[Chris Holzman]

Gentlemen (and Ladies if present),

Seeing as how this seems to be a bit more serious forum... I thought I'd release this a bit early. This is a work in progress, in which I've finally started to actually make a bit of progress. Manoucher asked me to post it after I'd shown it to him, and I initially hesitated, as it's simply not finished yet.

After much consideration, I've decided to go ahead and post.. The link below represents the current status of the project.

Briefly, what I've got, is a webpage somewhat chronicling the rebuild of a M1860 US Light Cav sabre blade, purchased in M1904 Hungarian fittings, as part of the Hollywood Costume buyout, which I in turn purchased on Ebay.

I was looking for an ambidextrous sabre, with an antique blade, so as to have something that my sabre students could learn to cut with, as well as to be able to let those in the kenjutsu dojo I am a part of, have the opportunity to cut with an authentic western weapon.

I knew that to get something I would be happy with, and that would meet my criteria, I'd either have to spring for a nice, Caucasian shashqa, or modify something existing. I did not want to destroy a historical piece, so I decided that a bare blade was the way to go.

About this time, the hollywood costume selloff was going on on ebay, and I purchased this sabre, which was apparently used in "Charge of the Light Brigade" Finally, over the last two years I've worked on it a bit between other projects, and have finally started to make real progress.

Now i need to find someone to do some simple lost wax casting for me, to create hilt fittings, and to assemble them onto the sword.

As it stands, the sword is solid, properly weighted and balanced, and is quite sharp. I have cut up to 2 inch green bamboo with it, and have been amazed at how well it performs. Oh.. yeah. reference that... It cuts better than my PK or Golden Oriole, and is lighter, faster, and far more alive feeling than either of them.

Please take a look at the following: http://www.geocities.com/moniteur12/myshashqapage.html

Comments of course, are welcome.

Thanks all
Chris

Edit: I cleaned up the webpage a bit to more correctly illustrate my thoughts, and to make sure that it matched what I said here. sigh. I have brain cells.. really...

[Chris Holzman]

Hrm....ok.. maybe a video from last year... Just trying to generate a little interest. This was taken by a friend during the dojo's annual tameshigiri day (which explains the hakama and gi) but by the end of the day we're cutting with anything sharp we can get ahold of... thus my shashqa. http://members.cox.net/moniteur/chris_01.avi



Seems that shashqa just aren't a lot of peoples cup of tea....

anyway, thanks for looking.

[Scott Byler]

Well, might as well make a comment out from the midst of the peanut gallery... It looks nice to me. While shasqua are not my prime interest, I've had a bit of hankering for a good one, maybe a bit into the fantasy field with a 2 hand grip. Ofcourse, I've also got a desire to own a nice karabela, yataghan, shamshir, kilic, etc... Yep....

Anyway, the changeover you've made is quite a huge improvement and seems like a fine blade.

I used to look over some of those auctions on eBay with the old film swords and really should have got in on some of them. I saw a couple that were very nice, to say the least. As always, having no spare money plagues me and I missed out...

[Chris Holzman]

Now I dont feel like a total loser... thanks!


Seriously though, there were some good deals to be found in amongst that buyout... especially since it was really a pretty limited range of swords, it would have been pretty easy to pick up 4 or 5, disassemble, reassemble and have 1 or 2 returned to their original configurations.

I paid $80.00 for the sword I purchased... it had a M1872 Lt. Cav Scabbard (blade is m1860, because it lacks the deep (2 to 3 mm) m1872 marking... but they're the same blade... I traded that scabbard to Mike McWatters for an old 10"
drawknife.. The guard that came on my blade has been reused on a bare blade owned by my fencing coach. I built a poplar core, same wrapped handle for it.. The blade was an Alex Coppel (Solingen) cavalry troopers blade... and the guard looks GREAT on it, where it looked really bad on my blade.

So, for 80$ I got a vintage blade, a big drawknife, and parts to use on another blade. not bad.

I wish I had picked up one of the Taras Bulba shashqa that were for sale... sigh. oh well..


Whats fun with this shashqa, is that it totally discredits the idea that the M1860 was an inferior design, couldn't cut, etc etc.. everyone in my dojo who's cut with it... loved it..

The blade has held its edge very well... and I've cut LOTS of cardboard fencing equipment shipping cartons with it, plus probably about 100 bamboo cuts.... It seems to be well heat treated, nice flex, returns to true nicely.. its perhaps a little softer than we might want today - but that kind of seems to have been the rule with those blades, as I understand it...

[Scott Byler]

I personally think we suffer a fair number of misconceptions about what would and wouldn't 'work' since we view with the modern eyes of our culture and often can't relate to other views. Just my opinion, ofcourse, but there it is...

[Chris Holzman]