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Matthew G.M. Korenkiewicz
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 Posted: Thu 07 Aug, 2008 7:02 am Post subject: |
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Personally, I like to use The Ladder System for defining the various technical benefits of
the swords I own. And you can use The Ladder System on any blade -- Japanese style
or European style.
Basically The Ladder System works like this :
- Take your common household ladder and place it on a hard surface ( tiles are preffered because
cement will cause more scratching ).
- Then, as you mount one step after another, take your test subject, hold it straight out from your
shoulder, and DROP it ! Continue UP the ladder until, after dropping the sword, you note that it
starts to self-destruct.
- Results will differ as you determine height, weight, and gravity ratios. Of course, at whatever
height you drop whatever sword from, and the thing explodes like a tinker-toy, you obviously do
NOT have a sword that would survive any form of combat situation ....
B-)
Sorry guys, couldn't resist.
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Bill Love
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| Posted: Thu 07 Aug, 2008 7:23 am Post subject: |
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Better be careful, Matthew-I've worked with people who might actually steal your idea, turn it into an 8 hour PowerPoint sleepover, and have their entire company doing it as standard procedure until someone gets hurt 
"History is a set of lies agreed upon."
Napoleon Bonaparte
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Chad Arnow
myArmoury Team
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| Posted: Thu 07 Aug, 2008 7:26 am Post subject: |
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| Chris Fields wrote: | | So do you disagree with any of the placements in the Second graph? |
I don't disagree with the graphs. The numbers are what they are. I just don't find them helpful because they don't paint a complete picture. The gladii score high basically because they are short and light. But what does that tell us? 
I don't find the Knight to be much less "lively" than the Sovereign (your graph makes that point). The Knight's dynamic qualities are at least as good as the Sovereign's. They're just different. I also think the Baron is more lively than the Duke, not the other way around as on your chart.
If the graph helps you, then use it for your purposes all you want. I worry, though, that arbitrary graphs like this will cause inexperienced people to shop off a graph and ignore the qualities your graph doesn't show.
I think swords will have to stay like wines, which I know Thom didn't want. We can get all the stats we want (chemical content, acidity, age, etc.) but that doesn't tell each individual what they would like.
ChadA
http://chadarnow.com/
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Chris Fields
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| Posted: Thu 07 Aug, 2008 7:56 am Post subject: |
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Well, to me, it shows that Gladii can be compared to each other in their own group, and that groups of swords tend towards their own average number on this chart, which means at least you can tell if a particular sword falls within the average of swords of it's type.
It may not be worth anything, this wasn't intended to tell people what they like, espeically inexperienced people, as I mentioned before, just to have a comparison between blades of certain types. Anything sword related is well worth my time. =)
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Chris Fields
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| Posted: Thu 07 Aug, 2008 8:05 am Post subject: |
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Something else just occured to me. The numbers I used are directly off Albion's site,... but... what are the variances and tolerances of each sword? The tolerance of each sword may be broad enough that one Knight sword may vary alot from another Knight sword, though they would both fall with in the average of there sword type. So, one soverign may handle better than a knight, but then one knight may handle better than a soverign due to there tolerances alone. Same with the Duke and Baron. This isn't captured in the charts, but there averages for sword types are.
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Chad Arnow
myArmoury Team
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| Posted: Thu 07 Aug, 2008 8:06 am Post subject: |
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| Chris Fields wrote: | Well, to me, it shows that Gladii can be compared to each other in their own group, and that groups of swords tend towards their own average number on this chart, which means at least you can tell if a particular sword falls within the average of swords of it's type.
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Well, I think that it would have more use if you showed trends within types. Gladii on the market have these traits. Type XII's on the market have those traits. And so on. Then someone could look at another reproduction and see how it compares to other swords of its type on the market and their average stats. Of course, the market is not wholly representative of the variety in historical swords. The current market tends to focus less on the outliers (extremes of size, weight, far POBs, etc.) than an easily-sellable average, pleasant examples.
