The official Mythic Scribes Swords Club! =)

[Sheilawisz]

Hello everyone!

What an incredible Christmas present that sword is, Malik. Congratulations! I was hoping that my ATC would arrive in time for my birthday, but I will have to wait until late January or even February. I have heard a lot of conflicting opinions about Windlass... Some say that they suck, others that they are great... What do you think?

What other swords do you have?

That's a very nice Fantasy sword Steerpike! Yeah, some Fantasy blades have very unusual and even crazy designs but others are realistic and functional. I think that Stormbringer is alright, even though my favorite Fantasy sword is definitely Glamdring the sword of Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

I love your new avatar, by the way =)

Thanks to the Zombie Tools website, I have learned that any oil is good for swords but the classic 3 in 1 gets recommended in particular. I still do not see the need to use it on my blades, because they never develop any rust where I live, but I think that it's good to know this kind of things.

I have been practicing my bottle cutting again, but it seems that I need to sharpen my machetes a little bit more...

 

[Malik]

Hello everyone!What an incredible Christmas present that sword is, Malik. Congratulations! I was hoping that my ATC would arrive in time for my birthday, but I will have to wait until late January or even February. I have heard a lot of conflicting opinions about Windlass... Some say that they suck, others that they are great... What do you think?

Windlass makes a hell of a sword for the money. They're full-tang, good steel, and functional. Because they're mass-produced, they can be hit and miss on the edge geometry and fit/finish but even the dogs they make clean up nicely. This one needed no work. The edge is straight, the fittings are tight, it's sharp as hell.

I've heard a lot of crap talked about them: they rattle, the scabbards are junk, the guards are cast-iron and break. This Windlass that I have is a perfectly functional, solid, utilitarian piece. The scabbard is well-made, the fit and finish is nice, and they threw in a frog. I have no complaints. I don't expect to win any cutting competitions or beauty contests with it, and I sure as hell wouldn't bet my life on it -- it's not a Tinker or Atrim, but it's also not a $1500 sword -- but as something to hang on the wall, take outside to occasionally work out with, and just hold in my hand and think through a scene, it's perfect. Flip this sucker around in your hand a couple of times and you can't not write. It's as much sword as I need right now.

 

[Sheilawisz]

Hello everyone!

Yeah, sorry for taking a long time to post again here in the Swords Club thread. I have not been feeling well these days, but it's time to get back into some Mythic Scribes activity here. I wanted to share a picture of my two machetes, taken in my backyard some days ago. Here they are!



I included a can of coca-cola for size comparison. The smaller machete is 18 inches blade, 23 inches total and it's my favorite because it feels just right for my height and strength. The big beast is 24 inches blade (29 total length) and I love it too, but it's quite more difficult to wield properly at least for me.

They came with very rough edges from the factory, but thanks to my whetstone I have made them so sharp that they can cut a piece of paper easy and clean. They slice through the water bottles easily too, and they ring very nice as well! The brand Truper is alright I think, but I want to try machetes from other manufacturers in the future.

I'll post pictures of my C.S. ATC when it finally arrives!

Thanks for telling me good information about Windlass, Malik. Quite some years ago I was obsessed with obtaining the Auray Sword from Windlass, which is discontinued now, but it was impossible back then. I'll have to ask my Agent if he can get some Windlasses and bring them here, because they are not in his business catalogue, so we shall see...

The Windlass Shamshir attracts me a lot.

What do you think of Cold Steel? It seems that people either love C.S. or hate them with passion. I am not sure why there is so much hate against Cold Steel, and the same thing happens with them that happens with Windlass: Some people say that they are strong and durable swords, while others say that they are crap and they become all unstable and rattly even after moderate use.

I also heard that C.S. swords are actually Windlass products, who knows!

Anyway, I am very happy with my CS Italian. I know that the ATC is manufactured by a tools company in South Africa, and all reviews say that it's a wonderful thing, and I cannot wait to have it. I may even purchase more ATC's and give them to my friend Angélica and her husband because they live in the forest, if I like mine enough.

Which is your favorite swords company?

 

[Sheilawisz]

Today I have another picture!



Those are two of my handcrafted Aluminum swords. They are made from 6060-T6 aluminum, which is a good alloy for blades even though there is another that is better for this purpose. They are a bit more than one meter long, light and fast, easy to use... one is already sharpened, and the other not yet.

My aluminum blades can cut through garden bushes and pumpkins easily, but I have never tried them against more difficult targets.

I made these two swords a long time ago, and still I cannot decide what to wrap their handles with. The idea is to visit some leather experts and order two leather sheathes made for them, this year I hope! Aluminum is a nice metal, with looks more silver-like than steel, and it never develops any rust even in difficult climates.

You can polish it easily with ordinary toothpaste, I love that metal.

