my area of concern):
The troubling item. This looks far worse in person than it does in the pics:
I don't know if the dude on the grinder sneezed while doing the tang/shoulder transitions, or if it was Friday afternoon and he had a hot date. Either way, you can see the large area ground out of the tang at the transition on the lefthand side. A narrow-ish tang I can deal with, and the other SB tangs I've seen pictured here at SBG have looked alright, if a bit rough. This, however, doesn't exactly fill me with confidence. Combine a rather narrow tang (though, in all fairness, it's not as narrow as I'd imagined it would be) with a big cutout at a high-stress area and you could be looking at trouble at some point down the road. It held up fine to dry swinging and even a couple raps on top of my cutting stand while testing for CoP (both before I discovered this), but I don't know if I really want to sharpen this baby up and try my luck hitting targets with a lot of force. Sure, no problem may ever arrise at this location, and not being an engineer, I can't say. However, this does shake my confidence in the sword's durability and it bugs me enough that were it mine I'd return it. As it is, this is an official test sword sent out by Paul, so I'll have to discuss it with him.
Ratings:
Historical Accuracy: 1/5 It's fantasy based.
Fit and Finish: 3/5
Handling: 3/5
Structural Integrity:
Value for Money:
Overall:
The unfilled areas are pending until I discuss my aformentioned concern with Paul (and Roberto, hopefully). So...
More to Follow. Stay Tuned.
My apologies to all for not updating sooner. I do have the sword sharpened and will do some cutting this weekend for sure. My sister and her fiance were visiting the week before last, and then this past week I was down with a cold, so things have been on hold for a bit. Thanks to all for your patience.
In the meantime, here are some new pics:
The replacement sword's tang. No more cutout and it aligns with the centerline of the blade.
A few close-ups of the edge, at midpoint first and then at the point.
A couple observations regarding sharpening:
This blade was noticeably (though not terribly) harder to sharpen than the several Windlasses I've done. Putting on the initial edge with the trusty Nicholson file took a bit more pressure. So too did this become apparent during the final belt grinding. I reduced to an 80 grit belt, then moved up, whereas, I typically start with a 120 on my Windlasses, Cold Steel machetes, and the like. This seems to indicate that Strongblade's manufacturer is leaving their blades a touch harder.
The secondary bevel I created is fairly wide, due to the thickness of the steel near the edge. The two Deathbringers I've had in hand both appeared to be thicker near the edges than any of the Windlasses I've handled. This combined with the harder steel makes for a bit longer sharpening time. The sword was not difficult to sharpen, by any means, it's just that it took a bit more time and patience.
More to follow...
Alright, then. Let's get to the cutting.
The sword posing with a selection of its about-to-be victims:
A few examples of the type of cuts I was getting on plastic. The first cut hit the neck of the Coke bottle, but it did cut through (leaving a rough edge and some cracking). Subsequent cuts were all clean and smooth.
Bottles were not much challenge for this blade, but edge alignment is a huge factor with a blade this wide. In all, about 20-odd bottles fell before this blade, with only a couple of batted ones, where my alignment was off. As long as I did my part, the sword sang through without trouble.
As noted earlier, this sword is rather beastly, with no distal taper and a decidedly blade-heavy feel. As such, I found two-handed use to be the most comfortable and effective. The sword start out slowly but once up to speed cuts with authority and takes a bit of strength to slow back down. Given this characteristic, I decided to add a new medium to my cutting repertoire: some old 3/4" particle board I had laying around. I use this stuff to test the chopping ability of some of my large outdoor knives, but haven't done any serious cutting on it with a sword. I stood it up against my cutting stand and let fly with some moderate power single-hand swings, which chipped some moderate size chunks out of the board. I detected no looseness or anything else telling me to stop, so...I moved on to some full-power two-handed swings. Using this technique, the sword bit off large chunks of board with ease. Not only did it break off chunks, it actually partially sheared through a couple of pieces (one example shown below, second pic). I would NOT want to be on the receiving end of this sword. ;D Impressive cutting power to say the least.
Obviously, swords were not meant to cut such media, so I consider this abuse. Having said that, the sword came through very well. The pommel did loosen up a couple times, since it's threaded on and I was holding it with my off hand, however, a few twists had it snugged up again. After about a dozen full-power blows, the hilt rattled a bit (as the pommel had unscrewed a bit), so I retightened the nut and pommel and was good to go. I'd suggest (as with other threaded hilts) the application of some Loc-Tite to the threads to eliminate lossening.
