[Sean Flynt]

I think Chad's concern is most valid with high-end swords--those with close tolerances, wedges, keyed pommels, etc.

Anybody can disassemble and reassemble a screw-mounted Windlass sword and it'll still be pretty much as it left the factory, for better or worse, with no damage to the components or fit. Most of those are compression-fit, with lots of play in the components and each component dependent upon the stability of the others. Unscrew the pommel even a little bit and they fall to pieces. The upside of this is that such hilts can be reassembled in a more secure and historicaly accurate manner. If you don't know how to do that, you haven't lost anything.

On the other hand, take down an Albion or A&A and you're either not going to be able to match the quality of the original assembly or you're going to get a crash course in doing it to original specs.

I recently re-gripped and repaired the tang of an A&A. It's not an easy-on, easy-off job, even though the pommel turned out be secured by a threaded nut. The pommel is keyed, so it sits independent of the grip and cross. Likewise, if you take off the grip the cross remains tightly in place. Ditto for the grip if you were to cut off the cross. There are some other historically accurate things going on under there, and somebody without some knowledge of basic metalwork, tools and historical sword construction would have trouble rebuilding the hilt securely.

Addressing Chad's concern more specifically: Doing this work wrong even once with a sword like this would have immediate consequences for the stability of the hilt. You probably wouldn't do much, if any, damage to the tang or major steel components, but wood, thin steel and nonferrous metals are vulnerable to even one misstep--cracking, deformation, misplacement, etc. Long term, even a technically perfect reassembly with a new grip could lead to trouble if the wood of the grip isn't properly stabilized or formed. None of this is irreparable, of course. You learn from mistakes and rebuild.

I'm glad I had practice upgrading Windlass hilts before cracking open the A&A. I'd have been sweating blood, otherwise.

[Glen A Cleeton]

I'm not sure where my philosophy of routine inspection really lies. I'm including an old horrid scan I did of three tangs of swords with screw on pommels. The widest blade has the slimmest tang, yet it was a sword Patrick Kelly beat the pemmican out of and the grip to tang fit is/was the best of the three (Oscar Kolombatovich).

The narrowest blade has the largest threads and had the most ill fitting grip and guard. I never did take it apart until it started to loosen on its own, hardly right away but I did always wonder what the "crick" was about. Shims a wedge and a spacer for that one. Not quite ten years of random but fairly regular flourishing and impacts. it trucks on (late 1990s Windlass).

The other one is also an older sword with a doorknob pommel that lines up any which way. One of the MRL/Del Tin assemblies. A better grip and guard fit but my overuse has sprouted a couple of small cracks in the grip. This has been an "I think it can" sword for about eight years (in my hands, I bought it used) and I still take it out for back yard cane cutting.

One I don't have a ready apart photo of is the Glen Parrell Conyers. I don't know if Eric McHugh (the Bishop) installed the leather washers. This is a screwed on pommel as well. I've had it apart three times. When first acquired, when I first noticed small cracks in the oak grip (both ends) and a couple of years ago when I wrapped the core in synthetic sinew (blister city) and I have yet to do leather (that is about the pace I move on some projects).

My other readily broken down items are two Gus Trim swords. The old XIIIa never came apart for the first couple of years but it did settle, so I tightened it. The tang was no mystery to me as they were well covered on the boards. The deerskin Howy had glued on did eventually start to peel and it was then I took the grip off, as to more easily stitch the leather up (still going strong). The other ATrim i bought at the end of 2003 and did slip it apart on arrival (because it was winter and it was loose from a snowbank delivery). It has not been apart since and as with the other, needed a minor tighten after a bit of use.

The three in the scan I have had apart pretty regulalry to show folk at an annual exhibition. I've even been tinkering with the idea of putting the old Del Tin blade in different fittings. Other than that, they stay together.

