Hello. I've seen a number of swords, mostly small cuttoes and the like from the 18th century, which appear to have fullers that run right to the tip without the edges coming together at all, as if the blade had been made longer and then cut down. By their shape and other details, they don't look to me like actual longer hangers or sabers of the period that have been cut down, so I would guess that their fullers were shaped like this from the start, but why? Is the tip kind of thin if it comes to a spear point in the middle of the fuller, and if so, is that going to make it damage-prone if it strikes bone or other hard material in a thrust?

I understand that these are not heavy fighting swords, but it's still a strange and interesting detail.

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I don't know the answer to this as a fact, but my speculation is that it has to do with changing manufacture methods and probably the quality of the piece.

The reason I suspect this is that I have some old sabre steel lengths from Wilkinson Sword that have been rolled and have the fuller rolled in as part of the process. This means the fuller will run all the way to the end if the fuller depth is too much.

Something like this?

Tod

And now of course I have looked at the picture and see the fuller is not full blade length, so reset to 'I have no idea', but though I would leave this comment in as I think the pre rolled stock part is interesting.

Those cuttoe and a lot of spadroons have fullers right to the point. The image you showed is a blade that had been overly trimmed a bit (some inches).

A long one. You'll see the fuller right to the tip.
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This is typical for these long ricasso fullered cuttoe blades.

A large number of spadroons share the same trait and even some broader sabres share the same "to the point" grind.

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As these sometimes did get ground down, the look of through the point may be apparent and a good many shortened blade do show it. The way I look to determine on some is to look at the fuller itself where they start to curve. Sometimes one really has to have the piece in hand to determine if a blade was seriously cropped.

Cheers
GC

Thanks. So these cuttoes with open-ended fullers did originate as longer blades, but these were already cuttoe blades and not necessarily a whole lot longer, just that because the fuller already ran to the tip, shortening the blade by any amount resulted in losing the closed end. That makes sense to me.

If the fuller runs through the point, it is an indication of the blade being shortened, The one example you show was shortened by some inches, as much as four inches but at least a couple.

Can you post more examples of fullers through the point for what you see as normal?

Cheers
GC

This is the very clearest example I've seen. I didn't bring it up at first because it has an asymmetrical point and wouldn't be a good illustration for the question I had about a spear point.

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