[Sean Flynt]

Well, it wasn't so much a test as the means to an end--straightening the slightly bent tang of a "pre-owned" Dürer. I'll be re-gripping the sword myself in coming weeks.

I won't mention construction details because I don't want to give away any proprietary A&A info. But, since there probably aren't many folks out there who've destroyed such fine craftsmanship, I wanted to tell you what I had to do to separate an A&A longsword from its grip.

I wanted to save the leather wrap so I cut through the very fine stitching along the side of the grip. I pulled and pried, stretched and scraped and never could get much of the leather to let go of the wood. After struggling for awhile and managing to get loose only a small piece, I gave up.

Next, I rested the grip on an anvil (cross vertical) and hammered a broad chisel completely through the grip core (taking care to miss the tang, of course). I then tried to twist the chisel to break off the core. Not only did the core not break, when I withdrew the chisel to try again the split core snapped back together. I placed the grip in a bench vise, tightened the jaws until the wood cracked and then checked to see if the grip would come off. No luck. Back into the vise, and this time I used the cross as handlebars and twisted the entire sword in the hope that this would kill the core. I went through 360 degrees before the core finally died and it was still partially held in place by one final obstacle I won't detail here. Suffice it to say that I needed another tool to breach that obstacle.

For any of you who've looked at your A&A swords and wondered about construction, know that his grip died hard. I'm very impressed, and probably will keep the destroyed grip on my workbench just for inspiration.

[Glen A Cleeton]

You animal!

The methodology may have changed over time, as well as different models having slightly diffrent constructs. None of my three have ever had a grip problem, per se. One has a little slack to the fit of core and tang but still never failed and has been through an awful lot of hard use.

A reminder for all that some of those peen blocks we see from A&A are actually threaded nuts.

Cheers

GC

[Sean Flynt]