Belesarius Posted August 15, 2016 Report Share Posted August 15, 2016 Welp. That looks like an expensive failure. CrashbotUS 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted August 15, 2016 Report Share Posted August 15, 2016 Just in case Sturg is contemplating a UK trip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R62TPFzBQ40 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted August 15, 2016 Report Share Posted August 15, 2016 Catastrophic failure. Helmet 1, sword 0 CrashbotUS 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted September 16, 2016 Report Share Posted September 16, 2016 Man at Arms weebs out again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q598DP27tGA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belesarius Posted September 16, 2016 Report Share Posted September 16, 2016 Man at Arms weebs out again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q598DP27tGA Sturgeon and LoooSeR 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted October 4, 2016 Report Share Posted October 4, 2016 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sturgeon Posted October 4, 2016 Author Report Share Posted October 4, 2016 As interesting as their shop is, I really have a hard time with all the modern shit they use to make those blades. Seriously, using a fucking belt sander on a repro Ulfberht? You couldn't have broken out the emory cloth and done it by hand, even if just for the final polish?I shouldn't be ornery about it, but it ruins something about the presentation and the product, to me.Oh well, at least it's not "hurr durr cut it out of stock!" like the original series. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted October 20, 2016 Report Share Posted October 20, 2016 Knife rather than a sword, but this is a pretty spectacular fuck you to your professional association: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTFLsvennxM Belesarius 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donward Posted March 5, 2017 Report Share Posted March 5, 2017 Information on a 3,000 year old Bronze age weapons cache found in Carnoustie, Scotland which includes a well-preserved sword, remains of a scabbard and a gold gilded spearpoint. https://www.archaeology.wiki/blog/2017/02/20/carnoustie-bronze-age-hoard/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sturgeon Posted July 17, 2017 Author Report Share Posted July 17, 2017 An actually decent effortpoast on the difference between pattern welding and wootz steel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted August 7, 2017 Report Share Posted August 7, 2017 I kind of like the idea of a billy club that turns into a sword: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted August 31, 2017 Report Share Posted August 31, 2017 Skallagrim discovers the Tsonga war axe: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mogensthegreat Posted September 13, 2017 Report Share Posted September 13, 2017 Weebs are bad people. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted September 19, 2017 Report Share Posted September 19, 2017 I can't remember where we put all the iron making links, so this goes here: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Collimatrix Posted October 24, 2017 Report Share Posted October 24, 2017 Lloyd has a video on these interesting short Chinese swords: This article has more, including a summary of some historical examples. It appears that historical examples of the weapons had a much wider variety of blade shapes than the relatively standardized form used by modern Wing Chun practitioners. Belesarius 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted August 12, 2018 Report Share Posted August 12, 2018 Kukri making: Very cool, but the quenching step is wild. Collimatrix and Sturgeon 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Collimatrix Posted September 2, 2018 Report Share Posted September 2, 2018 Just got around to watching the above. I noticed a few things: -The Khukri's shape allows two blade blanks to be cut out of the same piece of steel plate (leaf springs from a vehicle, I'm guessing) head to toe. -Fullers look like they would have been a stone cold bitch to make on historical swords made without the benefit of electric grinders. -GAAAAHHH the lack of safety equipment and fixtures when making the handle made my hair stand up. -The material makes some fascinating sounds when the tang is inserted into the handle. -The blade edge is quenched using the POWER OF TEAPOTS? I see that the Nepalese were sly, and learned from their imperial masters. -The cho is added rather unceremoniously using a grinder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted September 2, 2018 Report Share Posted September 2, 2018 15 minutes ago, Collimatrix said: Just got around to watching the above. I noticed a few things: -The Khukri's shape allows two blade blanks to be cut out of the same piece of steel plate (leaf springs from a vehicle, I'm guessing) head to toe. -Fullers look like they would have been a stone cold bitch to make on historical swords made without the benefit of electric grinders. -GAAAAHHH the lack of safety equipment and fixtures when making the handle made my hair stand up. -The material makes some fascinating sounds when the tang is inserted into the handle. -The blade edge is quenched using the POWER OF TEAPOTS? I see that the Nepalese were sly, and learned from their imperial masters. -The cho is added rather unceremoniously using a grinder. Fullers can be hammered in, but otherwise I agree. From what I know about forging these things shouldn't be properly hardened, let alone tempered. The colour on the blade before quenching is way too low according to what I know. Which is probably all for the best, given how they go about quenching. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted September 9, 2018 Report Share Posted September 9, 2018 Spears rule: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted September 16, 2018 Report Share Posted September 16, 2018 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Collimatrix Posted April 12, 2019 Report Share Posted April 12, 2019 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted May 18, 2019 Report Share Posted May 18, 2019 Another reminder of why steel was so expensive: Belesarius 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Collimatrix Posted May 23, 2019 Report Share Posted May 23, 2019 On 5/18/2019 at 2:00 AM, Toxn said: Another reminder of why steel was so expensive: And another reason why polearms were usually the bulk of weapons, and why most Japanese arms didn't get the full "folded a thousand times" treatment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toxn Posted May 23, 2019 Report Share Posted May 23, 2019 1 hour ago, Collimatrix said: And another reason why polearms were usually the bulk of weapons, and why most Japanese arms didn't get the full "folded a thousand times" treatment. Agreed. On a side note: the 'folded a thousand times' thing confuses me more and more given what I know about the history of iron working. Most celtic swords were 'folded' and by the late Roman/early medieval era you've pretty much hit the peak of what can be accomplished with bloomery steel. So the japanese process for producing workable steel was basically the same as for any late iron-age smithing process using bloomery steel (although using incredibly poor ore ito of yield), but done in a period where bloomery steel was at least 500 years out of date. That's insane - it's like me going around wanking off to the superiority of Aztec weapons because of the cutting power of obsidian. And yet we all just sit there and clap along because 'craftsmanship and tradition' or something. I know I've gone on about this before, but It's just a really odd cultural tic and it keeps being fascinating to see just how resilient it is. Orientalism has some sort of potent memetic power that just straight-up inverts most of our cultural biases, and I'd love to know why. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sturgeon Posted May 23, 2019 Author Report Share Posted May 23, 2019 6 hours ago, Toxn said: Agreed. On a side note: the 'folded a thousand times' thing confuses me more and more given what I know about the history of iron working. Most celtic swords were 'folded' and by the late Roman/early medieval era you've pretty much hit the peak of what can be accomplished with bloomery steel. So the japanese process for producing workable steel was basically the same as for any late iron-age smithing process using bloomery steel (although using incredibly poor ore ito of yield), but done in a period where bloomery steel was at least 500 years out of date. That's insane - it's like me going around wanking off to the superiority of Aztec weapons because of the cutting power of obsidian. And yet we all just sit there and clap along because 'craftsmanship and tradition' or something. I know I've gone on about this before, but It's just a really odd cultural tic and it keeps being fascinating to see just how resilient it is. Orientalism has some sort of potent memetic power that just straight-up inverts most of our cultural biases, and I'd love to know why. It is in fact so bizarre a thing to tout that professional idiots like Lindybeige have made their careers on refuting it. From what I understand, worship of the Oriental martial arts in general comes from the fact that they were the only ones to bother preserving their pre-gunpowder fighting methods, while the Europeans (who had their own - and often superior - martial arts) moved on to making war the proper way, with guns. The reason the Oriental techniques got so venerated wasn't because the Euros were shit at fighting, it was because they were shit at archaeology (at the time). They just didn't know very much about their own obsolete fighting arts from centuries prior, and this allowed the undoubtedly unique and beautiful and nigh-on useless Eastern ways to capture their fascination. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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