Other than that, no troubles. The blade remained straight and there was no damage to the edge. As expected, there were some scratches left on the blade, but they were minor enough that they barely show in the pics.
The blade after the test:
Let's try those rating over again ( ;D):
Historical Accuracy: 1/5 It's fantasy based.
Fit and Finish: 3/5
Handling: 3/5
Structural Integrity: 4/5
Value for Money: 4/5
Overall: 3.75/5
There you have it. Overall, a very solid value for a very modest price. Considering this sword cost just a hair more than half the the price of a similar Windlass sword, I was quite impressed with it. There are a few rough edges in the fit and finish department that Roberto indicated he's looking at addressing, but other than that, I'd say you'd have a hard time going wrong with this or any of the other Strongblades reviewed here at SBG thus far.
A FINAL NOTE:
Whew! The end of this review has been a long time coming. I'd like to sincerely thank Roberto and Kate at Strongblade for all the help they gave me in obtaining the replacement sword. Both emailed me promptly after the initial review and were friendly and helpful throughout the process. The day after the initial review, Kate emailed me a return UPS label, so shipping cost me nothing (rarer and rarer these days). Though I was disappointed with the first sword, Strongblade's customer service more than made up for that. They will definitely take care of you, should you have any problems with their products. Thanks again, guys.
By G. Scott Hoagland, Arizona, USA
I always liked the Windlass Mercenary Sword (which seemed to be an LoTR inspired fantasy sword), but never purchased one and they have long since been discontinued. Enter Strongblade's Deathbringer, a very close copy of the Windlass Mercenary. Same wide, longish cutting blade. Same brass scent-stopper pommel and "plant" shaped (more on that later), brass, downturned cross. Same black leather handle with cord underlays. In all, an accurate looking copy.
Price: $139 US at Strongblade www.strongblade.com/prod/sba-deathbringer.html
Packaging/Opening:
The sword arrived in a long, wide cardboard box with mucho bubble wrap/foam sheeting.
Inside was another skinnier box with the sword zip tied to the outside and the scabbard taped inside, wrapped in plastic.
Also included was a packet with a wipe-down cloth, some Flitz metal polish and Flitz wax, and a sheet of paper with a little fantasy-inspired story to get one in the mood to handle the sword and some mention of historical mercenaries.
Initial Impressions:
The sword and scabbard struck me as a bit cruder than most of the Windlass pieces I've handled/owned, but not terribly so. I was surprised by the apparent (felt) weight of the sword as opposed to the stated/measured weight. It feels heavy. Also, the wavy, bumpy appearance (hammer marks? grinding/polishing marks? whatever) common to Windlass blades is a bit more pronounced here.
The Blade:
The blade is vaguely Type IV-ish, though not exactly, as it remains wider to the point and has a diamond cross section throughout. Length is 31" (79cm), width is 2-3/8" (60mm) at the hilt and 1-1/2" (38mm) when measured about 3-1/2" (90mm) back from the point. Thickness is 3/16" (4.7mm) throughout, with no distal taper until the natural thinning near the point. Part of the reason for the weighty feel, methinks. Heat treat seems excellent at this point. The blade definitely has some flexibility, but it isn't whippy. I flexed it about 30 degrees out of line each way and it popped back straight. Blade comes blunt with roughly 1-1.5mm edge. Typical Indian mirror-esque polish.
edit: Duh! I left out the fullers. ;D There is a central fuller on each side of the blade, running about 24-1/2" (65.4cm) from the protrusion at the center of the cross. They are a consistent 5/8" (15.8mm) wide and are quite straight and even in depth.
The Hilt:
The hilt begins with a cast brass cross that reminds me of the shoots of a plant, i.e., one "growing" out of the previous one, with the segments getting smaller in diameter as they move out toward the tips. The cross is a downturned style and it 8" (20.3cm) wide. The odd aspect is that it is only about 1/2" (12.7mm) thick at its center, so...there is an oblong cast brass disc which sits atop it (I would guess to add some support for the grip, since the cross is so narrow). It sports the ever-present oversized cutouts for both tang and blade shoulders so common to Indian swords, but that's sort of expected.
