pellius
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Post by pellius on May 2, 2016 16:07:24 GMT
Hello everyone. With the support of this great community, I am quickly becoming a sword enthusiast. As will become pretty clear, though, I'm not a craftsman. I got my Hanwei oxtail dao recently, and have been enjoying it immensely. Since it is a working blade, it is fairly beefy for an oxtail. The POB is about 6" from the guard, but overall the sword is pretty light (1lb 13.2oz per KoA). It is nimble and fun. As a budding enthusiast, I wanted to check out the construction, so I removed the pommel nut and pommel. The brass pommel was glued on with some sort of polymer glue. It was only glued on one side. I gently broke the pommel free and removed it. It was hollow but reasonably heavy. The handle was permanently attached to the tang, so no further non-destructive disassembly was possible. I wanted to put some weight into the pommel to move the POB back a little, and settled on filling it with BB steel shot. I coated BB's in rubber cement to keep them in place and prevent any annoying rattle in the finished product. I considered using epoxy, but I didn't want to permanently alter the sword. In retrospect, I'm glad I didn't go with epoxy. I used an old business card to cut a form of the handle, and used it as a stand-in to space the BB's in the pommel. The rubber cement really helped hold things in place while I worked. It took a fair amount of trial-and-error to get the right number of BB's to fit snugly without rattling. Had I used epoxy, it would've been a disaster. Eventually, I got it to fit nice and snug with no "dead" spaces. I cleaned off the excess rubber cement, then polished up the brass. I also added a lock-washer to the pommel nut. The result added about 200 BB's; a little less than 3 ounces to the pommel. Using smaller lead shot would've added about an extra ounce, but I didn't want to handle all that lead. Thanks for looking.
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pgandy
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Post by pgandy on May 2, 2016 17:22:41 GMT
Thanks for sharing. I’ll keep that in mind if I decided to change the PoB in my oxtail and it may possible work on other swords.
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pellius
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Post by pellius on May 2, 2016 17:42:39 GMT
Er....Hanwei oxtail. Spellcheck kills me.
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Post by william m on May 2, 2016 21:30:49 GMT
Nicely done. I have seen this done on a hanwei william marshal sword before except for that guy used shotgun pellets.
Anyways how did your POB change as a result of what you did?
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pellius
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Post by pellius on May 2, 2016 23:18:38 GMT
Excellent question. I can't believe I left that out of the original post.
The POB moved toward the guard by about 3/4 inch. It's now about 5.25 from the guard. The guard is cup-shaped. I measured to the point where the blade actually contacts the guard.
I can feel a difference in handling, but it isn't dramatic. The blade was already pretty nimble. The project probably isn't worth doing just to affect the POB. For me personally, I just don't think a "functional" sword should have a hollow pommel.
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Post by Croccifixio on May 3, 2016 1:26:37 GMT
Plenty of historical swords have hollow pommels though.
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pellius
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Post by pellius on May 3, 2016 3:22:54 GMT
I did not know that. Would a hollow pommel be primarily for decoration? Were such examples on swords intended for fighting (rather than ceremony, decoration, etc)? Were historical examples hollow for a particular purpose?
Sorry for the rapid-fire questions. This is absolutely fascinating.
I can understand why a modern manufactured sword would have a hollow pommel. I don't see the benefit of a preindustrial sword being crafted with one. Except maybe to just look good?
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Post by Croccifixio on May 3, 2016 3:41:22 GMT
Hollow pommels used less material (which was scarce back then). Although in my view, it was more important for the overall harmonics of the sword.
If you have a solid pommel, it will weigh quite a bit. Now if you have a wide, thin blade with a lot of mass at the end (like some dao), you have a sword designed to be very much cut-oriented. Having a heavy pommel might make point control better, but would make the overall weapon heavier, and the sword less forward-balanced/cut-oriented. It's a trade-off, really. But for cutting swords, it makes sense to give the blade more forward momentum to aid in the cut by having a hollow pommel (which can still be used for pommel techniques since it's still steel/metal).
