[Christian G. Cameron]

The cord wrap on my Albion sparring sword began to fray. i think, looking at all the swords in our club, that the 1/2 wire wrap was done because it is the back hand with a gauntlet that works the hardest against the wrap and damages the cord.

I found this fix easy and elegant. I took 100 feet of soft steel wire and wrapped it with a power drill under tension--I hammered a heavy nail into the wall of my garage, tied one end of two 50 foot lengths of wire to it, and put the other ends in the chuck of my drill. In about ten minutes, I had the wire just where I wanted it. I've done this often, so my only advice is to keep the tension steady--not too hard, but steady--and to run the drill at a steady pace, not too fast, and to stop periodically and check the twist.

I stripped the old cord from the wooden handle down to the wood, and then drilled a small hole into the grip--bent the end of the wire at right angles to the entry, and put it in with a little epoxy, and then hammered a brass pin into the hole and cut it off flush. I am aware that this could have been done in a decorative manner, but this is a sparring sword... I debated putting a leather layer over the cord, and perhaps a cord ring as a midpoint, and in the end decided that this was not for show and needed only be practical.

A friend helped me wrap, and we took our time and went slowly. I left a few small gaps, and he did not . In the end, we elected NOT to put the wire into a second hole on the grip, but instead put it into the minute gap between the grip and the pommel ,and then used an old ruined chisel to push it way in and tighten it. Then, on advice gleaned form this excellent forum, I took it to the anvil and very lightly worked the newly laid wire against the grip with a broad head hammer, which had the remarkable effect of smoothing out the wire perfectly as well as flattening it somewhat--making the final job look almost machine-done. My thanks to whichever thread I learned that trick from!

And where's the button that allows me to say that this thread is a DIY?