[Jesse Belsky]

Just wanted to share some stage combat weapons i've finished recently. They are built with Tinker/Hanwei blunt blades with reshaped tips and rounded edges (the blades come with a square edge, but a rounded one is less likely to nick or chip in blade-on-blade action).
Some of the hilt furniture is mine, and a few pieces are from the recent Albion Moat sale or Valentine Armory. Its a grab bag, but with a lot of hand work they go together nicely. They are all dismountable and are held together with recessed allen nuts.
The wider blades come un-threaded, and i thread them at 1/4"-28, but for the more tapered blades i had to buy some 6mm "Inside Nuts" from a fencing supplier. Despite information to the contrary, the threaded tinker blunts are a 6mm metric thread, which in the case of allen nuts take a 5mm allen wrench. Took me a while to figure that out, but there you go.
I'm putting them up on my site if anyone wants to buy one, otherwise i hope to take them to the National Stage Combat Workshop later in the summer and unload them there.....

More pics and info at www.jessebelsky.com/stageswords

[Michael Pearce]

The look great! Are these the Norman and Viking blades?

[Jesse Belsky]

Thank you Michael, i'm glad you like them. Two of them are mounted with the Viking Blunts, and the other two are the single-handed medieval blunts. I've reshaped the tips on all of them to give them that "dangerous" look you need for the stage....
I haven't had a chance to really put them through their paces and see how the edges hold up to stage combat, but i look forward to trying them out. They are certainly lighter and more nimble than most blades made for theater work.

[Michael Pearce]

I expect the Vikings might hold up better than the medievals; the medievals were made for I.33 fencing which is much less demanding of the edge than typical stage use. Typically I have found stage fighters are much, much harder on blades than martial artists though there have been exceptions. A local theatrical group buys the sharps and has me de-edge them but they don't use the SAFD system and are frankly a lot better trained than most stage combatants since they are specialists.

[Jesse Belsky]

Yeah, SAFD technique is all edge-to-edge contact, and although in theory the cut is being cast "past" the target, there are a lot of unskilled practitioners who can't make that happen. However, the better balanced the blade, the easier that technique becomes. I do think rounding the edge makes quite a bit of difference in terms of chipping and nicking. I thought about blunting your sharps, but i was worried there wouldn't be enough material behind the edge. I have a viking sharp blade, and of course it has a much thinner edge profile. Can you tell me the name of the group using the de-edged sharps? I'd love to talk to them about how the blades are holding up to their work......

[Michael Pearce]

Sure- it's the Seattle Knights. Yes, they are quite thin at the edges if you merely de-sharpen them and rounding the edges on the blunts helps a great deal.

[Jesse Belsky]

Just finished two more weapons......these are mounted with Tinker/Hanwei Bastard Sword Blunt blades. They were much narrower than i expected them to be and so i changed my plans. I turned one into a beefy cut and thrust blade for a long-unfinished rapier project, and the other i mounted with an Albion guard and a long grip. Its still several inches shorter than the Tinker Blunt, but plenty long for my purposes. The rapier is still a bit blade heavy, unsurprisingly. Not unrealistic, just not as nimble as i like for stage work. I ground out a fat ricasso and left the rest of the blade alone.

[Luka Borscak]

I really like the longsword version.

[Aleksei Sosnovski]

Nice swords! I myself am currently working on a project using a blunt bastard sword blade. Want to make a longsword for reenactment events that will be used most of the time one-handed (with a shield). Want to be different from others who use single-handed swords. These blades seem to be pretty versatile. Long enough to be used two-handed, yet light and well-balanced enough to be wielded in one hand. Your rapier made me want to make one as well. Damn, why do shipping to Europe and taxes almost double the price?! I definitely need to find a better paid job!