Sword Questions

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swede79

Joined
Jan 30, 2001
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Ok, after reading Razor's post, I have a couple of sword questions:

1. How is the length measured, overall (including handle), or just the cutting edge?

2. What are some good quality sword manufacturer's that you would trust for self defense? I see Criswell and Paul Chen, any others?

Thanks!
 
Hi Swede,

<b>1. How is the length measured, overall (including handle), or just the cutting edge?</b>

Length is often expressed either both ways, or one specified.
For example you may see an ad for a rapier that says "45 inches overall with a 38 inch blade." That's pretty self explanatory, but if you see an ad that just says 42 inches long, assume this is overall length.

<b>2. What are some good quality sword manufacturer's that you would trust for self defense? I see Criswell and Paul Chen, any others?</b>

What type of swords are you looking for, specifically?
 
What kind of swords, hmm.., after reading Razor's post, I guess one's that won't break in a self-defense situation.

I guess you can tell I know nothing about swords except "pointy end out", but reading that thread made me start thinking. Folks were saying that for self defense, you should save your money and buy a decent quality sword. How do you know what that would be? Are there books, industry testing, or is it pretty much common knowledge? Or should I do a search on "sword breakage"?

I'm really not trying to be sarcastic, it's just that when I read things like that, I think, "How do I know a good sword from a bad/cheap sword?"

By the way, I did see a picture of that fellow from Bugei in the last Blade magazine. He certainly looked like he knew what he was doing, they had a picture of him cutting through the rolled mats, it looked like a Home Run to me!!!:D
 
Folks were saying that for self defense, you should save your money and buy a decent quality sword.

Not to pick up a tired old refrain too much but I think what folks were saying if given no option they would not choose a stainless piece of junk for self defense. If you are interested in self defense you should really save your money for a gun not a sword.

"How do I know a good sword from a bad/cheap sword?"

That is a pretty good question and the short answer is you have to learn what makes a good sword. There are a lot of factors that come into play. Stainless is bad (with a very few exceptions) carbon steel is good. Heavy is very bad. Blade geometry is important as is distal taper. Blade harmonics do matter. A good heat treatment is essential... and on and on and on.
 
Swede, as far as my poor experience goes, the final qualification of a sword is up to you with your whole background, skill, aesthetic, and style. Some very knowledgeable guy may and will gladly help you, but it's your money (or, life?), not his! If there's no quality difference recognized between sword A and sword B in your eye, there IS no difference for you indeed.

Triton said heavy is very bad. It must be true to him. Some swordmasters told me the same. But they also told me, newbies (with practice less than tens ofyears) should have heavier sword for
a) it has more inertia that assists cutting power.
b) it gives more accuaracy. Its centrifugal force stables the sword in right orbit.
c) beafier blade is less likely to break under inadequate cutting angle. As the practitioner's level is lower, cutting angle may be shallower to put lateral force onto the blade.
d) longer blade reaches further. They told me extra speed that can be gained by light sword does not compensate for reach until I'll be WELL trained (like them).

Hope this helps to get better and more precise criteria for you.

P.S. sword swinging should not turn the blade. Even if it looks like home run, there are applied quite different techniques.
 
Originally posted by WrongFriend

Triton said heavy is very bad. It must be true to him. Some swordmasters told me the same. But they also told me, newbies (with practice less than tens ofyears) should have heavier sword for
a) it has more inertia that assists cutting power.
b) it gives more accuaracy. Its centrifugal force stables the sword in right orbit.
c) beafier blade is less likely to break under inadequate cutting angle. As the practitioner's level is lower, cutting angle may be shallower to put lateral force onto the blade.
d) longer blade reaches further. They told me extra speed that can be gained by light sword does not compensate for reach until I'll be WELL trained (like them).

Hope this helps to get better and more precise criteria for you.

P.S. sword swinging should not turn the blade. Even if it looks like home run, there are applied quite different techniques.
Click to expand...

Thank you, WrongFriend! Great points! I was told by a Kumdo master (Korean sword) several years ago that a heavier sword (within reason) is much more effective a weapon for anyone other than a master swordsman. His English was poor, so his explanation wasn't as clear as yours. One point I remember was his assertion a light blade will want to "flutter" slightly (imperceptivity) and greatly reduce the cutting power.

Anyway, thanks for the good advice!
 
