[Alen L]

Hello all! I found an interesting crossguard assembly, and am interested in what you make of it... I know it's commonly used for messers, but this is the first time i've seen it on a longsword! That thing won't budge, i'm sure...

Would you want your longsword to be assembled this way? It seems like a good idea to me, personally...

[Jean Thibodeau]

I voted yes but under the condition that the corners behind the blade shoulders and those before the tang narrows are radiused to avoid stress risers.

Don't know if it's historically correct or not but not very important to me if one doesn't see it anyway when the sword is assembled.

It does seem like a good way to make a close fit if tolerances are close and the corner behind the guard on the tang might be slightly peened to seat the guard and this is historically accurate but done in a different way I think. ( The way Albion does it I believe as guard and pommel are firmly seated with the handle put on after i.e. not a compression assembly where the peen on the tang hold everything together but if the wood on the grip shrinks the grip would become loose ).

[Peter Johnsson]

This is the way I designed the guard on the Albion Maestro Line swords to be mounted.
It works as long as the "rivets" are done the right way: not hammered down too thin or stressed by overheating or cold working.

[Alen L]

Wow, i had no idea Albion used such a construction too No wonder the crossguards won't budge! Does anyone know if it was used historically, too?

[Peter Johnsson]

I have not seen this construction on any historical sword of the traditional cruciform type. Messers may have exposed blade shoulders on the grip side of the guard, but they are not peened as a rule. At least have I not seen traces of riveting/peening of blade shoulders in any original messer that I have studied. Perhaps they used peeing to close a gap some times, but I do not think it was used for constructional purposes.