[Gabriele Becattini]

hello all,

i have contacted the french manifacture chevalier d'auvergne about their sabre blade,

i have planned to buy a couple for a coutlass/hanger and sabre project, i don't know very much about their product

but the stuff on their website, www.chevalierdauvergne.com, looks very nice,

they have told me that their blade are fit for hisorical fencing ,

i need your opinion about the blade models i have chosen, the first is intended for the coutlass/hanger, the following three

for the sabre, the 1802 model is considerably longer than the previous two, all the model weight the same, 700g,:

Blade : Grooved “Briquet” sabre
Tang length: 160mm
Blade length: 615mm
Base width: 32mm
Total length: 775mm

Blade : Montmorency sabre
Tang length: 160mm
Blade length: 755mm
Base width: 34mm
Total length: 915mm

Blade : Sapper Revolution sabre
Tang length: 160mm
Blade length: 740mm
Base width: 33mm
Total length: 900mm

Blade : 1802 Hunter sabre
Tang length: 160mm
Blade length: 840mm
Base width: 35mm
Total length: 1000mm

your opinion will be greatly appreciated

thanks for help

[Gabriele Becattini]

p.s,

the kind of weapons i would like to have re-create are are mid-late XVIIIth century, like the examples picture

[Luka Borscak]

Tangs look a bit thin to me.

[Gabriele Becattini]

i have had the same impression when i have looked at the website the first time, it is exactly the kind of imput

i wish to have, considering that i don't know nothing about the quality of their products

[Pauli Vennervirta]

I have a 1822 sabre blade by Chevalier D'Auvergne, I made a training weapon of it. Yes, the tangs are thin. The rod is 5 mm, not the usual 6 mm! I e-mailed them about it and they aswered that all their saber blades have a 5 mm tang. I really cant figure out why.

When I saw the rod I almost returned the blade, but I found a way to solve the problem. What I did was that I extended the tang stub by grinding it down the blade, right down to the edge of the fuller. That way I got a reasonably strong tang. I made the hilt parts myself (ugly as hell but artillery proof). I secured the end of rod with a small nut and peened the end, that should keep everything in one piece. Unhistorical but works.

I have done some edge to edge training with it, it has held up so far and the edge damage is not too bad, nothing that was not to be expected. The finish of the blade is good enough and it has a distal taper, which is nice. Still, if I had to choose today I would not take this blade, it required quite a lot of work. To my knowledge there are no reasonably priced heavy training sabers available on the market now that Popinjay seems to be out of business. American fencers supply has a sabre blade but I dont know anything about its quality.

[Julian Reynolds]

I have made a cuttoe out of one of their briquet blades - I also found the tang to be far too thin and flimsy for serious use. The blade I used had no fuller and handled like a crowbar - if I ever get one again, it will be fullered as I hope they handle better.

They look very good and are good quality, just too 'beefy' and with tangs I could never trust in action!

Julian

[Glen A Cleeton]

Keep in mind that historical tangs for these swords were fairly slight. For a hobbyist looking to improve these without grinding the blade shoulders would be to braze on some more material if looking to chop down trees and stuff like that. Keep in mind that the blades used with baskets and often back straps displace the force to place the stress at the shoulder, not the middle of the tang. I am copying just one index here for a bare spadroon blade that will show some slimness that also carries over to period sabre blades (often sold on ebay and would be other examples).

Jonathan may pipe in here on British patent hilts and other varieties that took the full tang method to heart.

Here is that spadroon index. Joe Salter doesn't mind folk sharing these for personal use, so I wold think educational and fair use will be ok. Please download, not post as hotlinked images

http://photos.joesalter.com/12948/

Cheers

GC

[J.E. Sweeney]

Tangs look like soldered screws....

[Pauli Vennervirta]