I just disassembled my HT Viking sword and I thought I'd discuss what I discovered and seek some advice. The hilt assembly was quite tight, I could detect no looseness and the peened pommel was very secure; I had to remove quite a bit of metal to release the pommel. Lets just say I'm glad I didn't have any plans to reuse the pommel. When I took off the grip I noticed that it had been shimmed on both side of the tang with extremely thin wood or bamboo shims. The crossguard is actually machined much better than I expected it to be. The grip is quite square in section, the leather wrapping isn't very impressive although the seam is quite indistinguishable. The leather is still wrapped around the ends of the grip but didn't contribute to any looseness in the assembly. I suspect that the construction on my sword is indicative of improvements made in response to complaints about earlier swords.

My major concern is the shoulder where the tang meets the blade, while it isn't a sharp 90 degree corner it is less rounded than I had hoped. I was wondering if any more experienced sword mechanics could provide guidance on how much of a radius there should be on the shoulders.