Of my three A&As, it is the two bronze fitted ones that have needed the faux pommel peen nut given a nudge to tight. I may take the bronze BP apart at some point because the guard fit is a bit sloppy and the grip not quite right (a pre update era sword). My German Bastard has remained tight and perhaps used the most harshly. The previous owner didn't understand the nut routine and there was a little scarring of the beautiful crown A&A puts on the tang end.

So, I guess that explains my disparity of approach. Some tangs I look at rarely or never, others frequently but more because I can, and to show others.

Cheers

GC

[Mike Capanelli]

[Chris Fields]

Chad, I know you wouldn't purposely not read a post, but I also know it's easy to miss one, or pass over one on accident. By your other response I wasn't sure if you had read it.

No, the rust wasn't eating through the tang yet, but if it had been left alone, it definitely would have. There a few different types of oxides that form on steel depending on environments. If you see red rust (iron oxide)... you don't want it, red (or brownish red) rust will constantly corrode the tang with out protecting it. Plus, there was also some mud and general gunk trapped in the different hilt components that I got out by disassembling the piece. I would not have been able to clean it as well if I could not disassemble it.

One thing people may be forgetting with peened tangs, even compression ones. Is that you can not grind the peen off, change the grip, and expect to replace a new grip with the same handle length. Your handle length will have to get shorter every time you grind off the peen, because there is not as much material on the end the tang anymore. So a simple repeening for a grip change isn't so simple.

Historically, I do not believe that real swords (european) were used as often as we use them today. Trainers or blunts where mostly used for training, and an actual sword was only taken into battle. A swords useful life probably didn't last more than a few, maybe even only one battle, so rehilting or regripping may not have been an issue as it is today. However, with Japanese, this is different, training with the actual sword was done quite often, therefore the hilt needed to be redone quite often, which is why japanese swords are meant to be taken down. Chinese swords, in this respect, are more like european swords, in that they were mostly used only in battle, and trainers and wasters were used for practice, so the Chinese sword saw a useful life of a very few amount of battles, therefore most historical chinese swords can not be taken down either. So to say "because it was not needed back in history, we do not need to do it now" is not really a fair statement because it's not a direct comparrison in terms of useage.

[Jared Smith]

Another possible aspect of this is; How likely should it be for breakage to occur at the tang of a well built sword?

To my way of thinking, if the tang's proportions and radius's are well designed, solidly fitted / sealed, and constructed, then neither corrosion nor failure should be of highest frequency at the tang. One can go to other forums, search, and find examples of katanas and such being abusively beaten over an anvil. For the more experienced makers and proven designs, the failures seem to occur in regions of blade impact, not at the tang. On the other hand, if you utilize an actual axe or sledge hammer that has some play and loose fit in the handle to head assembly, you should anticipate a potential accident even though it really is massively heavy and "built like a hammer." As long as the removable hilt advocates do maintain the components so that play and looseness/ corrosion is corrected, I figure it just comes down to the adequacy of the original tang geometry design.

[P. Cha]

For me, it would be not so much customization so much as easy of hot blueing and touch ups would be nice.

As for tang inspection...in japanese swords, your checking the tuska core...not the tang. So the euro counter part is to check the wood in the handle core isn't cracked/broken. Which can be seen and is rather dangerous to use a sword with. So I think this could be valid...but the tang seems kinda silly unless it's REALLY obviously why are you even comtemplating using this sword bad.

[Chad Arnow]

[Nathan Robinson]

Regardless of all this, let's not forget that some collectors and users of weapons desire something close to what history has left us in an attempt to learn insights on that historical object. Modern-made items are often better engineered, but this better engineering doesn't necessarily help in unraveling the historical significance of details surrounding these objects. Having said that, the better engineering does help in other areas for other purposes. And I believe this is what Chad is trying to determine: modern use and need vs. those things in a historical context. It's certainly an interesting notion well beyond the issue of dismountable hilts.

[Chris Fields]

I was just making a general statement, it wasn't directed at you chad. I know your statement wasn't that absolute.

