Greg E
Member
little bit of this... and a whole lot of that
Posts: 1,291
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Post by Greg E on May 18, 2014 22:10:26 GMT
Ok, I have just come into ownership of a CS 1796 saber. This the first non-dark age/Viking sword I have owned. My question is about the handle/grip. With the metal on the back side of the grip, it is very slippery to me. I have a hard time not having the grip move around in my hand. Is there a certain way to hold it or something I am missing? Thanks
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Post by Timo Nieminen on May 18, 2014 23:51:43 GMT
I don't have any problem with that style of grip, even with a smooth wood (replacement) grip for the non-metal part. The grip is quite flattened, so that reduces any twisting in the hand. When you hit something, at least near the tip, where you would usually hit something, the point of contact is behind a line through the grip, so the force of contact will keep the blade aligned, rather than twisting it. As you accelerate the blade into a cut, the inertia of the blade will, similarly, keep the blade aligned. The bottom of the stirrup will stop it slipping out of the hand, even if the grip was slathered with oil.
If you "chop" with it and try to stop the blow in mid-air, it might be a problem. There's a lot of blade behind a line passing through the grip, and that will want to keep moving forwards, and will tend to rotate the blade in the hand. Solution: don't chop with it. Slice with it, draw-cut with it, pull the blade with the hand. Of course, if you chop and hit your target, the sword won't want to rotate in the grip, because the target will stop/slow the blade down for you. Still, slicing is better than pure chopping, but this means you can get away with very forceful slicing.
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Post by crazywolf on May 19, 2014 0:17:09 GMT
I have one and haven't noticed anything like that when I cut with it maybe it just that I have large hands .
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Post by William Swiger on May 19, 2014 4:11:11 GMT
With sabers, I wear a leather glove when handling. Think this was looking at too many of Dave Kelly's posted pictures. ;-)
Also wear a glove with a few of my Viking swords that have hand/wrist eating pommels.
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Post by Dave Kelly on May 19, 2014 9:42:59 GMT
The first Cold Steel sabre dvd has an orientation on sabre form by fencer Rob DeLongis (sic) that explains some fundamentals. There is more than one suitable grip for using the sabre. It is supposed to be a light sword so finger control is the preferred method, however the Cold Steel sabre is on the heavy side with a lot of end of blade weight. Most 96's weighed in at 2 lbs, not 2.5 lbs.
Without getting into a lot of palaver about cutting technique, Mr Bill took the words out of my mouth; cavalrymen wear gauntlets. A glove solves a lot of your concerns.
Enjoy the sabre.
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Post by MrAcheson on May 19, 2014 17:00:25 GMT
Isn't that Anthony DeLongis?
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Post by Dave Kelly on May 20, 2014 2:01:41 GMT
Ah, yah. I was pulling the Rob out of my failing memory ( thus the [sic] ) indicating I was probably wrong. :mrgreen:
Appreciate the assist.
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