Seeing individual swords charted and ordered by arbitrary criteria doesn't do much for me, though. Charting trends within type would have a little more value.
ChadA
http://chadarnow.com/
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Chad Arnow
myArmoury Team
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| Posted: Thu 07 Aug, 2008 8:11 am Post subject: |
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| Chris Fields wrote: | | Something else just occured to me. The numbers I used are directly off Albion's site,... but... what are the variances and tolerances of each sword? |
There are variations. My Regent is lighter than Albion's specs and I've handled other that were at spec and ones that were between mine and spec. Even the Albion-spec'd Regents handled much more lively than any Baron I've owned/handled.
ChadA
http://chadarnow.com/
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Chris Fields
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| Posted: Thu 07 Aug, 2008 8:26 am Post subject: |
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I agree that this would be more meaningful in groups. I'd love to get some historical swords in those charts, or at least do a chart like this based soley on historical swords for myself, so that when I make a sword of a certain type, I can see if I am falling with in the group of historical swords of the type.
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Thom R.
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| Posted: Thu 07 Aug, 2008 9:07 am Post subject: |
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the controlled descent into the giant pipette idea is simple and brilliant! brilliant! i knew some of you were way down the road from me and i appreciate the help much, tr
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Thom R.
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| Posted: Thu 07 Aug, 2008 9:42 am Post subject: |
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Chad I think we are saying mostly the same things and as you said, different strokes for different folks. for you sql might be a breeze, but for me i am still struggling to go to vb.net from vb6. sql? database programming? i have people who do that for me. i wouldn't even think of trying to figure that out. but we have a materials testing lab and for some of us this IS what we do. its our area of interest. its not everbody's. thats ok.
the one other point that bothers me though is this romantic notion that swords in the middle ages were made by sigmund, the master craftsman, working at his smithy in the high mountains next to the clear lake, in the misty rain, hammering away on his anvil on the moonless night near solstice. sigmund did it all "by feel" and there was no science involved, and his only qc program was how it felt in the hand. i don't know - i say thats mostly myth not reality. there were plenty of folks who today we would call engineers making measurements and designing things in the medieval period. (they didn't build those castles without detailed measurements) they may not have had computers and electricity, but they clearly had a lot of tools including tools for taking detailed measurements like calipers, scales, etc. and the evidence seems to suggest that weapon making was a substantial industry and from about the 1200s on that industry was confined to relatively few locales within europe, particularly southern germany. certainly in the habsburg empire, weapon making was a major industry. thom
ps remember i am guy who still has one of these and knows how to use it hahahahaha
Last edited by Thom R. on Thu 07 Aug, 2008 10:24 am; edited 2 times in total
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Jean Thibodeau
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| Posted: Thu 07 Aug, 2008 9:57 am Post subject: |
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| Chris Fields wrote: | Oh... Jean! I love that sword btw. Here is where it comes in
On the first chart, it is second to last place on the "liveliness" just ahead of the chieftain with a score of 24.5
On the second, it comes in dead last with a score of 9.9
On the third, is comes between the Vinland and the Huskarl at 11.9
Again, those charts were just on Albion swords. If one of the ends up being correct to what people think is a good "lively" factor, then we can include every sword we can think of. I'm sure you'll see heavy stage combat blade very low on the charts and rapiers and such on the end. Each type of sword though has a different sort of "liveliness" that it will want to center around. So, say you want to compare the single hand cutters, well, you may not want a cutter with a higher "liveliness" factor than the others, you may want it to fall around the middle of the single handers. Make sense? On the same note, you may want a two hander that centers around a low "liveliness" factor, and a rapier that centers around a higher factor. So, just because it may score higher or lower, doesn't mean it's better or worse, it's just a comparison for someone to make a judgement on the "feel" of a sword without actually holding it.
