[Elling Polden]

Some friends and I have of late discovered an evil and unatural urge to stab things with long metal implements, while wearing high boots and outragoeus hats.
For this purpose we are interested in the werabout of purveyours of practice rapiers, at budged prices.
Hints and tips will be appreciated.

[Michael F.]

There are some practice rapiers by CAS Iberia. Thier pretty cheap but should probably get the job done. Maybe you should check our sport fencing equipment. It's all thrusting and it's great fun! You could go for high quality and wait to get an Albion Maestro line "Cappoferro". Which is probably better.

Good luck!
-Michael F.

[Bill Grandy]

Well, being in Norway, I don't know if it's feasible to get one from www.darkwoodarmory.com or not, but that's definately my first choice.

Barring that, I've heard that in Europe Del Tin can fit their rapiers with practice blades instead of the normal ones, so you may want to check with that. The Del Tin blades are ones Darkwood has used for years, and I've been a long time fan of them. You may even look into the standard Del Tin rapiers as they are, filing the tips down and putting blunts on those. It's been a while since I've seen a standard Del Tin rapier, and I don't remember how flexible they are. But I fence with a Darkwood rapier that has a Del Tin bated blade, and it's flexible enough to be safe; I don't know if it's the same thing as their normal swords.

An economical alternative is the Hanwei practical rapier. The hilts are overly large, but they balance well and are quite safe. They come in a long and short version. The long version is a little overly "whippy", but considering the price it would make a good starter nonetheless. My group's used them, and we did have two blades break after a fair amount of use. What worried me was that in both cases the breaks happened on very light touches, suggesting some kind of flaw. However they did at least break cleanly, so nothing dangerous occurred.

[Allen Reed]