Hello,

Some of you may not be aware of the hollow pommel issue affecting some of our european sharp and practical models. In short, a (poor) change was made to pommel design at some time in the past to compensate for blade changes in the line. In some instances the pommels were hollowed to decrease weight. The issue came to light after we ran across some posts at SFI and later SBG (linked below), if you would like the full back story it is the place to start:

http://sbgswordforum.proboards70.com/index.cg...1174255940

We've gotten our first run of solid pommel Bastard Swords in with details in the link above.

We've also confirmed that all pommels on our european swords will be solid going forward. As with the Bastard Sword the switch to a solid pommel on the other affected models may warrant slight blade changes... won't know for sure until we start getting prototypes.

Blake

I'm looking forward to this change. I would have bought Bastard or Albrecht II if they had solid pommels but I couldn't wait for this to happen and ordered a Del Tin (better definitely but much more expensive)... But when they come I will probably get one.

I'm glad you guys are addressing durability and handling issues. I should point out, though, that a properly done, historically-based hollow pommel could work well in some cases.

From what I've seen though, simply running the wood grip up through the pommel and having the tang only meeting the pommel at the peen would create shearing stresses and other bad things.

In situations where a designer feels a hollow pommel would address handling issues, it might be good to follow the historical examples we know about.

This is indeed good news.

The Bastard Sword in particular sounds like it's receiving a much needed revision. Durability aside, the balance felt considerably nose-heavy before. A weightier pommel is just what this piece needed.

Are you guys taking trade-ins for upgrades? :)

As much as I want to say "Oh well, shame it broke" and move on, this is a really serious issue to me. With what these swords claim to be and their intended use, someone could have gotten seriously hurt or worse. While I fully aware that any sword can break why vastly increase the chance of catastrophic failure for the sake of cutting corners for profit margin. And that's what to me this comes down to. The swords need to come in at a certain price point so compromises are made and the end result is this and other failures I've seen in swords such as these. Wouldn't it be better to charge a little more and deliver something that will under normal circumstances function as intended without undue failure caused by design flaws? I know nothings perfect but really this is the fourth Paul Chen I've seen fail in one way or another. So please if your reading this do the right thing with these swords or one day someone will be seriously injured needlessly by a sword failure that could have been prevented at the design stage. In this country an incident like that could seriously set back HEMA and could lead to who knows what else. Let's hope that Hanwei will step up to the plate here and do it right the first time next time they release a sword model. Their nice looking and handling swords and I'd rather pay $300 for it knowing it's done to the best of their abilities and with my safety in mind.

If you go to this thread and scroll down you can see what the new pommel will look like, as well as stats on the redesign.

Jonathan