It's not without relief that I finally present you this pair of swords, one of my longest ongoing projects - now complete !
The making of these didn't go smoothly, and included blood and breakdowns among other things - but all of it is now in the past. And now here they are :
A pair of Dueling Swords for fighting in Armour.
Custom made to the user's measurements following Philippo di Vadi's precise words in his book (MS Vitt. Em. 1324 (1482-1487)) :
"La spada da conbatere in arme vole avere la sotoscrita forma cioé la sua longeza vole arivare el pomo sotto el bracio, tagliare quatro dita in punta, el suo manico vole eser de una spana. L’elzo vol esere longo qua(n)to è il manico de la spada: e vol esere aguzo da ogni lato, e similmente vol esere aguz o il pomo per possere ferire con ognuno de questi."
Both are therefore about 149 cm long (customer is tall...)
The "sharpened" (though here blunted for safety purposes) part at the point is therefore 39 cm long, while both hand-forged spring steel blades are about 109 cm, starting at 8,5 mm thickness and tapering down to 5 ; grips are 30 cm.
They weight about 2400 grams each - though I'll have to measure again at my scales at the shop are working funny sometimes. PoB is about 13 cm down the blade, which is quite correct for such big swords.
The idea was to get practice tools that would be sturdy and withstand the abuse of full-on armoured fighting - they are therefore rather stiff, but will allow the full range of techniques presented by Philippo di Vadi.
Grips are leather over cord over wood, and to differentiate between the two, one was given a "S" cord wrap, while the other got a "Z".