Good, modern, short swords for self defense depend on your budget. As far as customs, Jerry Hossom has some unbelievable stuff in the $600-$1200 range. The Szabo/Black Cloud short sword is nice, also.
Moving on down the price list, Mineral Mountain Hatchet Works has a few very nice models to choose from in the $250 range. They can be quite heavy, though. Also in this range are the Criswells, which for that price range are awesome.
Moving on down a little farther, I particularly like the 20" King Kobra by Himalayan Imports. On the bottom end of the price scale are the Blackwind swords by Ontario. These can be found for well under $100. They are not bad at all for the price and I have two of them that I have rehandled myself. I was not very fond of the cord wrapping so I drilled and put scales on the tang. Turned out very well.
On the "shorter" side of "short sword", also worth mentioning is the Junglee Short Sword (under $70) and the Maringer Vorpal is very nice if you can find one. The customs are pricey but the Blackjack models can be had for quite a bit less.
I have all of the models mentioned above except the Vorpal and the Szabo, and although I would probably trust all of them in a self defense situation, my favorites are the Criswells and my Hossom Gaijin Wakizashi. The Hossom is simply in a league of its own.

Peace-
Cam
 
Wouldn't happen to have a picture of that Gaijin Wakizashi would you?
~drool~
:D

C'mon, how bout it? Just one little pic.
Puhleeeeese?????????
 
Ken-
If you do a search, there is a pic of it on here somewhere.... I will try to find it and I will post if I do.
The waki has a 20" blade and is superbly balanced.

Cam

Edit-
Can't find the pic that was posted on BF but here is a pic of it at Jerry's site.

http://hossom.com/gallery/page8.html

It is towards the bottom of the page. There are quite a few other short swords featured there as well as many of Jerry's outstanding pieces.
 
I have a question here. I have always understood that stainless steels were BAD for swords, yet here is a smith of quite some reknown making a sword of CPM3V, one of the newer crucible particle stainless steels. Is there something about this, and perhaps other CPM steels, about which I should know? I am familiar with CPM440V in several of my knives and know that it is particularly sensitive to heat treating, but how do you make a sword of a similar steel?
 
Hugh,

It is my understanding that some stainless steels can be turned into a sword if they are heat treated properly. However 440C which is what most stainless swords are made of is not the right steel and typically those swords have NO heat treatment.
 
Stainlesses are commonly thought to be bad for swords because of the chemical composition. Nickle and Chromium in conventional stainless steels is thought to be detrimental in that it serves to be a grain boundary.

However, some makers can make tough (and fair edge-holding) stuff out of even conventional stainless like 440C. I personally don't care for it, though it's not an impossible task through appropriate heat treatment (as Triton said)

With the new CPM (Crucible Particle Metallurgy) steels, extra alloying elements such as chromium can be added and distributed more evenly throughout the steel. Any potential grain boundaries are mostly negated.

My guess is that the warnings against stainless steels are simply because the vast vast vast vast vast majority of stainless steel swords on the market are not very usable. I'm also guessing it's harder to make a good sword out of stainless (plus it's ugly).

Of course these are just guesses, I can't say with absolute certainty.
 
Hugh,
CPM-3V is an excellent choice for sword steel. It is of course, very expensive and expensive to work with, hence Jerry's increased price for that option. I've also heard of a few makers (can't recall who at the moment) that have had excellent results with D2!

As a matter of fact, BFC member "Ryu" finally took delivery of his Busse custom made "Dragon's Fang" sword, with INFI blade.
For a few pics, check here...
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=178136

What I wouldn't give to get my hands on this thing for a few days.
:eek:
:D
 
I don't know about CPM3V, but I do remember that various knifemakers encountered problems when they started to make knives with CPPM440V, to be very clearly distinguished from from 420C stainless, and it finally came down to the fact that most of them were hardening it much too far. They were taking it up to about Rc59-61 and it was chipping and breaking, but Spyderco worked on it more before they brought out knives made with it and they hardened it to around Rc56-57. Now, remember that the steel in CPM440V is really only a matrix for the Vanadium Carbide nodules that are distributed throughout the material, so that when you sharpen it, you wind up with a edge of these nodules, and that is why it is so very good at holding that edge. But, in return for this, you need to keep the matrix rather softer than with other steels, hence the lower Rc numbers. While there were the occasional reports of Spyderco blades denting or bending along the edge, none that I know of ever chipped.

How would this translate into a sword?
 
I was looking at the Everest Katana at Himalayan Imports just today. It looks pretty cool. I think this link here should get you a look at it.

Now, I know nothing about this piece. However, the folks over on the Himalayan Imports forum here at BFC are a good friendly bunch. If you want to know about it, you could post a question there and I'm sure you would get all of your questions asked. The piece linked there goes for 300 bux-ish with a fancy scabbard, and they have one with the standard scabbard for a hundred bux less. I've never seen any bad reviews on any of HI's products, so this may be worth going and looking at.
 
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