Well Fathers-day came a couple of days early at the Houston Duncan house because my wonderful wife Laura (Doc) said we could go up to Conyers Georgia and visit MRL and I have to say that it was quite impressive place, not only was the building nice but the folks there were very helpful as well.
The young lady working there was able to give a little info about some of the changes that would be happening soon. One thing is the fact that MRL is planning to do some overhauling on their quality by means of closer watching of production and paying more attention to what gets shipped out from them.
In the past MRL has had a fairly bad reputation with this subject and from what I was told the will be addressing this. The Second is that soon they said that they plan on doing some importing from the UK, from what company I have no idea but we will see.
The main reason I bring this up is because for lower price stuff MRL has a quite a bit to offer but have had a as I said a bad quality control problem witch has turned many of us off to them and kept us off and since we (Those of us who can tell what’s good and what’s not) make up a large portion of the sword market they have heard our complaints and are taking steps to improve the problem. While one of their swords would never take the place of any of my Atrim swords it would be nice to have a nice blunt to do pell work and light controlled sparing with that wouldn’t cost an arm and a leg and I wouldn’t feel like a complete arse is I were to ding it up a bit.
As far as there pole and mass weapons go they still do very nicely with them and having three that have been put through hell I have no complaints with them on that level, I was able to pick up a nice hewing spear and am very happy with it. I mounted it on a wax wood staff I had and so far so good will write more when I have a chance to do a little testing. *g*
Dunc

pic 1

---

 Attachment: 61.32 KB

More pics?

pic 2

---

 Attachment: 55.13 KB

pic 3

---

 Attachment: 54.29 KB

pic 4

---

 Attachment: 50.92 KB

pic 5

---

 Attachment: 33.01 KB

pic 6

---

 Attachment: 28.18 KB

pic 7

---

 Attachment: 28.2 KB

Bill,
Thanks for the pics. I've always wanted to go to MRL's showrooms.

Just so you know, the forum software is set up here so you can attach multiple pics to the same post (unlike some other forums). That keeps a poster from having to spend so much time doing new posts. After attaching a single file, browse to your next file and click "Add Attachment." Repeat as necessary before hitting "Submit." :)

Good stuff, Bill. Thanks. :) This is the first view I've had of the MRL showroom. Imports from the UK, eh? Wonder if they'll be swords or armour? Exciting news. As far as QC issues, I hope they're serious about it. I think it's pretty broadly agreed that overall quality from Windlass has gone up a notch or two in recent years, now if they can just do a better job of weeding out the stinkers, I think they'll see a definite increase in sales. When you get a really good Windlass piece, it's worth every bit of what they charge, you just never know if you're going to get a good one. :wtf: Maybe they're just getting tired of processing returns, and have decided it would be more cost-effective to screen the stuff better before it goes out. In any case, thanks for the news and pics. :)

pic 8

---

 Attachment: 28.76 KB

Hey Chad
Old habits die hard :( next time will do better.
Last pic the best thing in the store. Cheers

---

 Attachment: 61.62 KB

I have a pretty good idea of who the company in the UK is. This is a very good thing for the folks on this side of the pond.

If it is the same business, I may be interested. There's a piece or two that I'd sure like to get my hands on.

Bill;

just went to the MRL site to window shop and saw a couple of things I might want: By any chance did you see the Anelace dagger and the Maciejowski chopper ? The prices are tempting but I wonder about quality, mostly having decent tangs.

I think the chopper has a wide slab tang, so that one should be O.K. as long as the heat threating of the blade is about what we expect from Windlass ( Not the best but not awfull either. )

For anybody else who may have the Anelace any opinions about it would be appreciated.

The Anelace is very much like a Cinquedea in blade shape.

In spite of Patrick's " Missing in action " spear butt cap I am tempted to order one or both of these. ( Might be a nice change of pace from the more costly Albion and A & A stuff I have been buying, a few cheap toys can be fun to get as long as they are of at least acceptable quality. )

---

 Attachment: 12.32 KB



 Attachment: 37.72 KB
[ Download ]

Tried adding this attachement to the above, but couldn't get it to work when I edited the message. (Maciejowski chopper )

Had to go to Photoshop to reduce the size and I just couldn't get it back in ???

---

 Attachment: 37.72 KB
[ Download ]