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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2008 23:37:03 GMT
I've never handled an albion so take this with a bit of salt.
I don't think the point is that any albion will be tougher than any gen2. This may be the case and probably is, but the real piont is if you compare swords of similar design than the albions would come out way ahead in every aspect.
This doesn't mean gen2s are bad swords though.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2008 23:50:34 GMT
Well, you guys know more about this stuff than I do, so I won't quibble. My experience with the several Gen 2 swords I own is that they are very solid and durable beaters.
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Post by YlliwCir on Aug 23, 2008 0:03:04 GMT
I'm not stating an opinon of whether Gen2s are tough or not, just that Ablions are tougher. I pointed out the hilt construction for general information purposes. I have never heard of a Gen2 tang failure. The problems they have had with the blades have already been well documented. I have three Gen2 blades, two of them have held up well under what could only be termed as abuse from me. The third has gotten "soft" over time, meaning it is prone to take a set tho it is easily bent back. Probably from several bad hits. Which makes me wonder. Can a blade "lose" it's temper over time or from bad hits?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2008 0:09:51 GMT
Yeah - please don't take anything I've said to mean that I think gen2s are bad swords.
At the price they're at they're better than they should be - by a lot.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2008 0:19:45 GMT
I have no idea if a sword can lose its temper over time, or if t is a result of bad hits. I have seen some of your sword tests on youtube and your form looks pretty darn good to me ricwilly. I only know that the G2 swords I have are tough hombres. Not as tough as Albion, I suppose I will concede, but very tough nontheless.
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Post by YlliwCir on Aug 23, 2008 0:32:23 GMT
Yuner, thanks for the compliment, my Gen2s were used a lot when I was first learning to cut, believe me they took a LOT of abuse. I have no issues reguarding the toughness of the ones I own.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2008 0:48:27 GMT
Give credit where credit is due I always say. My form is aiming at a tree branch and swinging for the fences. By the way, I see you have a full tanf Rittersteel. I have the Rittersteel competition katana and while I have never popped anything with it, it seems strong enough. The blade is very thick.
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Post by YlliwCir on Aug 23, 2008 0:58:21 GMT
Yeah, I believe we're talking about the same sword; /index.cgi?board=swordreviews&action=display&thread=2016&page=1 Cut's halfway decent once I got it sharp enough. A truck of a sword no doubt.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2008 1:04:03 GMT
That is the same sword. Good to know it can take that kind of abuse. No damage to the blade?
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Post by YlliwCir on Aug 23, 2008 1:06:34 GMT
None what so ever. Well, surface scratches. LOL ;D
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2008 1:13:35 GMT
Impressive. I can now knock the crap out of something with confidence. However, from what little I know about katanas, the rittersteel one does not perform like a real one. I am referring to the sharpness of the blade.
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Post by YlliwCir on Aug 23, 2008 1:16:53 GMT
Mine didn't come very sharp at all, I had to work on it a while to get it to cut. No where near the two kats I got. I like it tho. If I had to pick one sword of mine that would never break, it's be this one bar none. Course, I could be wrong.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2008 1:26:07 GMT
Judging by the thickness of that wood, I would guess you are right on about not breaking. Rittersteel may not be historically accurate, but they pack a wallop. At least this sword does.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2008 6:54:26 GMT
Hey ric, a sword doesn't lose it's temper, but it can get fatigued over time as the metal is bent back and forth.