The 4-1/4" (11cm) grip itself is wood with pieces of cord wrapped at intervals and covered with a stitched black leather covering. The leather is a bit shiny, but not as much as I expected after reading other SB reviews here. It feels pretty decent. It is held in place by a 1/4"-20 (no metric conversion on that, sorry) nut and brass washer. The grip fits rather tightly over the tang, even when not held on by the nut.
Topping the hilt off is a cast brass scent-stopper pommel that is 3" (76mm) long and mushrooms out from 1" (25.4mm) where it meets the grip to 1-3/4" (44.5mm) at its widest. It adds roughly 2" (50.8mm) to the grip length for hand-and-a-half usage.
The scabbard:
The scabbard is not exactly stellar in construction or appearance, but at this price is okay as a "freebie" blade cover for transport/storage. It is wood covered with stitched black leather and capped with antiqued brass sheet locket and chape, which are not mated very well to the scabbard and the locket keeps the sword from fitting properly into it. The scabbard is also about twice as fat as it needs to be. I didn't take any measurment of it, but it's fat! Trust me. The sword rattles around fiercely inside, but it does fit snuggly enough at the locket end to keep the scabbard in place unless one holds it point down and shakes it a few times. At that point, the scabbard will slide off the blade.
Specs:
Blade length: 31" (79cm)
Blade width at cross: 2-3/8" (60mm)
Blade width near point: 1-1/2" (38mm)
Cross width: 8" (20.3cm)
Handle length: 4-1/4" (11cm)
Pommel Length: 3" (76mm)
Overall sword length: 38-1/4" (971.5cm)
CoG (Center of Gravity): 6-1/4" (16cm) from cross
CoP (Center of Percussion) 11" (28cm) from point
Weight (roughly) 3 lbs. (1.36kg)
Handling:
As I said, the sword feels heavy, though it weighed out at only 3 lbs. (1.36kg) on my bath scale (which means it could weigh a bit more or less, since the scale isn't accurate to a fractional degree). The lack of distal taper, I'm sure, is one apsect of this and the CoG of 6-1/4" (16cm) from the cross is the other. Not a bad CoG for a wide cutting sword, but combined with the lack of taper, it makes for some tiresome one-handed use. Fortunately, there's enough length in the pommel to allow a solid two-handed grip by all but those with monster hands (Hotspur's 2XL gloves come to mind ;D). Handled this way, the sword swings much easier. I was unable to cut, since I haven't had time to sharpen the edges, but this sword feels like it would cut with authority. In the hand-and-a-half mode, it goes from somewhat heavy and sluggish to simply feeling like a powerful, dedicated cutter. When the sword arrived, the hilt was a bit loose, but I torqued down the nut and reattached the pommel to snug things up and it didn't loosen after that, though no contact/cutting was done, so that's based on just some dry swings. There are no sharp areas on the hilt and it feels fairly solid when snugged up via the retaining nut.
Addendum: In prep for this review, I decided to take the hilt all the way down to comment on the fit of the components and to get photos. I discovered something rather disturbing. A couple of pics, first:
The end of the tang showing the retaining/tightening nut. Looks okay so far:
The naked tang (perhaps you'll already see my area of concern):
The troubling item. This looks far worse in person than it does in the pics:
I don't know if the dude on the grinder sneezed while doing the tang/shoulder transitions, or if it was Friday afternoon and he had a hot date. Either way, you can see the large area ground out of the tang at the transition on the lefthand side. A narrow-ish tang I can deal with, and the other SB tangs I've seen pictured here at SBG have looked alright, if a bit rough. This, however, doesn't exactly fill me with confidence. Combine a rather narrow tang (though, in all fairness, it's not as narrow as I'd imagined it would be) with a big cutout at a high-stress area and you could be looking at trouble at some point down the road. It held up fine to dry swinging and even a couple raps on top of my cutting stand while testing for CoP (both before I discovered this), but I don't know if I really want to sharpen this baby up and try my luck hitting targets with a lot of force. Sure, no problem may ever arrise at this location, and not being an engineer, I can't say. However, this does shake my confidence in the sword's durability and it bugs me enough that were it mine I'd return it. As it is, this is an official test sword sent out by Paul, so I'll have to discuss it with him.
Ratings:
Historical Accuracy: 1/5 It's fantasy based.
Fit and Finish: 3/5
Handling: 3/5
Structural Integrity:
Value for Money:
Overall:
The unfilled areas are pending until I discuss my aformentioned concern with Paul (and Roberto, hopefully). So...
More to Follow. Stay Tuned.
