Starting young, help, play swords.

G

GREENJACKET

Joined
Feb 23, 2000
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My five year old son, Freddie, is into sword play big time and has been since the age of two. I blame the parents. No he couldn't have a "real" light sabre for Christmas.

We have now broken all types of commercial plastic swords. We have broken all my home made wood swords. Life expectancy of a wood sword is about two weeks. Wood shields are holding up well to the punishment. Crossguards are a must as the grown ups cannot take the pain from when Freddie pushes home an attack.

So, help needed: light weight practice blunt swords with crossguard than can take a pounding. Effective eye protection that doesn't alienate the user from their environment. Quilted padded jacket. Small sizes.

All suggestions gratefully received.

 
Have him make his own wood swords, just supply good material and a suitable knife. Thats the way to do it.
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If you don't want to buy from Purpleheart Armory, you could continue to make your own with a different choice of material. What have you been using? Hickory is a rather tough material and if a good specimen can be found for the sword, it should hold up fairly well. You may perhaps be interested in trying rattan also.

If you really want, you could just buy a bamboo shinai (you know, like for kendo) and make your own kind of crossguard for it.

Just a few options...
 
Unfortunately I've been using whatever I had lying around. The best was a sword from some seasoned pine!
You are right I should try a tougher wood. The trouble is locating some dry not green stuff. However, if too dry vibrations travel down through to the grip.

The Purpleheart Armory swords look fantastic. Are they as good as they look? I would think it would be a scarey price to get them into the UK.

The incentive is there to get my act together. Freddie has cleared the garden of dragons and monsters and he is now on a man hunt - which is me!
 
Well Im not sure if the wooden swords you want need to look a certain way but you could try Kris cutlery at www.kriscutlery.com In there philipine blade section they got some wooden practice swords for cheap prices, and they have some sticks made of good quality wood also for good prices.
 
Get some hockey gloves for your hands too! Not sure if a cross guard would be enough to withstand the savagry of a battle hungry 5 year old!
 
Hmm..he's definitely starting out young.To me,that's a good age to start learning.

If you're interested,there's a slew of medieval sites out there,and there's one main one which might help you.It has links to all sorts of sites,some of which I believe might have some wooden swords made specifically for kids.Try out www.execpc.com/~clisto/clisto
This guy links to eveything medieval that he can possibly find.
I know at our local renaissance festival there's a store that sells good wooden swords for kids in varying sizes.They're shaped in the styles of longswords & broadswords.They also have shields,although they're flat and kinda small.I don't remember if he has any larger ones.
The only other thing to think about is,you can actually get some theatrical blades.They're real blades,but completely dull and blunt tipped.They're good for learning,and will give a better weight for building strength & endurance.I think that site above has a link to Starfire Blades,give 'em a look and you might find some good stuff.

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*The* Lunatic Puppy
It wasn't me...It was my *good* twin..
 
There are a number of folks from Great Britain who post over on www.netsword.com and on www.swordforum.com. You might wish to ask over on those fora about wooden swords for kids, but do remember that the PurpleHeart swords for children are rather cheaper than his wasters for adults. Do look at them before you write him off altogether.

The children's swords are made of hickory and run 14" overall and cost $5.00 each + shipping.

[This message has been edited by FullerH (edited 03-27-2001).]
 
Thank you all. I'll check out Purpleheart and cost it up plus Brit stuff?! Once I have something I'll post my finding. Now its time to survive: its holiday time
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