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Post by william m on May 13, 2015 10:44:11 GMT
Well I believe that for humanity to have any kind of long term future, we need to spread ourselves to the stars. There are too many threats on this planet that would lead to the end of everything we know. What are we.. 3 minutes to midnight on the Doomsday clock?
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Post by william m on May 13, 2015 7:46:47 GMT
That sword looks pretty good at first glance, however as with all DSA products they tend to fall apart when you start to look closely. Would we be able to look closer at the fit between the blade and guard?
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Post by william m on May 12, 2015 21:38:34 GMT
Haha, will it chop iron?
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Post by william m on May 12, 2015 21:29:50 GMT
Yup, I don't see the point in clones. The value in high priced knives is knowing that they have decent steel and excellent heat treat.
Chinese clones will have neither.
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Post by william m on May 9, 2015 22:18:35 GMT
Don't buy that one, its tourist trash.
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Post by william m on May 3, 2015 9:20:40 GMT
If you are happy with waiting a little while, deepeka are in the final stages of a new range of gladius swords, which IMO look fantastic! I will be buying one for sure.
I'm not sure if one is the Mainz or fullham though... We will know when they come out at some point this year!
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Post by william m on Apr 22, 2015 7:52:46 GMT
OK so the grip is dyed and looks pretty good, but now I have a chance to properly handle the sword and I am concerned that the grip is now too thick with the raisers and leather. It feels OK in my hand but is thicker than the grip on my Albion knight. Looking at the photos below do you think the grip is too thick for my hand size? Also is there an optimal width where say for example a good grip is where all the fingers can just about touch the palm when holding the sword in a hammer grip. Hammer grip
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Post by william m on Apr 20, 2015 15:53:14 GMT
Very nice Gonzalez! I have finally gotten around do looking to finish off the sword. For a while now I have been working on the blade by thinning it down and removing the triangular cross section near the tip. Sword grip with leather raisers. I also thinned and reshaped the grip too. Smothered it with wood glue. I used veg tan leather plus I took my time thinning out the joins, which took seemingly forever with my basic tools. This pic shows me using string tightly wrapped around the grip. All wrapped up now. This is the scary part as you don't know how it is going to turn out!! Luckily it seems to be pretty nice! I am going to do some work on the joins as there are a few bits where the leather crinkled up a little. Tonight I shall dye the leather grip and tidy it up. Will post pictures once that bit is done. :)
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Post by william m on Apr 16, 2015 7:26:15 GMT
I don't think that is true Driggers. By the time we had knights, steel was of a decent quality and nothing like the softer swords you had around in the 800's. I don't know where you got this from. There is nothing to back the claim that sword generally were of poorer quality in the 800s than in the 1300s or so. There have always been good, excellent and terrible swords, no matter the time. And that's true nowadays, too. Simply put, in the 800's steel was not great and was in very short supply, hence smiths having to use pattern welding techniques to make a good sword. However good swords were still a rarity, which is why you had legendary/magic swords, which were swords that just so happened to have the correct uniform carbon mix in the steel. Other swords, which did not had big areas of super brittle or super soft zones. Edit: Just realised we are going horribly off topic! ;-)
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Post by william m on Apr 15, 2015 17:16:16 GMT
I don't think that is true Driggers. By the time we had knights, steel was of a decent quality and nothing like the softer swords you had around in the 800's.
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Post by william m on Apr 15, 2015 10:22:47 GMT
Hmmm, well there we go then. :)
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Post by william m on Apr 15, 2015 9:45:02 GMT
I remember when I did some forging with Owen Bush, he showed us how tempering worked. We heated and wrongly tempered a metal file. The file was just tapped on an anvil and it shattered like glass. The grain was identical to your sword. If the grain was enlarged the way it is here, all the tempering in the world wouldn't have made a difference... tempering doesn't change grain size, really. That must be fine out of quench or you're in trouble. I suspect in your case it was just a demonstration of how glass-hard and fragile a blade can be out of the quench without tempering. I don't think so, I am pretty sure that I remember that the tempering we did on file did have a big affect on the grain size, which was the whole point of the demonstration. Any experienced smiths here, which can confirm either way?
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Post by william m on Apr 15, 2015 7:30:52 GMT
I remember when I did some forging with Owen Bush, he showed us how tempering worked. We heated and wrongly tempered a metal file. The file was just tapped on an anvil and it shattered like glass. The grain was identical to your sword.
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Post by william m on Apr 14, 2015 7:27:05 GMT
Hi Kammii,
I wouldn't say European swords in general are cheaper than Katanas but from what I have seen, it seems easier to make a good chinatana than a good western sword.
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Post by william m on Apr 9, 2015 12:36:19 GMT
I have a bit of a 'thing' for nihonto wakizashi. Nice and affordable but has all the parts of its older brother.
What I have noticed is that modern wakizashi almost always have oversized tsuka and that the blades on modern wakis don't tend to have much distal taper at all in comparison to the nihonto.
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Post by william m on Apr 6, 2015 20:40:56 GMT
Mikeeman hits it on the head. The tsuka is primarily a friction fit, so doing anything to reduce that is just silly. With rust the surface becomes more grippy.
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Post by william m on Apr 4, 2015 23:50:27 GMT
One thing you should keep in mind is that although sometimes these swords may look very good, be careful that the steel is often quite soft. You can see it on the dagger where the decorations have been punched in.
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Post by william m on Apr 1, 2015 8:32:36 GMT
Oh lovely, nicely done bringing the sword back to life. Grip looks very chubby.
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Post by william m on Mar 31, 2015 21:48:16 GMT
Whats happening to this forum. :/
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Post by william m on Mar 31, 2015 7:29:25 GMT
Euros and unsual things for me. I like katana but they are very samey as they are all pretty much the same type to me.
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