Adam, I have seen Atrim handle some flubbed cuts better then a gen 2...when not hitting hard targets. Generally gen 2 do better when you do things like accidently hit a nail as well. Atrim tend to be on the thin and light side (which I actually like)...so it doesn't handle those situations well.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2008 18:04:31 GMT
You haven't been in the market for a good real truck lately have you? Truck versus sports car is not about cheap versus expensive, I'm strictly talking about sword design. ColdNapalm was more along the lines of what I'm saying with this, A more extreme example would be great sword(truck) versus small sword(sportscar). The small sword is effectively infinitely more agile than the great sword could ever be no matter how much money you spent on it or how nice the fit and finish was. By the same token the great sword far eclipses the small sword in terms of raw power. If you tried to make the great sword handle like the small sword you'd ruin it. Tough as Gen2s are - Atrims and Albions are tougher. Even in my experience of Darksword Armory pieces I can tell you that Albions are tougher due to their peened construction and much closer tolerances.[/quote] With all due respect tolerances have no bearing on toughness unless you're using that term to reference their method of cross and pommel fitting or precision of the heat treat process. Toughness comes from quantity and quality of steel, quality of heat treat and shape of the blade. As near as I can tell Albions are made from 1070 and Darkswords are made of 1060. Darkswords have a good heat treat and while I wouldn't be surprised that Albions are heat treated by a more precise process there's not enough of a difference between the two to make up for the fact that the Darksword just has more steel in the blade. A comparison with the Albion Squire line would be interesting since they are based on a blunt similar to the Darksword but I have zero experience with them and even very little theoretical knowledge, I've never run into anybody who owned an Albion Squire line. I will heartily agree that Albion has vastly superior hilt construction to any other sword on the market I'm aware of. I really hate guards that come loose and Albion has the best game in town for fixing that problem. Heck, unless you need/want the toughness it alone doesn't even necessarily make one sword better than another. I don't buy that Albions are tougher than Darkswords in the blade but I will readily accept that Albions are overall better swords. If somebody wants to pony up the $1,200 to destructively test an Albion Knight against a Darksword Norman we could probably settle this conclusively. Maybe we could find 24 members to toss $50 in a fund, pick a tester and agree upon the tests. I'd be willing to throw a hundred bucks at it and I'd even be willing to do the testing. I live on several acres and have ready access to massive stumps, logs and large chunks of concrete as well as 55 gallon barrels. All swords are a set of compromises and to add to one area you have to subtract from another. Once you get past the basics of using good steel with a quality heat treat you're left with only blade shape and the quantity of steel in it to make it tougher. For some swords, the sports cars, agility is much more important than toughness. Spadroons are awfully agile but never as tough as a good broadsword. That blade shape also makes them look mighty peculiar, which is probably why they don't seem to be too terribly popular.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2008 1:24:06 GMT
Are you talking about a sharpened DSA Norman vrs a sharpened Albion Knight? Why not just use a blunt Norman vrs a Squire line Knightly sword. Xa vrs XII, similar enough. DSA tangs are skinny and threaded but well treated and are one solid piece. Albions are also one solid piece but its a thick wide beefy tang! I'd bet the Albion would withstand more abuse before breaking. They flex better and have wider far stronger tangs. DSA tangs are good but law of physics apply, their tangs are made skinny since they have screw on pommels. Albions are hot peened and have very wide tangs. Blade thickness, I believe both start out a 1/4 inch think but the DSA sword does not taper where as the Albion does and does so very well. I'm sure the DSA blade might make for a better stage steel sword however it will fail at the tang much sooner than an Albion would which is where it counts. Granted, a lot of abuse would be required and I mean A LOT! It would be interesting though.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2008 2:22:42 GMT
Except the closer the tolerances of your hilt components the less looseness or rattliness that develops over time. This is directly related to toughness.
Atrims are not on the thin and light side. they're on the 'well, thought out design' side, whereas Gen2s are either on the 'thicker than they need to be side' or those that aren't (lucerne, black prince, etc.) are on the 'right size and thickness, but inferior heat treat to an atrim' side.
i'd warrant an atrim would handle hitting a nail better than a gen2. A gen2 would easily ding or dent. I'm pretty sure an atrim wouldn't.
Shootermike - let's get some support from someone who owns a dozen of them...
