Hello, I am very new to the world of historic arms and armor, but I am very interested. I am interested in purchasing a knife ( http://www.forgedintime.com/handmade-daggers/irish-skain ) from forgedintime.com. Is Forged in Time a credible seller of quality items? Is this knife historically accurate? Thank you.

Forged in time makes some very good stuff, and their wait times can be quite long. That knife is more of a sgian dubh (Scottish boot knife) than what is often referred to as an Irish scian, which is a long bladed war knife (18-23 inch range blade length) that was often carried by kerns. I would not say that knife you've linked is historically accurate.

That doesn't look so good to me. It's awfully bulky and the proportions are weird.

It looks more like a boot knife from the 1970s to me.

Owen...

I did not address your original question regarding quality from this company. Since I have not had the opportunity to examine anything they make (?) and sell, any remarks will have to be based on a review of their offerings on the web site.

A lot of what they offer is factory produced. This was mentioned in another post quite some time back when another forumite was interested in something they had for sale. Don't remember what it was. As someone who operated a business of this type for 14 years, until retiring earlier this year, I recognized a lot of the items on their site. Since they are readily available from other sources I am sure a lot of other members are also familiar with these items on the FIT site.

I am always on the lookout for Scottish dirks so when I saw one listed on FIT I looked at it. What I found was a Windlass dirk blade, which is a 19th century pattern, with homemade brass fittings and a turned maple grip. The sheath is heavy leather, appears to have a gusset and solidly made, from the photo. The price was, I think, $225. I cannot tell much from the two photos on the site but my guess is that the tang has been cut off and the grip expoxied to the blade. If there was a view of the pommel I might be able to tell if the tang goes all the way through the handle, which I doubt but you cannot tell. The guard appears to be an attempt at replicating a similar brass guard which is available from several sources and which is based on an 18th c. original. I guess the question has to be, is that dirk, which does not look very much like any 18th century Scottish dirk I have ever seen, of good quality and worth the price?

That FIT supplies a need in the community cannot be questioned. A determination of the quality of what they actually produce in their shop will have to wait until someone who has bought one of those items does an in-depth evaluation.

Lin,
I have scottish dirk from forged in time that I've recently done a short overview of (it's in the Off-Topic forum)
I am curious as to why you believe it to be a windlass blade.

When you have seen a blade many times, you recognize it... As Lin recognized the Windlass dirk blade, I recognized Hanwei Longsword blade and some Hanwei fittings on several FIT products... I only whished they promoted them as customized Hanwei stuff, not their own...

I see, thank you. That's a bit concerning as the FIT smith implied that he made the dirk blade over the phone ( it took a very long time for the dirk to arrive, so i would regularly phone in for updates. Eventually i was informed that the blade was ready ). The other thing is that the blade has what i believe to be FIT's mark on it. In hindsight it would have been wise to ask directly if the dirk blades were custom built, but I assumed someone that calls themself a smith wouldn't do things such as mount windlass blades without being clear that that's what they're doing

Take this sword for example: http://www.forgedintime.com/handmade-elite-li...-longsword
It costs almost $1700 and I'm pretty sure it's a Hanwei Tinker Longsword blade, maybe a bit modified and with custom fittings. Customization may make this sword a few hundred $ more expansive than the original (if done well), but for $1700 you can get a completely custom made sword... If Godwin really is a completely custom, hand made sword, it is weird that some other lower priced FIT longswords have the same looking blade...

I have to agree with everyone here. You can just buy the larger blades at koA and have them hilted by Yeshua...you will get a better price and possibly better custom hilt work.Plus i believe that yeshua can provide the blades as well.

Hmm. Yeah. I forgot how short the sharp H/T longsword blade is since I'm more familiar with the blunt training blade, which seems to be slightly longer (or at least it was on the ones I compared a while ago).