You do if you want to cut to the head of the queue.
By the way, if he’s not sporting a monocle with that cane, he’s not doing it right.
Creepily, Matt seems to have a new video that hits on Thesper’s question pretty directly.
I’m about to buy a Cold Steel Small Sword from Amazon, since I randomly was looking and noticed they are 50% off. Eek!
For Home Defence?
I’m betting it’s for the upcoming war with the Elven race. Aren’t they allergic to cold steel?
“Crom is strong! If I die, I have to go before him, and he will ask me, ‘What is the riddle of steel?’ If I don’t know it, he will cast me out of Valhalla and laugh at me.” ~Conan the Barbarian
“…that is Crom, strong in his mountain of power, he laughs at the four winds!”
“But my god is greater, he is the everlasting wind and sky, your god sits beneath him”
Cue one of the best acted frowns by Arnie (as Conan). Either he is dealing with this truth, or is determining if he should kill the blasphemer (i’ve never been sure). A great film.
Well, after 4 months of pining over it, I finally had saved up enough to pick up this bad boy. Ordered! I got it with the scabbard, and sharpened, and after speaking with the guys at DSA directly on the phone I feel pretty good about the order. Those guys seems pretty passionate to say the least.
Hereis a product video! They only put these up fairly recently.
Nice girth. Lovely rounded bulbous end. A mans weapon.
But seriously, nice looking blade, and you are allowed to have them sharp where you are? (we are not in the uk, i think maybe unless you are in a registered club or some such).
Well, I can have a gun if I want here, so I assume a sharp sword is okay. I will look into permits or some other such ordinance though. Thanks!
I rather like it. Congrats.
Thanks! To celebrate, I’m cracking open the copy of Conan I’ve had forever and will watch it with my son tonight. He’s never seen it, but now he’s 14 and I don’t imagine anything in their will shock him (I’m thinking of that fairly explicit witch scene I didn’t even know existed thanks to years of only seeing the movie when it aired on TBS). Hopefully it holds up well! I’m fairly excited to show it to him.
You’re fine as long as you keep it in the house. Otherwise you’d need a Permit to Carry Weapons. Just don’t strap it on and walk the street. Or put it anywhere other than your trunk if you need to drive it someplace for some reason.
Beautiful weapon. Hope you enjoy it!
I haven’t finished with this topic yet, but that should warm us up a bit :)
Ok, apparently the internet has solved (or tried to) this debate re that new lightsaber. Let’s talk lightsabers, as i feel we can do more :)
The original lightsaber is an incredibly dangerous weapon, for it’s users (and their allies by their side) as much as anyone. But. You might get away with it with a lot of specific training in it’s safe use. Personally i’ve lost count on the amount of times i’ve stuffed up a move with my bastard sword (or other sword if not using my own), a self leg swipe being the most common mistake it seems. I can’t imagine what other injuries i would have picked up if i had small daggers sticking out from the end of my cross piece!
Anyway the lightsaber is very much a lone warrior type of weapon, not one for use in rank and file in a structured battleline. Even so the cost of a mistake is extremely high, so you would not start out your training with one (sorry George Lucas and Prequels). In a way it would probably have more in common with Kendo than a normal western sword method, the lack of a blocking cross-guard the biggest difference here (but also the pure self danger of the whole blade foremost in any style of use).
Not very practical in many ways, but the sheer power of the weapon might off set that if matched with long and specific (and safe!) training. A weapon of distinction for sure, and that does fit in with the Star Wars canon on this (Ben mentioned it etc).
Back to that new lightsaber, just no, sadly. Not only is it even more dangerous for the user (probably to be completely impractical from the hand and wrist injuries you would sustain in using it), but it would not even work properly as a blocking cross-guard because the lightsaber part of it starts an inch out from the grip, so the opposing lightsaber would simply slide down and cut through that non lightsaber part of the cross-guard. So this is very much a design in the vein of what a child might come up with, something that looks ‘cool’ but has no comprehension of how blades work and what their various parts do in the function of that weapon.
Overall i give this new lightsaber a 2/10. Based on it’s use and function of it’s design. (which also probably reflects well on what the new films are going to be like, the devil is in the detail etc).
(the original lightsaber gets 7/10, a few points deducted for the difficulty of use and potential for self harm, and inability to use in any kind of battle formation).
Applying real-world physics to fantasy pieces is always tricky. I agree with your assessment 100%, of course, but the problem is very similar to asking “who would win in a fight - Superhero X or Superhero Y?” because the answer is, “Depends on who wrote the story”.
In this case, there is a 0.00% chance that Sith Lord will ever injure himself using that sword, there is a 100% chance those cross guards end up coming into play at least once during a fight, and there is a really good chance the stark and memorable sword design will stick in kids’ heads for the rest of their lives and inform what toys they want for Christmas that same year, I’m sure.
So yeah, it’s a terrible weapon that neither you, I, nor anyone living in the real world would be advised to honestly even pick up and play around with. Fact. On the other hand, neither you, nor I, nor anyone living in the real world will be the ones to wield it.
I do wish the cross guard was a V shape, with the blade splitting off at the base, so it could actually FUNCTION as a cross guard (since as you pointed out, the machinery sticks out far enough to make that not really practical), which I feel would still serve all the same aesthetic purposes, but for some reason I was not consulted. :)
Lightsabers don’t slide though, they lock when they touch (as seen in every light saber battle ever, they bounce off each other or lock, they never slide down each other really). Plus the thing is probably made of cortosis or whatever that lightsaber-proof stuff is.
Lots of HEMA guys have talked about it on the internet and the general consensus is that it wouldn’t really be a threat to the user (or at least not anymore than a lightsaber would be - and a lightsaber would be insanely dangerous to the user, which is basically solved by The Force). It’s a ton safer and more viable than Darth Maul’s saber and no one really wigged out about that thing.
i did ;) @ Darth Maul (fullstop)
My sword arrived! It’s very cool, but … um, it’s not quite what I expected. For one thing, it’s actually not sharpened (a service that my invoice shows I was charged for). I couldn’t even cut through a cardboard OJ container or a plastic coke bottle. Kinda strange. I ran my thumb along the blade and it’s definitely not sharp.
The most worrying/concerning thing is the blade itself isn’t the one I wanted. I saw several blades that came to a more pronounced, tapered point and dismissed those when researching what sword to buy, as they are a style I don’t really enjoy as much a broader tip. That’s why I picked the two-handed Norman sword to begin with! Here is a picture of my blade side-by-side with the image from the product page (that I linked in my OP - mine book-end the product shot). Note the fuller stops just past the half-way mark on the sword blade I got while in the product photo, it extends quite a bit further up. I really liked that!
I sent an e-mail to the DSA information address and I hope to hear from them. I have no idea how this can be rectified, or if maybe they just changed the style of blade on the 2-handed Norman and didn’t update their product photos or something? The sword is itself just a delight, I just wish it was what I had paid for.