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Post by Timo Nieminen on May 3, 2016 4:13:58 GMT
I did not know that. Would a hollow pommel be primarily for decoration? Were such examples on swords intended for fighting (rather than ceremony, decoration, etc)? Were historical examples hollow for a particular purpose? Sometimes, you want a large pommel to support the heel of the hand, or the little finger, for better grip or leverage during cuts. But you don't want the weight that would come with a solid pommel. So you make it hollow. This is common for large wheel pommels, and other large pommels. An example, the original Suontaka sword: www.fableblades.com/Aatelisnainen%20Soturi.htmlOther pommels are meant to fit over the end of the grip, and help strength the hilt by stopping the wood from splitting. This is common on dao, but also seen on other swords. If you call the Japanese kashira a hollow pommel, it's one of this type. Hollow dao pommels can either by cylindrical, in which case, there isn't much, if any, empty space in them, since they fit closely to the wooden grip core, or they can be rounded, conical, or flared, in which case they only fit closely to the wooden core at the hole it goes into, and have empty space between the wider parts of the pommel and the wood. This last kind of hollow pommel can be a combination of the first two.
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pellius
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Post by pellius on May 3, 2016 12:48:14 GMT
Thank you for the insight. It didn't even occur to me that a wood handle, especially a cord or leather wrapped one, might fail. Now that I think about it, though, a sword living out in the elements on campaign could probably use all the help it could get.
A flared or ring-shaped pommel to prevent the hand slipping off the handle also makes sense.
When I think of non-military sword use, I imagine one-on-one sword vs. sword (or sword vs. unarmed unarmored civilian) engagements where blade nimbleness would seem to be pretty important. My impression might, of course, be completely wrong.
In the historical military context, was there an emphasis on point-heavy cutting swords?
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Post by Timo Nieminen on May 3, 2016 19:50:35 GMT
Sometimes, especially for cavalry swords. The late Qing cavalry dao, for example: sbg-sword-forum.forums.net/thread/47507/antique-chinese-daoBut while having a lighter pommel gives you a POB that's further out, it doesn't make the sword slower to swing. The POB further out means that the sword will feel heavier when held out horizontally - more torque on the wrist. But how hard it is to swing depends on the moment of inertia[*], and making the pommel heavier increases that and makes the sword slower to swing. One thing that the choosing the pommel weight lets you do is tune the position of the pivot point(s). For some types of swords, that matters a lot. For dao, it doesn't appear to matter at all; I've never seen any sign of the PP being deliberately placed anywhere on a Chinese dao. [*] Warning: there are two definitions of moment of inertia. One is about rotation, and the other (common in some fields of engineering) is about resistance to bending. For the first, which is meant here, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_of_inertia
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Post by pellius on May 4, 2016 12:41:55 GMT
Thanks again for sharing so much insightful information.
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Post by johnc on May 4, 2016 20:28:14 GMT
Thanks for sharing. I like this sword a lot. It was the 1st Chinese sword of good quality I saw after handling many bad wushu swords. I still have the old model before it went out of production for a while. The hilt of mine is 1 inch shorter.
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Post by pellius on Nov 19, 2020 17:22:18 GMT
Epilogue One aspect adding to the outstanding resource that is SBG is the persistence of archived information. So, on the far-off chance someone stumbles upon this thread and isn’t sure what to conclude... My preconceived understanding of sword dynamics was indeed mistaken. Those who kindly offered their more learned and experienced opinions in this thread were correct. My anecdotal experience since writing the op a few years ago also confirms that my modification was counterproductive, though mostly harmless. To my hand, the heavier pommel makes the dao strike with slightly more force, but trades a bit of maneuverability to get it. The latest article from Mandarin Mansion discussing weight and balance touched specifically on Chinese dao (and reminded me of this old thread): www.mandarinmansion.com/blog/weight-and-balanceSo, in summary... If anything, I probably should’ve hollowed out the pommel a bit. Perhaps I should’ve slimmed down or pieced the disc guard while I was at it. For what it’s worth. Cheers!
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Post by Deleted on Nov 20, 2020 9:57:06 GMT
This is genius. I think I will try it on my long sword, as it also has a glued on pommel cap. I'm thinking it must have been made in china, by people who are used to making swords in that way.
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