Hello,
I was recently contacted about removing the faux antiquing on a Hanwei Rapier, bluing the hilt, and replacing the grip... I have yet to say whether or not I will.
I have never seen one of the hanwei rapiers up close... but have heard that the fittings are stainless. Does anyone know if this is true? What I have heard is that the "antiquing" is a simple paint covering. Removing the antiquing doesn't concern me... but bluing stainless does.
The other question is about the grip. Does anyone know if these are wood or plastic? I have heard they are plastic, and that they are wood... I don't know which is actually true (or could they have done both over the years)?
Thanks,
Hadrian :)

I don't have a specific answer, but check this out as it is sort of related.

I have the Gustav rapier that I reviewed on this site. It is in fact a stainless hilt that has a finish painted on. The grip is wood; the wire wrap came loose fairly quickly, but I actually like the look of the wood more.

Not sure how helpful this will be, but I own the Hanwei Bone Handled Swept Hilt Rapier: http://kultofathena.com/product.asp?item=PC1092

I think you can guess what they made the handle out of on this one. As for other Hanwei products I had heard they used wood for many things, but used plastic under wire-wraps. No idea how accurate this information is. It was an educated guess by Ryan Whittlinger of Kult Athena and he wasn't too sure. I've not taken apart any of my Hanwei pieces to look under the hood I'm afraid, but I know Kult of Athena does list one of them as wood under leather.

As for the fittings, I thought them not to be stainless and have been keeping it oiled, so the fact that nothing has rusted doesn't mean much. (Kult of Athena labels it as "steel" and "not plated", by the way.) There are numerous small pittings on the guard, but they seem to be a result of casting or welding, not rust. It is magnetic, but not very strongly. Weak refrigerator magnets just fell off and were hard to guage, but a stronger magnet off one of those magnetic dart board games stuck to flat parts.

If you're not in a time crunch I could rub the oil off part of it and drip water on it or something, see if it will rust. (Not that that will necessarily be the same as whichever rapier you are being asked to work on.)

Hello,
Thanks for the information. It was either a Gustav or a Solingen, I can't recall. I had noticed the Cromwell project, that combined with the fact that it's a thick paint made me realize it will be fairly easy to remove. It is good to hear the grip is wood. I have done upgrades on two Hanwei "practical" single handed trainers. The first was one of the earlier runs, the grip was wood. The second was more recent and had a ribbed plastic grip... re-gripping was a hassle and took far more work than I had anticipated (I had thought it was wood).
The information on the fitting material is nice to know. It was stainless on both the trainers I worked on... I did not know if this was a standard method for Hanwei or if it was due to the fact that they were trainers. It explains the reason they use a paint to antique the hilts. I have been looking up bluing stainless... and I am not a fan of the overall finished look (it looks nothing like historical bluing). The results tend to look overly like black paint.
Thanks,
Hadrian

Hadrian,

I once owned the Hanwei sidesword and the hilt was made from stainless. I took a very long time, but I was able to "antique" the hilt to the point that it did not look like stainless anymore.

Paul