So, maybe instead of calling this a "liveliness" factor, maybe it could be better called a "handling" factor. thanks |
I think very " subjectively " that my RavenWolf is a little more " lively " than your estimated position of it on your graphs (1) & (2) as far as ease of changing from from guard to guard, as I mentioned earlier: So it feels more lively to me than the Gaddhjalt or Tritonia but the extra weight makes it feel much more ponderous in a dedicated and fully committed cut !?
But this sword is such an " outlier " that it has to be felt to be believed ! Oh, and it does concentrate a lot of it's mass mid sword or closer to the hand.
So maybe one could say that it rotates easily for it's weight when changing guards ( defensively fast to recover if one pivots around the blades midblade rotation point ) but is very " present " in the committed cut that doesn't rotate around this " pivot point " but is more linear or rotates from the shoulder ! ( Arm and sword becoming a unit ).
The total weight does factor in more in how fast one gets tired using it: With a shield one can use the sword quickly and rest the arm and depend on the shield i.e. use the sword in short burst of attack and riposte and use the shield before the arm gives out !
Oh, and although it's very much a single hander I can easily use the pommel for a two handed grip and then longsword techniques become easy and the weight ceases to be a negative I think. ( Short handle longsword use being not ideal as far as leverage but O.K. as far as preventing tiring and increasing speed of recovery, I think ).
Still I find your graphs useful as a comparative and discussion tool but maybe missing in some subtleties that make statistically similar swords feel distinct when actually handled ? But, this is a very much worth while Topic to continue as we may eventually arrive at a useful ranking of ease of motion from sword to sword ? 
Oh, maybe your third chart agrees better with my subjective inpressions as those swords like the Vinland and Huscarl have more presence as far as POB is concerned but compensate in feel by being lighter by half at least ? ( Like the Gaddhjalt/Tritonia ? )
You can easily give up your freedom. You have to fight hard to get it back!
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Chris Fields
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| Posted: Thu 07 Aug, 2008 11:52 am Post subject: |
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Ok, I have arranged the Albion swords and charted them by sword type. For all those who have experience with a lot of these swords, I am curious on which chart you agree with, if any. Again, one will be more based on weight, the other will be more based on POB. So I am curious which factor you may think is more important based on actual experience holding the pieces, and if that holds true through the different sword types. Thanks
Gladii:
Viking/Anglo Saxon:
Single Hand Medieval Swords:
Longswords:
And I separated out a few as Greatswords:
Please let me know what you think based on your experience, I am curious to see if either weight or POB is more of an effect in general. thanks
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Chad Arnow
myArmoury Team
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| Posted: Thu 07 Aug, 2008 12:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Chris Fields wrote: | Ok, I have arranged the Albion swords and charted them by sword type. For all those who have experience with a lot of these swords, I am curious on which chart you agree with, if any. Again, one will be more based on weight, the other will be more based on POB. So I am curious which factor you may think is more important based on actual experience holding the pieces, and if that holds true through the different sword types. Thanks
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By sword type, I meant Oakeshott Type or something similar (cut oriented, cut and thrust, thrust-oriented,etc.). The Templar and Poitiers come out on opposite ends of the spectrum and that's not entirely surprising; they're different swords entirely. One is made to oppose warriors in mail, the other warriors in plate. One has a cross-section optimized for the cut; the other for the thrust.
I've handled the Squire and Prince. Both are lively, but the Prince was the livelier of the two. But the Squire was a better cutter. I also didn't think they were as far apart in liveliness as your charts show (especially the first one).
Take two more: Sempach vs. Regent. Both your charts have the Sempach listed much livelier than the Regent. The Sempach isn't so much livelier. The Regent is a far better cutter, but it's designed to be.
A question: on the first gladius chart, why is there a sweep (curve) up on the graph between the first two swords? If each sword is a dot on the graph, wouldn't they all be connected by straight lines?
ChadA
http://chadarnow.com/
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Thom R.