My apologies to all for not updating sooner. I do have the sword sharpened and will do some cutting this weekend for sure. My sister and her fiance were visiting the week before last, and then this past week I was down with a cold, so things have been on hold for a bit. Thanks to all for your patience.
In the meantime, here are some new pics:
The replacement sword's tang. No more cutout and it aligns with the centerline of the blade.
A few close-ups of the edge, at midpoint first and then at the point.
A couple observations regarding sharpening:
This blade was noticeably (though not terribly) harder to sharpen than the several Windlasses I've done. Putting on the initial edge with the trusty Nicholson file took a bit more pressure. So too did this become apparent during the final belt grinding. I reduced to an 80 grit belt, then moved up, whereas, I typically start with a 120 on my Windlasses, Cold Steel machetes, and the like. This seems to indicate that Strongblade's manufacturer is leaving their blades a touch harder.
The secondary bevel I created is fairly wide, due to the thickness of the steel near the edge. The two Deathbringers I've had in hand both appeared to be thicker near the edges than any of the Windlasses I've handled. This combined with the harder steel makes for a bit longer sharpening time. The sword was not difficult to sharpen, by any means, it's just that it took a bit more time and patience.
More to follow...
Alright, then. Let's get to the cutting.
The sword posing with a selection of its about-to-be victims:
A few examples of the type of cuts I was getting on plastic. The first cut hit the neck of the Coke bottle, but it did cut through (leaving a rough edge and some cracking). Subsequent cuts were all clean and smooth.
Bottles were not much challenge for this blade, but edge alignment is a huge factor with a blade this wide. In all, about 20-odd bottles fell before this blade, with only a couple of batted ones, where my alignment was off. As long as I did my part, the sword sang through without trouble.
As noted earlier, this sword is rather beastly, with no distal taper and a decidedly blade-heavy feel. As such, I found two-handed use to be the most comfortable and effective. The sword start out slowly but once up to speed cuts with authority and takes a bit of strength to slow back down. Given this characteristic, I decided to add a new medium to my cutting repertoire: some old 3/4" particle board I had laying around. I use this stuff to test the chopping ability of some of my large outdoor knives, but haven't done any serious cutting on it with a sword. I stood it up against my cutting stand and let fly with some moderate power single-hand swings, which chipped some moderate size chunks out of the board. I detected no looseness or anything else telling me to stop, so...I moved on to some full-power two-handed swings. Using this technique, the sword bit off large chunks of board with ease. Not only did it break off chunks, it actually partially sheared through a couple of pieces (one example shown below, second pic). I would NOT want to be on the receiving end of this sword. ;D Impressive cutting power to say the least.
Obviously, swords were not meant to cut such media, so I consider this abuse. Having said that, the sword came through very well. The pommel did loosen up a couple times, since it's threaded on and I was holding it with my off hand, however, a few twists had it snugged up again. After about a dozen full-power blows, the hilt rattled a bit (as the pommel had unscrewed a bit), so I retightened the nut and pommel and was good to go. I'd suggest (as with other threaded hilts) the application of some Loc-Tite to the threads to eliminate lossening.
Other than that, no troubles. The blade remained straight and there was no damage to the edge. As expected, there were some scratches left on the blade, but they were minor enough that they barely show in the pics.
The blade after the test:
Let's try those rating over again ( ;D):
Historical Accuracy: 1/5 It's fantasy based.
Fit and Finish: 3/5
Handling: 3/5
Structural Integrity: 4/5
Value for Money: 4/5
Overall: 3.75/5
There you have it. Overall, a very solid value for a very modest price. Considering this sword cost just a hair more than half the the price of a similar Windlass sword, I was quite impressed with it. There are a few rough edges in the fit and finish department that Roberto indicated he's looking at addressing, but other than that, I'd say you'd have a hard time going wrong with this or any of the other Strongblades reviewed here at SBG thus far.
A FINAL NOTE:
Whew! The end of this review has been a long time coming. I'd like to sincerely thank Roberto and Kate at Strongblade for all the help they gave me in obtaining the replacement sword. Both emailed me promptly after the initial review and were friendly and helpful throughout the process. The day after the initial review, Kate emailed me a return UPS label, so shipping cost me nothing (rarer and rarer these days). Though I was disappointed with the first sword, Strongblade's customer service more than made up for that. They will definitely take care of you, should you have any problems with their products. Thanks again, guys.