For people searching for historical pieces, I do recommend peened tangs to my customers. However, for stage combat and martial arts use, I recommend a bolted tang (but a large diameter bolted tang) and I just wanted to give that side of sword use.

I know most people into historical swords and swordsmanship just blow off stage combat folks as silly people swinging SLOs around. However, there are alot of people, including myself, trying to better both the weapons and the choreography to make stage shows more historical.

[Nathan Robinson]

[Sean Flynt]

[Chris Fields]

Yes, fitting a new sandwich type grip would be possible.

However, just to be devils advocate, if you remove the grip and slide the pommel down, and then file the peen flat, you are still removing material, and you would keep the peened tang the same lenght. However, when that tang was initially peened over, it was longer, now that is not as long, you would have to shorted up the grip to have enough material to peen over. The only way around this is to completely reforge it or cold work it back to it's original size and lenght, which would be an aweful pain, but possible.

[Sean Flynt]

[Chad Arnow]

[Chris Fields]

I use to use several Deltins quite frequently, and they all would loosen up after a few days of good heavy sword to sword contact. Sometimes they would hold for a few weeks, but that was rare. I always kept my ball peen hammer handy. These were early 90s deltin blades, not sure if the quality of his grips has improved, my guess would be that it has.

on a side note, something horrible happened to one of my favorite deltin's, one of the 2140. (I believe it was bought when museum reps carried alot of deltin's, that should date how old it was). Anyway, it was left at a friends house, and his little brother got a hold of it somehow. Needless to say, his little brother killed the sword. He and his friends played "sword fighting" and banged it edge to edge several times with a few SLOs, hit a couple of trees and few concrete walls, and then left it out in the back yard for over a week. It was found when my friend mowed his yard.... we were vary sad. I'll see if I can dig up the pics we took of it. It definitely looked more authentic after rusting so bad. (I live in Florida, it rained everyday the sword was outside)

I have also used a few blunts from a company called Arms and Armor Europe. I picked these up through the owner of by-the-sword, as he goes over to england and france often to pick up new swords to import into the us market. The swords were on the heavy side, but the tangs and hilts were built like Albions, though much stouter. One other touch they did after pressing the guard in place, was to silver soldier it as well. I don't know if or how that may helped, but the guard has never come loose in the 5 or 6 shows and several months of practice time I have used it for.

Other swords I have used that have a bolted tang are Lutel, triplette, Windlass, Lung Chuan, Huanuo and my own. neither the Lutels or my own have ever come loose during use unless we loose the pommel nut ourselves. I suspect this is because of the much larger diameter tang bolt. Not sure what types of wood Lutel and the others use. I use hickory, ash, teak, or walnut when I use wood. Honestly I use a thin wall stainless steel oval tube wrapped in leather most of the time in stage pieces. It allows me to keep the much tang wider, and the tubes fit very snugly over the tangs. So snug that you can remove the pommel and still use the sword for the most part. The stainless tube will never shrink or be compressed, or crack like wood, so that problem is also gone as well. Surprisingly, it does not carry vibration into the hand much more than the hickory handles, though I thought it would. I believe the leather dampens the vibration out. Contouring the stainless tubes is easy as well. People searching for more historical swords hate it though (if they know it's there, which they don't until I tell them), and thats why I do it both ways.

[Luka Borscak]

My Del Tin 2142 got loose immediately, during the first bottles cutting, but I fixed it with a hammer and it is still tight after months of cutting.

[Chris Fields]

How is your 2142? It did seem like the initial peen on ours could of been better.

Cutting water bottles should never put enough stress on a piece to loosen it up, cutting mats shouldn't either. It's the sword to sword stuff thats the most harsh, especially when someone uses incorrect technique.

[Chad Arnow]

[Chris Fields]

Oh, I know some Deltins do, however, I meant swords in general. A good piece should never loosen on a water bottle or mat.

... not saying deltins are bad... because they are not bad at all.

[Luka Borscak]