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| Posted: Thu 07 Aug, 2008 1:29 pm Post subject: |
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Chris thanks so much for sharing. for me as per my original post, i believe the chart where the weighting is more on the total mass is more in line with my experience than the other.
now that i have stirred the pot i am going to walk away but thanks to everyone. i have one final thing to mention and its specifically to the myArmoury team and anyone doing a review for myArmoury. one of the consistent themes in this thread which multiple folks agree with is that small changes in mass and the mass balance profile can be readily felt in the hand. as i said before, i think that this is because you're not feeling the actual mass when you grip the sword but rather the moment force that the hand has to counter to hold the sword steady. so small changes in mass out beyond the POB are potentially magnified in their effect.
so two points of note
1. 1 ounce = 28.3 grams. i realize many of the reviews here quote fractions of an ounce but overall, grams is a more universal measure, its a finer and more accurate measure, and all the kitchen scales at bed bath and beyond or home depot have grams as an option . something to think about..............
2. there are several sword reviews here where multiple swords (e.g. prince/squire, count/steward) from Albion are reviewed in the same review, and comments are made about how they seem to handle differently. well, maybe, just maybe, that's only partially affected by the hilt differences and has more to do with the slightly different profiles on the two blades which are handmade and never going to be exactly the same. a second batch of swords might yield very different thoughts about relative differences. just something to think about.
thanks again to the myArmoury team for keeping this going. tr
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Chris Fields
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| Posted: Thu 07 Aug, 2008 1:37 pm Post subject: |
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No problem Thom, this has been interesting.
Chad, I just classified them by basic types. I can further classify them into their Oakeshott classes, but there may only be one or two swords per class.
The curve for the Gladii sloped up because Excel was trying to fit a smooth line between the points instead of strait lines. It was the fastest way for me to graph them on my break. =)
Quick question, does it look like either of the charts are shifting "cutters" to the right and "trusters" to the left? Just curious
So do we think the POB weighted chart is more general, or the Mass weighted chart? I would like to get alot of input from alot of people who have more experience than I. thanks again.
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Chris Fields
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| Posted: Thu 07 Aug, 2008 1:46 pm Post subject: |
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Going back over the Albion swords, it looks like the POB weighted chart was a better indicator of cutter vs truster, is this just me? Thanks
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Thom R.
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| Posted: Thu 07 Aug, 2008 1:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Chris Fields wrote: | | Going back over the Albion swords, it looks like the POB weighted chart was a better indicator of cutter vs truster, is this just me? Thanks |
i dunno........ in the single handers POB chart, the type 19s are cut and thrust as is the prince and they are mixed in with swords that are more cut oriented, the kern and the squire are two of the more quick in the hand albions with easy point control for the thrust in my experience, just doesn't make much sense to have them grouped with those others on that side of the chart. again just my $0.02
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Bram Verbeek
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| Posted: Thu 07 Aug, 2008 2:09 pm Post subject: |
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the giant pipette is slightly different. I use a tube on which I have marked 5cm increments (so far it is the same) Then I enter the object (no water as of now) I fill it up to the first mark and calculate what I would have added in an empty tube minus the actual amount added. Now I know how much volume is in the tube. I fill it up gradually, until I reach the end of the object. I found that lenticular cross-sections with a fuller are too hard for me to measure otherwise (as are hexagonal cross-sections transforming into a flat diamond, as with my XVIa). I used a measuring comb before, it is more accurate in defining inconsistencies, but estimating the volume is hard with it.
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Jean Thibodeau
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| Posted: Thu 07 Aug, 2008 2:10 pm Post subject: |
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| Chris Fields wrote: |
So do we think the POB weighted chart is more general, or the Mass weighted chart? I would like to get alot of input from alot of people who have more experience than I. thanks again. |
Just from my small sample of good swords ( Albion, A&A, AT, OlliN ) and where the Gaddhjalt ended up on some of the charts I tend to think that the POB weighted charts are closer to my subjective impressions. ( Gut feeling not deep analysis ).
