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Post by susieqz on Nov 15, 2019 21:16:19 GMT
HIYA GUYS.I'M SUE. i managed to cripple mysel up, from the waist dound. i'm tired of lying around, so i thot i could work on upper body strength. so, i bot a windlass falchion to chop down a couple acres of weeds.
the sword is solid but the hilt is cut too wide for the blade, leaving a big gap. what do i do? i'm thinking liquid aluminum.
the falchion comes with a sheath, but there are no holes or any way to fasten it to a belt. is that normal?
i've never even touched a sword like this so please excuse silly questions.
i had a few months of epee training,n that's all. no training in chopping. could you please direct me to a picture showing how to stand n how to hold the sword.
also, if you wanted to chop tall weeds, what sword would you buy? this thing is kinda heavy for me.
thanks for any help you can give me.
sue
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Post by AndiTheBarvarian on Nov 15, 2019 21:42:24 GMT
Hi sue and welcome to the forum.
A gap between the guard and the blade is not unusual. That's no problem as long as the sword is solid. You could fill it with epoxy or use a washer on the blade to hide the gap.
Windlass and many other brands' scabbards or sheaths are made this way, that's normal.
For a light cutting sword I would think of a wakizashi or a Cold Steel machete that has not a broad heavy tip section like a falchion. Or the Windlass D-guard bowie, a nice light and nimble little saber that I can recommend.
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Post by susieqz on Nov 15, 2019 23:21:14 GMT
thank you, and.
i'll certainly check your recomendations.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Nov 18, 2019 21:11:33 GMT
I filled a gap on my sword with epoxy. Haven't felt or heard a rattle since
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Post by susieqz on Nov 18, 2019 22:22:38 GMT
thank you yalda. i'll try that. i don't like the idea of water n trash getting in there.
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Post by MOK on Nov 18, 2019 23:31:43 GMT
HIYA GUYS.I'M SUE. i managed to cripple mysel up, from the waist dound. i'm tired of lying around, so i thot i could work on upper body strength. so, i bot a windlass falchion to chop down a couple acres of weeds. the sword is solid but the hilt is cut too wide for the blade, leaving a big gap. what do i do? i'm thinking liquid aluminum. the falchion comes with a sheath, but there are no holes or any way to fasten it to a belt. is that normal? i've never even touched a sword like this so please excuse silly questions. i had a few months of epee training,n that's all. no training in chopping. could you please direct me to a picture showing how to stand n how to hold the sword. also, if you wanted to chop tall weeds, what sword would you buy? this thing is kinda heavy for me. thanks for any help you can give me. The excessively large cutout for the blade shoulders is a very common thing on modern swords, especially cheaper ones like Windlass (and, to be fair, not entirely unheard of even on high quality historical artifacts). Fortunately, it's mostly just a cosmetic eyesore that shouldn't affect the sword's performance or structural integrity in any way. If the guard, grip and pommel all feel solid and don't move or make distressing sounds when you strike something with the sword, everything should be perfectly fine as is - unless the mere sight of it really bothers you. The lack of any kind of carry options is again somewhat typical for cheap modern swords. A historical sword of this type would have had a wooden scabbard covered with thin leather, with a belt permanently laced around and through the leather covering, more or less like what is shown in the great drawing by Peter Johnsson posted in this discussion on myArmoury. It honestly looks more complex than it is! Here's a great video of Leo "Tod" Todeschini and Matt Easton discussing how Medieval scabbards were worn. I think the first two styles shown would be the most relevant to your sword. The majority of Windlass Steelcrafts swords and other modern affordable replicas, though, come with a simple sheath of very thick leather with no provision for actually wearing them. My favorite solution is... well, my favorite solution is to make my own proper scabbard, but a good second choice if you're not looking to get semi-seriously into wood and leather crafts is to simply acquire a fairly narrow but very long belt and tie it around the scabbard. This other thread on myArmoury.com has an excellent photo tutorial for a historical (albeit a few centuries too late for this particular type of sword) method of tying the belt. If you're not particularly interested in historical accuracy, I'd honestly just use about three meters/yards of 1" wide nylon webbing and a quick release buckle to match; they're durable, weatherproof, very cheap and trivially easy to find. If you tie the knot below the metal throat these Windlass sheaths have and make it tight enough (though not tight enough to crush the sheath, naturally) the throat should be enough to keep the sheath from slipping through it, and of course you can secure it further with a little bit of glue. Here's another video with Matt Easton, in which he does some dry handling and cutting with a somewhat different style of falchion, and explains what he's doing and why.For cutting grass, weeds, undergrowth and such, I'd honestly get some kind of long machete rather than a sword. They're lighter, cheaper, actually made for this kind of work and easier to maintain. Cold Steel makes a wide variety of very popular ones, for example; I'm personally not fond of the company but their sword-shaped machetes are cheap, easy to find and a lot of fun for the money... ...unless you actually want an excuse to get a real sword, of course, in which case I understand and approve.
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Post by susieqz on Nov 19, 2019 1:04:39 GMT
thanks, mok. especially for the citations.. i need all the help i can get. no machete for me, thanks. i like weapons. my main hobby is precision handgun shooting. i'm good at that, since i shoot in my backyard. no driving to a range. but shooting doesn't give me much exercize.
some of these weeds are 1 1/2'' thick, with the outer 1/8'' being wood. i thot they would be nice practice to learn sword handling.
if the falchion doesn't work i'll get a different sword.
