MRL has the Cadsand sword on sale for $99.00. I presume that it will soon be discontinued. I can find nothing that attracts me to this sword other than a vague notion that something worthwhile could be made from the blade. I've been hoping for a while that Sean Flint or somebody like him would come up with a good idea but so far the silence has been deafening.


The blase is , I think, diamond shaped in section, 33 3/4" long and 1 7/8" wide. It sounds like it could be a platform for a bastard sword, ideas anyone?

I think the Hanwei-Tinker bare blades have made many of the Windlass pieces less interesting. You can get the excellent (and sharp) H-T bastard sword blade for about $10 less than the Cadsand. Much better deal. The more historically plausible Windlass pieces are still good candidates for upgrade once they hit the Deal of the Day bin, but in cases where the hilt is too dodgy in terms of material and design I don't think it's worth buying Windlass just for the blade.

I'm still hoping that some of the premium U.S. manufacturers will open new revenue streams by selling unfinished cast hilt parts.

Good point and quick response! Thank you!

I've never even seen a Windlass blade in the flesh so I have no basis of comparison. I've been slowly accumulating components to make a custom type X from the HT Viking platform; work is going to start on that soon.

I'll second Sean ; as a recent buyer of both a Hanwei-Tinker and a Windlass, the blade is much more interesting on the Hanwei-Tinker.

That doesn't mean Windlass blades are bad, but most are rather plain ; the blade on the Cadsand seems to be another one of these plain, simple, diamond-cross section blades with no fuller, found on so many Windlass swords... Certainly not a bad blade, but not worth it in itself and there certainly are other options for around $100 or less.

The cadsand looks cool.
I would get it, but I have enough swords.

I just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents. I bought the thing on a whim as a Christmas present to myself, but was disappointed.

It is rather blade heavy and not very easy to wield. The hilt is over-sized for a single hand sword (which appears to be what it is supposed to be), but not big enough for two handed use.

If you just wanted the blade, well I'm going to just echo everyone else so far and repeat that the blade is nothing special. I suppose it is a little different than the Hanwei/Tinker Pearce ones if you really wanted variety.