Information and safety tips for sword collectors today.  This web page is an addendum to support my existing web pages about swords.

Yes we are living in the 21st century and the need for a good sword is as obsolete as the horse and cart, but to the arms and armor enthusiast, collector, historic re-enactor, martial artist, historic sword demonstrator, dramatic actor or just for historic education and curiosity then the sword still holds a lot of value.

There are a lot of swords available from various manufactures that can be sough over the internet. Some of the most popular and recommended are here.

UK UK USA USA
www.barringtons-swords.co.uk www.historicsupplies.co.uk www.swordmark.com www.weaponsemporium.com
USA UK USA USA
www.coldsteel.com www.coldsteel-uk.com www.hanweishop.com www.casiberia.com


I do not recommend that anyone buy a cheap sword for $20 to $50 or even slightly higher except for display purposes as a static wall-hanger as many of the fantasy swords are indeed just for display like the example below.

Under no circumstances should you ever practise slashing, cutting, stabbing anything, including water soaked rolled straw rice mats Tatami Omote in the art of Tameshigiri  or water filled soda bottles with a cheap sword or fantasy  sword as you are liable to sustain serious injury.  Blades can break or even come flying off the end of the handle as they are often criminally attached with  rats tail  slim spindles of cheap metal that are botch  welded to the blade rather than a full tang of a proper made more expensive sword.

Also, do not wield a sword if it is made from stainless steel, it may look pretty all polished and shined up but this metal is not strong enough and could break/shatter if swung and connects with a hard surface.  The sword below was advertised at $49.95, its has a cheap stainless steel blade with a plastic wood effect scabbard and moulded handle, it looks nice but is for display only.

All swords manufactured by the company of Denix are made from mild alloys, plastics and resins and are for decorative and display use only, and are usually advertised as such.  The metal blade might look good and strong but it definitely is not. A sword shaped object would be more fitting. But no comebacks on Denix as that is all they sell them as...display pieces, and if you understand this then buying a display wall-hanger  sword is fine.

A decent sword of reputable quality is made from 1055 carbon/spring steel and will cost $200 and upwards, these are generally safe for sword cutting practise.  They are normally advertised as Battle Ready.

No-one under the age of 18 should be left to handle a sword on their own, they must always be supervized by an adult, even a blunt sword can still jab into an eye, cut open a face,  maim or worse...kill.

Today's quality swords are made from 1055 steel, this steel is perfect as it is between a medium and a high carbon steel, with a carbon content between 0.50% to 0.60% and with manganese between 0.60% to 0.90% as the only other component. The carbon content and lean alloy make this a shallow hardening steel with a quenched hardness between Rc 60-64 depending on exact carbon content.

The modern 15th century mercenary sword made by CAS Hanwei  below is made from 1055 high carbon spring steel and retails for $220.00 It is battle ready and can easily cut and slash  Tatami Omote mats, and can slice through water filled soda bottles and hack hardboard targets with ease...all for just  150 bucks more than a display piece!

This combination of high carbon content factors as recently stated above make this one of the toughest steels available because, when quenched, it produces a near perfect saturated lathe martensite with no excess carbides, avoiding the brittleness of higher carbon materials.  This steel is particularly suited to applications where strength and impact resistance is valued above all other considerations and will produce blades of almost legendary toughness and suitable for all types of sword practise.

THE SWORD FULLER or BLOOD GROOVE

The article below is reproduced in full as written by renown swordsmith and blade expert Mr. Joe Talmadge

What is a Blood Groove For?

This question comes up every 8 months or so. The blood groove on a knife or sword is probably derived from the cut in channel present on swords, where it is called a fuller. There are some persistent myths floating around about the function of blood grooves, from  releases the vacuum when the knife is thrust into a person  to no functional use, purely decorative. Let's talk about these wrong answers first, before we talk about the right answers.

Wrong Answer #1: Releasing the Body Suction.  Basically, this theory postulates that the blood groove is present to facilitate withdrawing the knife from a person/animal. In this scenario, it is said that the animal's muscles contract around the knife blade, and that this causes a vacuum, which makes the knife difficult to withdraw. But on a knife with a blood groove, blood runs through the blood groove and breaks the suction, so the knife can be withdrawn with less difficulty.

One problem is that there's no evidence that this suction ever really happens. Also, over and over again people report that there is no difference whatsoever in the difficulty of withdrawing a knife with a blood groove vs. one without. This is one theory that has been tested and found wanting.

Yes, I realize you may have heard this myth from your deadly knife instructor, or read it in a book somewhere. But the experts agree that it is false. If your knife can cut its way in, it can just as easily cut its way out, with or without a blood groove.

And with that, I am going to change terminology from blood groove  to fuller, since we all now know the so-called blood groove is not playing a blood-channelling function.

Wrong Answer #2: Purely Decorative

There is a grain of truth to this one. Although a fuller does play a functional role, on a short knife the effect might be so small as to be insignificant. Many believe the fuller plays a strictly decorative role on knives or swords under 2 feet long. As the knife or sword gets bigger, the fuller plays an increasingly important role. On smaller knives, it is indeed probably just decorative.

Right Answers:

Okay, so what substantive role does the blood groove/fuller play? The bottom line is, it does two things:

1. It stiffens the blade 2. It lightens the blade

That first statement has been the subject of some controversy, with some people sending me equations purporting to show that the removal of material cannot make the blade stiffer. I will table for now the question of " does the blade get stiffer, in some absolute sense, due to the fuller? " Rather, I'll weaken the claim to say that the blade feels stiffer to the user who is waving it around, because it's stiffer for its weight.

I'll reproduce a post by Jim Hrisoulas which lays things out clearly (re-printed with permission):

When you fuller  or grove a blade, you do several things:

1: You lighten it by using less material, as the act of forging in the fuller actually widens the blade, so you use less material than you would if you forged an unfullered blade. (In stock removal the blade would also be lighter, as you would be removing the material instead of leaving it there).

2: You stiffen the blade. In an unfullered blade, you only have a "single" center spine. This is especially true in terms of the flattened diamond cross section common to most unfullered double- edged blades. This cross section would be rather whippy on a blade that is close to three feet long. Fullering produces two "spines" on the blade, one on each side of the fuller where the edge bevels come in contact with the fuller. This stiffens the blade, and the difference between a non-fullered blade and a fullered one is quite remarkable.

Fullers on knives do the same thing, although on a smaller blade the effects are not as easily seen or felt. Actually looking at fullers from an engineering point of view they really are a sophisticated forging technique, and it was the fullered sword blade that pointed the way to modern " I " beam construction.

When combined with proper distal tapers, proper heat treating and tempering, a fullered blade will, without a doubt, be anywhere from 20% to 35% lighter than a non-fullered blade without any sacrifice of strength or blade integrity.

Fullers were not blood grooves or there to break the suction or for some other grisly purpose. They served a very important structural function. That's all. I have spent the last 27 years studying this and I can prove it beyond any doubt..."

Source: Joe Talmadge Rec.knives Newsgroup May 1998

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