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Post by YlliwCir on Aug 24, 2008 3:09:28 GMT
I don't own dozens of them, but my one Atrim is definately made of a lot harder steel than my Gen2's. I would think it would do a lot better against a nail and has held up better to flubbed cuts no question. The Atrim is of the lighter variety, I haven't seen where this has effected it's toughness at all.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2008 18:31:05 GMT
Atrims are not on the thin and light side. they're on the 'well, thought out design' side, whereas Gen2s are either on the 'thicker than they need to be side' or those that aren't (lucerne, black prince, etc.) are on the 'right size and thickness, but inferior heat treat to an atrim' side. If gen2 lucerne and BP is the right size, then Atrim ARE on the thin and light side. I'm not saying they aren't well thought out, non historical or any of that...but they are thinner and lighter then even the more historical gen 2. Also Atrims are HT harder and better to allow for more flex. But the fact that gen 2 are HT soft does have it's advantages. It'll bend instead of breaking. A HARD hit to a nail with a gen 2 is a dent. With an atrim, it's fracture lines. We are talking about things going really wrong after all...not just a light bump. Yes against small things, the atrim will have no damage while the gen 2 will have small dents and nicks.
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Post by hotspur on Aug 24, 2008 20:11:10 GMT
I did nick one of my Gus swords on a bungee cord hook once. I did pound the edges on the same sword for a couple of years before touching it up (cardboard tubes from hell). I'm sorry I waited that long, as the blade is hard. That on one of his fairly early and quite thin XIIIas. The XIIa counterpart at the time was what became the 1313. A fellow named Joel Whitmore had spent some months of afternoon walks chopping through 2" saplings before his grip cracked on a large one that didn't cut through. Another quite slim ATrim. My other, a 1319 XIIa is not quite as thin at the foible but still a nice cutter.
Gus started making quite a few thicker grinds starting with 1/4 inch stock and several some years later using 3/8 stock. By default on a lot of them, he was optimizing for the back yard bottle club. It used to be that if you asked for amore obtuse edge, he would listen.
The grips used to be Bubinga as well, a nice pretty wood. I almost did not stitch Howy's (of Albion) deerskin wrap back on because it is so purty. I have watched my XIIIa bow to extreme as others have batted bottles. I have frequently laid the point against a table to show the public its spring (never going futher than need be). The sword is more than seven years in my hands and still a favorite for cutting unpegged mat stumps and empty cracker boxes. That wafer thin and spatulate point trucks on. The slightly longer gripped XIIa is becoming a real favorite too.
The A&A GBS did nick cutting a #10 food can, end to end as if it wasn't there. The rolled edges of the can put almost imperceptible nicks in the blade but they were there (dressed out in a couple of strokes). I'm still tempted to photo the tips of my A&A swowwrds to compare to the poor tweaked Henry V swords we saw this season. Mike posted a shot of the prototype, which is more what I would have expected. My quite thin Edward III blade from them, mounted more generically, has proven to be a tough and voracious blade as well.
Where am I going with all this? Not really sure except I am seeing an awful lot of absolutes tossed around and much like the sword handling threads, maybe a bit of overthinking by both the consumers and makers. Albion was a fan of needly points as well. then John Clements bent one, then others voiced their concern. What started as an excuse as possible heat treatment failure was more a re-consideration of how future blades got ground. Peter and Albion simply had to accept that folk weren't going to be using and handling these race horses with the precept of unarmored combat in mind. Gus also had gone through the same types of feedback and adjustments we continue to see from G2, Hanwei, DarkSword, et al.
I had started a thread elsewhere, long ago, about the modern and seemingly knowledgable sword market perhaps expecting a bit much from any of the reproductions. This was actually a sounding board for some notes from Craig Johnson of A&A, who would write the nice article about historic swords, hosted at myArmoury in the following years. Even before that, he had done a nice article on armor (1999, iirc). Some of these folk have been at it a good long time and have always had to balance feedback with realistic expectation.
Gus used to be kind of a "go ahead, see if you can kill it" kind of maker but even early on was paying a lot of attention to the market. If his edges seem to run a little too sharp and thin, it is because that is the general expectation of use. Conversely he has done some real bone breakers as well. I still sort of have a hankering for a 1423 (XIIIa heavy) but the GBS came along and filled my big bad sword niche. The 1423 and some of the 3/8 inch stock swords were in part an answer to folk complaining his swords were too light.
Cheers
Hotspur; excuse the ramble
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