Will a sword of this quality hold a sharp edge? I wish to use it for light cutting. Thanx

Absolutely. My Windlass Medieval Short Sword and Shrewsbury sword are both sharpened. The Short Sword is a monster cutter on soft targets (noodles, rolled mats, watermelons etc.), while the Shrewsbury, though primarily a thrusting sword, handles noodles and melons fairly well. Windlass blades tend to run soft (at least the ones I have), judging by how easy they are to sharpen and how easy they are to scratch when mat cutting. I don't use real tatami mats, but cheap straw beach mats, though I don't know how much difference this makes. The Short Sword is the older of the two, and it seems a bit softer. I believe Windlass now tempers its blades a bit harder. They claim between 45-55 RC, but I would guess that most run closer to the 45-50 mark. Edge retention on the Short Sword has been surprisingly good, while I haven't cut extensively enough with the Shrewsbury to tell about it. I forked over $20 (each) to have both swords professionally sharpened, and the Short Sword is pretty easy to touch up with a butcher's steel. IMHO, it's a lot easier to maintain a blade once it has a proper edge bevel than it is to try to get a proper edge from scratch, so unless you are really good at sharpening, I'd go the pro route the first time around. Windlass swords aren't mind-blowingly fantastic, but for what you pay for them they are fairly solid and surprisingly durable.

>Would a place that normally just sharpens knives do a proper job on a sword?

Surpisingly enough, you may try the local Lawnmower sharpening shop (obviously, not the guy just using a bench grinder). The Tormek system (http://www.tormek.com/index_gb.htm) gets used by a lot of shops, and is designed to deliver very consistent and tightly controlled results, and is good for fine to large pieces.

Hmmmm...
Interesting info. Might have to look into that, although not sure how I'd feel about leaving a precious beautiful sword of mine with a guy used to sharpening beat-up old lawnmower blades... :confused:

Oh, okay. I guess I could check around and see if any knife sharpeners would know what they're doing for a sword. Thanks for the info...

LOL! I guess my overwhelming tone of jubilance at the idea of a knife shop sharpening my sword didn't really show through in my previous post! ;)
Thanks for the reassurance, though. There is actually a chain of knife stores that sell swords here, and they do have a sharpening service for their knives, but I just assumed not for swords. I will have to check with them.
Thanks again...