Has anyone picked one of these up or had a chance to look it over? It caught my eye when it first came out, but I always wondered about the tang on it. Does anyone know if it does extent into the bulb/pommel or if it is only supported by the wood?

Shane

Bump. 'Curious, myself.




Michael

Wasn't really looking for it, but happened by a site that had good pictures of it from various angles.
http://www.reliks.com/merchant.ihtml?pid=2168&step=4

Pretty much answered my questions about it, don't see myself getting this one.

Shane

:D
i was looking forward to maybe seeing these in the UK,at the reliks price it looks quite a good item,not ideal but maybe a nice entry level piece to this little produced type,i'm hard pressed to think of anyone doing these new apart from going custom,
dont get me wrong,it's not perfect ,i'd prefer maybe 2-3" longer and slightly thinner blade, do away with that particuler fuller,a plainer slightly less beefy guard would be nice,jmo, for the price if i could find one here to look at before buying might be a half decent purchase,thumbs up to them for putting one out,
but, i'd be surprised if they appear here at a similer cost,the windlass pieces i've seen over here are not alot less than del tin,maybe 20% difference
Q,
out of interest have del tin done a shamshir,whether with windlass back then or on their own,

It looks good to me. Judging by the style of the hilt its actually a 17th-19th century Ottoman shamshir. I've never actually seen an Ottoman sword with that type of decoration on the crossguard, but I'm sure Windlass have based it on a real sword. There is actually a real Ottoman shamshir circa 1800 on sale at Ebay at the moment, it is a beautiful piece, but it costs about 5 times as much, and there is still one day to go on the bidding...

You could say that Windlass' price is a bargain. :)

would that be a sword from pcay on ebay,the seller has listed some very nice examples of shamshir,
if not appreciate a link for the eye candy,
cheers.

I've been to Reliks and handled that sword. It struck me as very awkward and unwieldy. I am no expert, especially when it comes to curved single-edged swords, but it seemed to me to be nothing more than a cleaver that would not recover quickly from a miss and was especially bad at lateral movement. The blade was thicker than most of the Middle Ages European swords and seemed very stiff. If I recall correctly the wooden grip is in the form of scales over the tang (though that detail is unclear in my memory).

Based on the swords I have handled at Reliks, it seems Windlass swords are still very much hit and miss. Some are quite decent though and I appreciate being able to go there and handle the thing in person before sinking all that money into it. I'll probably own several Windlass swords before investing in the more expensive swords that I cannot handle in person and can only know about from reviews on sites like this.

The wooden grip should be scales over the tang, in my opinion. With possibly a wire wrap over the lower half of the grip, next to the guard . . . . :-)
Haven't handled the Windlass piece, tho, so I can't comment on it.

It is an attractive sword, certainly, and outside of acquiring a British General Officer's sword from some place like militaryheritage.com or Wilkinson Sword, it seems hard to get one like this. It just... didn't feel right. Should have been easier to recover, and I cannot imagine doing a decent draw cut with it, or knocking a blade aside with the flat (but maybe they were not used that way).

I think the addition of a wire wrap such as you describe would probably improve the grip nicely, which might improve the overall feel of the blade. That is something that one can do at home, and it's not a very pricey piece... could be tempting in the future. The blade will still have too much mass, though.