This is my new Hanwei-Tinker Viking blade. It was a bit disconcerting when half of the blade went whirling through the air. I remember thinking "not good." I struck my pell midway along the blade and it broke as you can see. So now I have a great opportunity to do something with these two pieces. Does any one have comments on how broken blades were recycled in the past? I suppose I can try forging the pieces into something else: a spear head, a knife, a matching set of steak knives?

Anyway, I am a bit sad, but also curious to see what comes of this.

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Would love to see some close shots of the broken seam/section/split of the blade.

weld a rod in the shape of a giant U to each piece. then put it around your midsection and go to a ren faire :) put some fake blood on your shirt and your golden! :)

Some rotten luck you've had there Phillip.

Then again it just goes to show that swords weren't and aren't indestructable.

There are period swords which show evidence of having broken pieces forgewelded back together IIRC Oakeshott notes an example. However I'm not sure a sword with such a catastrophic brake would be realistically repairable in this way.

The broken section of blade could be turned into a knife or a tanged spearhead by cutting a tang fron the bottom and then hilting/hafting it. The hilt end piece could be reground into a knife. There is a broken sword (originally a double fullered Type XIV from the look of the blade) in the Royal Armouies Museum at Leeds that has been reground into a crude knife.

Personally If that were my sword though I'd be tempted to try and turn it into a 'fake' antique.

If it broke like that, it may have had heat treat issues which might make anything you turn it into subject to similar breakage.

You know, they might just replace that since it broke.

Ping em.

Cheers,

David

I'd think you could turn that tip portion into a cool spear head, or perhaps a dagger. I have a vision of a sort of baselard without the crosspieces. If you have the capabilities to grind down the edges, would that be too difficult to sandwich the new "tang" in two pieces of wood? I dunno. The hilt end could make a cool seax, but I don't know how the fullered blade geometry would lend itself to that end...

Wow. No wonder every other vendor has them on sale for $150.00.

I'd wager it was a heat-treat issue that resulted in a micro-fissure that was not seen during QC. Hanwei is good about replacing such items in my experience. I'd first write the vendor, then write Hanwei. I am 90% sure you can get it replaced for just the cost of S/H, if even that. :)

Now, I'll be hesitant about being so hard on mine...

I'm glad to hear that nobody was hurt. I have this fear of a sword turning into a helicopter whirling toward somebody...

This is a fun and enjoyable hobby, but sometimes things get ugly. I have a scar on my face to prove it.

Philip you mentioned hitting a Pell: Would this be a really thick piece of wood solidly set in the ground or weighted heavily and somewhat like hitting a large tree ! Swords are really not meant for hitting trees or pells and although it may very well be a flaw in the heat treat that made this sword too brittle ...... or at least to brittle to be hitting heavy, hard and unmovable objects
are not what swords are made for.

At best the sword if used without immediate harm on a pell it is still very hard on any blade and if done for long enough any blade will eventually break or take a nasty set.

Pell work should be done with wasters and is more training the hand and arm to handle the shock than as a fair test of a blade. ( At least the Romans used pell work with double weight wooden swords in their training I don't think they used their steel gladius on the pells ? ).

So did this sword break at the first blow, after a few blows or after being used for an extended period on the pell ?

Anyway, hitting really hard stuff is more like destructive testing than normal sword use in my opinion.

Oh, and the broken of point might make a nice Dirk or Ballock dagger.

I've been told that it helps if you take tires and stack them around your pell since the tire rubber will be dense enough not to bight into to much, but not hard enough to break the sword.