 

[Russ]

The other great thing about aluminum is that it sparks now and then when you are fighting against another aluminum sword and the kids are various demonstrations just love that!

 

[Malik]

Which is your favorite swords company?

I don't know from companies. I have handled a couple of Albions that have made me want to rob a bank. They're also ~$2000 a pop. Personally, I like any full-tang, raw-forged, backyard beater. I wouldn't know what to do with a $2000 sword.

My favorite swordmakers are Tinker Pearce and Angus Trim. I'm biased, as Tinker is my good friend, and I think that he makes the best swords in the world at his price point. They're not necessarily always the stunning, breathtaking, "holy shit, that thing has to be magic" swords that you'd get from Gus on a custom job -- though Tinker has done some jaw-dropping custom work; he just generally goes for function over wow factor -- but he makes solid, functional, beautifully balanced swords with amazing edges. It helps that Tinker is arguably one the best Western-style swordsmen on the planet, so all his pieces are just kinetically spectacular.

You can get some Tinker reproductions through Hanwei at a reasonable discount, and Kult of Athena sells some Atrim (Angus Trim) pieces for about the same price. Of course, they're mass-produced, so you don't get the fit and finish of a custom piece.

A Tinker Type XII:

An Angus Trim Type Xa with his hallmark black fuller:

 

[Malik]

Check this out. 3D printed hilt and furniture.

 

[Sheilawisz]

Hello everyone!

Thanks for the guidance in sword options, Malik. I have visited the website of my Imports Agent again, and it so happens that he is the official distributor for Hanwei products here in Mexico. I checked out his Hanwei catalogue, and after thinking about it for some time I have decided that the Tinker Longsword will very probably become my next sword purchase.

I do not know how much it would cost yet, but soon I'll ask him about that. The prices at the Kult of Athena site are very attractive, so perhaps the final cost for me would be about the same as the CS Longsword. The Tinker looks great! It has good reviews in the Internet, people really like it. I would have to sharpen it myself though, but it would be interesting to learn how to sharpen swords.

I have a question regarding your Windlass German Bastard Sword: What are those side rings for? That is not the first sword with rings that I have seen, but I have no idea what is their purpose. Are they for hand protection, like the crossguard?

Do you have cutting videos?

Russ: Wow, I did not know that about aluminum swords! I believe that it must be a phenomenon unique to the 7075-T6, because it just does not happen with the alloy that I have worked with.

Maybe I'll try to make bronze swords next, someday.

 

[Russ]

I have sparred with the Tinker longsword. I am confident that you will enjoy it.

 

[Malik]

I didn't get video, but here's the aftermath. This was a 1L bottle full of water. The sword knocked it over -- it's an appleseed edge, like a small splitting maul, so it carries a hell of a lot of force. There's not really the sense of slicing through the top as much as exploding the bottle in half, but it cut the top pretty cleanly for such a big sword. I'll touch up the edge and maybe get some video a little later.

The rings are for hand protection, as I understand it. I'm not a huge fan of them, as the first knuckle of my index finger rests against them where they extend from the quillons when I'm working a pell one-handed. it starts to hurt after a bit and I could see a heavy blow landing wrong and breaking a finger. It's more a function of the immense weight of the blade being carried so far forward than the design of the rings, though. You have to choke up on the handle really far to get it to move. If the COG was three inches lower or the blade was half a pound lighter I don't think it would be an issue, and two-handed it's not a problem. A heavy glove also fixes the issue, but it's been raining a lot here and a wet glove, on a wet leather handle, on a heavy sword, is a good way to end up in the ER.

 

[Russ]

You are completely right about those rings being a hazard to your fingers. Do be careful with that.

 

[Malik]

You are completely right about those rings being a hazard to your fingers. Do be careful with that.

Definitely a sword designed to be used with a gauntlet. With two hands, though, wow. The tip moves really quick with that much relative leverage, and it carries a hell of a punch. Nearly a quarter of the sword is handle.

 

[Russ]

Definitely a sword designed to be used with a gauntlet. With two hands, though, wow. The tip moves really quick with that much relative leverage, and it carries a hell of a punch. Nearly a quarter of the sword is handle.

One hand technique is highly overrated. I fight with two hands on my sword whenever possible when I am fighting seriously.

 

[Sheilawisz]

I have received a few messages from my Imports Agent, and the news are both good and bad.

The good news is that I can get a Tinker Longsword at the very low price of 410 U.S. Dollars, which is much more affordable than the price that I imagined it would be. After all, I paid 600usd for my CS Italian Longsword back in July of 2015.

I have decided to eventually purchase it, some time after the All Terrain Chopper =)

The bad news are that my Agent's business is inactive at the moment because of the financial situation and speculations, and this means that I'll have to wait for my ATC some more time. Well, meanwhile I can play with my Truper machetes and also I have time to decide whether I want to actually use my CS Italian for serious cutting or not...