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Post by demonskull on Nov 19, 2019 1:17:55 GMT
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Post by susieqz on Nov 19, 2019 1:47:01 GMT
thanks, demon. i'll go look. i guess a gladius could be fun.
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Post by MOK on Nov 19, 2019 3:28:38 GMT
How about the Hanwei Banshee, then? I have one, and it's a lovely little brush cutter, fairly light and feels even lighter, yet the blade is surprisingly robust and the long grip gives a lot of leverage and/or reach depending on how and where you hold it. I've cut brush and saplings, chopped up dead and dried logs and split firewood with mine and never had any issues. Plus the scabbard allows a number of carrying options, even aside from the pleather sling that comes with it (personally I tied a simple Thai style sling out of paracord; it's dead easy, but I'd recommend using the extra thick paracord).
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christain
Member
It's the steel on the inside that counts.
Posts: 2,835
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Post by christain on Nov 19, 2019 4:03:49 GMT
'demonskull' gave you a solid recommendation in the Cold Steel Gladius machete. I have one, and it's an awesome piece to be 'just a machete'. I also recommend any/all of the Hanwei/Tinker-line swords for a beginner, or even an old pro. They're THAT good. I would also give gratz to the Windlass Arbedo. Classic bastard sword, and a dream to hold and swing. Also bank-friendly.
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Post by MOK on Nov 19, 2019 4:33:07 GMT
I also recommend any/all of the Hanwei/Tinker-line swords for a beginner, or even an old pro. They're THAT good. Oh yeah - I expect the H/T Great Sword of War in particular would make short work of the woodiest of weeds.
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christain
Member
It's the steel on the inside that counts.
Posts: 2,835
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Post by christain on Nov 19, 2019 4:57:31 GMT
I also recommend any/all of the Hanwei/Tinker-line swords for a beginner, or even an old pro. They're THAT good. Oh yeah - I expect the H/T Great Sword of War in particular would make short work of the woodiest of weeds. Just one of many 'must-haves' on my list.
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Post by susieqz on Nov 19, 2019 5:25:20 GMT
um, i'm hoping to find midieval european if i can, they are cute.
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Post by MOK on Nov 19, 2019 5:54:18 GMT
um, i'm hoping to find midieval european if i can, they are cute. In that case, definitely take a look at the Hanwei/Tinker line. I'm not sure I'd call the H/T Fullered Bastard Sword or the Great Sword of War "cute", exactly, but they are attractive.
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Post by AndiTheBarvarian on Nov 19, 2019 6:42:52 GMT
My lightest and most nimble medieval sword is the Kingston Arms Atrim Design XIV. But I don't know how long it could stand machete work.
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christain
Member
It's the steel on the inside that counts.
Posts: 2,835
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Post by christain on Nov 19, 2019 13:13:59 GMT
Yeah...If you want to whack at woody-stalked weeds---that's what they make machetes for. Any of the Cold Steel machete line will do you proud in that aspect. The Gladius and Katana machetes are AWESOME. They're cheap on Amazon.com. Get one...or all of them. They're serious fun for very little $$$.
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Post by Jordan Williams on Nov 19, 2019 15:47:52 GMT
If you want an easy to learn manual on stance and body work I can reccomend the military sabre manuals, some you can find just by googling such as the o'rourke 1872 manual of swordsmanship.
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Post by susieqz on Nov 19, 2019 17:41:56 GMT
thanks guys. that's great, jordan. i'm having fun whacking head high weeds, but i'm afraid i'm learning bad habits.
you know, 2 lbs 12 oz doesn't sound like much. but you put that into a falchion n it's super heavy. tires me out fast.
on the plus side, this is a real weapon. with the rectangular hilt, the blade strikes perfectly. it could easily take a bad guy's arm off.
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Post by MOK on Nov 19, 2019 19:38:06 GMT
thanks guys. that's great, jordan. i'm having fun whacking head high weeds, but i'm afraid i'm learning bad habits. you know, 2 lbs 12 oz doesn't sound like much. but you put that into a falchion n it's super heavy. tires me out fast. on the plus side, this is a real weapon. with the rectangular hilt, the blade strikes perfectly. it could easily take a bad guy's arm off. Yeah, the weight is fairly typical; most one-handed swords weigh somewhere around 2-3 pounds. What makes some of them like this one feel heavy is not really the weight, as such, but how the weight is distributed along the sword's length. Real historical falchions are not as blade-heavy as the Windlass piece. While they get very wide, they also get very, very thin towards the business end, usually with dramatic taper in thickness. The famous Conyers falchion, for example, starts out about 4cm wide and 6mm thick at the guard, but grows to an amazing 11cm wide and only 1mm thick (!) at its widest point about 60cm out from the guard. The Thorpe falchion, on which the Windlass Medieval Falchion is loosely modeled, has a blade only 2.5mm thick at its thickest, and while it's almost 10cm longer than the Windlass, the center of its mass is actually 4cm closer to the hand! That makes a very significant difference in handling. These weapons are (or should be) really like fine meat cleavers, not brutish axes - they're much nimbler and handier than the overweight and improperly balanced things most manufacturers tend to churn out today, but because they move significantly faster they still strike with no less force, and because they're thinner they waste less power on overcoming friction. It's a real pity so few affordable manufacturers know or care about proper thickness taper, I suspect mostly because it isn't evident in photographs and most of these companies don't seem to have the resources and/or inclination to do any actual research.
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