Except for extreme designs where the weight is very light or very heavy, " Outliers " I think the POB weighted chart seems a little closer. ( Even then not sure ). Even my massive sword seems to work better with a chart weighed for POB as the high mass of this sword skews the results too much towards the unwieldy side if it's mass is over emphasized !?
As to Oakeshotts type I think this typology is more useful as shorthand to describe swords without having to go into longwinded descriptions each time one want to explain something. Also, the typology is useful for period classification and aesthetics.
Breaking things down by one hander, longsword, two hander as well as cutting biased swords and thrusting biased swords is more useful when only ease of handling is the issue. ( Just named those categories as examples, there might be more sub-groups and different names for essentially the same thing i.e. longsword, bastatrd sword, warsword etc ... if we want to split hairs about semantics and what they were called at different periods ).
You can easily give up your freedom. You have to fight hard to get it back!
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Chad Arnow
myArmoury Team
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| Posted: Thu 07 Aug, 2008 3:29 pm Post subject: |
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| Thom R. wrote: | so two points of note
1. 1 ounce = 28.3 grams. i realize many of the reviews here quote fractions of an ounce but overall, grams is a more universal measure, its a finer and more accurate measure, and all the kitchen scales at bed bath and beyond or home depot have grams as an option . something to think about..............
2. there are several sword reviews here where multiple swords (e.g. prince/squire, count/steward) from Albion are reviewed in the same review, and comments are made about how they seem to handle differently. well, maybe, just maybe, that's only partially affected by the hilt differences and has more to do with the slightly different profiles on the two blades which are handmade and never going to be exactly the same. a second batch of swords might yield very different thoughts about relative differences. just something to think about.
thanks again to the myArmoury team for keeping this going. tr |
Thom,
Thanks for your points. To address the first: We have over 200 reviews published and over 230 collection pages published using pounds and ounces. Changing all past reviews and collection pages would be more time-intensive than it's worth at the end of the day. Nathan's time is better spent on other things. Leaving the past ones as-is and changing only future reviews and gallery pages to metric measurements would mean you couldn't easily directly compare stats in an old review with those in new ones. That's not desirable either.
Nathan and I have discussed how great it would be if all the stats were entered into a large database and users could choose whether they wanted to see pounds/ounces or metric measurements in their forum preferences. The stats would be converted and displayed in the review in the system you chose. Nifty idea, but horribly time-consuming to code, not to mention the data entry of 500 items and counting...
This is not a scientific site, it's a hobby site and we're American non-scientists who run it. We'll likely stick to our established system for consistency and because it's what we're used to from our education in the American school system. I appreciate the desire to conform to what more of the world and the scientific community uses, though. I'd suspect many of our readers are more familiar with pounds and ounces, though we have many from readers overseas and from the scientific community. Honestly, I can't remember anyone complaining about not using the metric system in the 5 years we've been publishing. Most people seem to be coping with our choice.
Regarding changes from one example of a model to another, that's a valid point. I think though, that the swords we've reviewed in pairs and compared to each other have blade cross-sections that make wide variations more difficult and less severe if present. So while the blades may vary very slightly, in my experience and those of the others who reviewed pairs, the bigger change comes from hilts. And if you look at the differences in hilts between the swords in those pairs, they are different enough to account for most or all of the handling difference.
That said, my Regent is an outlier from published stats by 4 ounce (it weighs less); its POB is closer by around 3/4 of an inch. But its hollow-ground section helps create that. According to Albion, mine is just more deeply hollow-ground than the swords Patrick reviewed, Nathan owned, Steve Maly owns, and Albion used to publish its stats.
Blade sections like on the Mercenary/Constable, Count/Steward, Landgraf/Sempach, and Prince/Squire may not be as susceptible. But it's always a possibility that there are wild variations in the blades. Anything is possible.
ChadA
http://chadarnow.com/
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