Tonight I have another picture!



That's my beautiful Longsword, resting on my bed. The picture was taken a few days after I received it, and there you can also see my Harry Potter wand (inside of its wooden container!) and my Frozen DVD.

My room combines plushies and perfumes with machetes and swords... I am a strange lady, I know =)

 

[Sheilawisz]

After taking a look at pictures of various styles of swords equipped with those weird side rings, I have come to the conclusion that they are quite undesirable for both aesthetic and functional reasons.

I already thought that they looked terrible, but after hearing from you guys how dangerous they can be for your hands during sword practice I think Why do sword manufacturers keep making models with those rings? I know that they are there for historical accuracy, but still it would be better to forget about them.

In case that I ever purchase a sword with side rings, I would just hacksaw them off and then file whatever portions that remain until the crossguard looks just ordinary. Those rings are a bad idea!

Do you have experience with Darksword Armory swords?

I have visited their site a few times, they make some really nice blades. The one that I like the most is the Danish Sword, a literally huge and wicked-looking longsword that I would love to own. Some people say that Darksword Armory are great, but others say that there are many troubles with those swords.

This is a great video of the Danish Sword cutting:

[video=youtube_share;kAFVzEkIImc]https://youtu.be/kAFVzEkIImc[/video]

I am not sure how difficult it is to cut those rolled mats or whatever that they are, but those double cuts look quite formidable.

 

[Malik]

DSA is having a problem with its tangs right now. A few members on a sword group I belong to on FB have taken apart their DSA swords and found "full tangs" so small and weak that they might as well be a rat-tail. Super dangerous. I have no firsthand experience with DSA, but this is turning into something of a scandal in the sword-geek community. I'd stay away from DSA.

As some of you know, a real tang should look like this (these are Angus Trim blades awaiting hardware):

 

[Malik]

And FYSA, a REALLY bad tang looks like this:

Not a DSA blade, but some stainless POS "ninja sword" bought at a mall.

 

[Malik]

^^ Also, not my sword. Just a pic I found on a search for "rat tail tang."

 

[Sheilawisz]

Thanks for the information Malik!

It's really shocking that a well-known company like Darksword Armory has made such a serious mistake in sword engineering, I hope they fix that problem soon and restore their fame and reputation. Some of their sword models are so nice, it would be great indeed to own one of their Danish swords someday.

I take a long time to post here in the Swords Club, sorry for that.

I have been posting very little in the Forums in general because I concentrate my computer time on my story, and also I have not been feeling well in terms of health, but I'll remain active here at least for some more time.

No news yet about the arrival of my All Terrain Chopper, but at least I got a new machete yesterday!

It's a Truper too, but the grip is black instead of orange since these are the new models. The blade shape is also different, though just slightly, and it seems to be lighter and easier to wield than my previous Trupers. I still have to sharpen it a lot because the factory edges are awful, but it will be a great machete after I have finished with it.

I have a few more questions: Do you oil your blades often? Is the formation of rust really bad if somebody lives at a humid climate, and they do not keep their swords covered in oil most of the time?

Still no rust on my beautiful Longsword, and I have never oiled it after having removed the original oil that it came with.

 

[Sheilawisz]

Hooray and double hoorays!

After a very long wait that was necessary thanks to the complicated process of importations, my very lovely and extremely intimidating All Terrain Chopper from Cold Steel has arrived at its new home at last. I received it yesterday, and just as promised now I am going to share a few pictures here.



The first picture displays the ATC beast, together with my most recent Truper machete for size comparison. The Truper is 18 inches blade and 23 total, and still it looks tiny beside the great All Terrain Chopper which measures 21 and a half inches blade and 30 and a half inches of total length.

An even more noticeable difference between them is the sheer mass and power of the weapon. The ATC is heavy, actually so heavy that I cannot wield it with only one hand. My father has been using machetes since he learned how to walk, and he was very quick to point out that the ATC is not suitable for field work simply because it's too much power.

I think that the All Terrain Chopper is very similar to a Dadao (Chinese war sword) and it's a weapon, even if it gets marketed as a machete simply because you can hack loads of wood with it.

Now, second picture:



Here you can see my ATC alone. The marks that are visible near the tip of the blade are there because I already used it to chop the hell out of a large piece of pine plywood, 9mm thick. Just a few blows caused catastrophic damage, wood splinters were flying everywhere (yeah, I was wearing safety glasses!) and I have only little physical strength.

The All Terrain Chopper cost me only 60 usd. For those of you living in the U.S. or Canada, I think the price is just 30. So if you want a hell of a monstrous blade that will hack and destroy pretty much anything you want, then by all means go and order an ATC! You are going to love this fascinating and deadly beast.

Third picture coming in a few minutes!