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Well, the 'corrected' Early Medieval Single-Hand sword sharps and the fullered bastardsword are in! I have to say, they are looking good!

A couple of months ago when the first EMSHSs came in everything looked good- then you picked one up... ouch. There was a 1/4 pound too much material in the blade! A few slipped out, but most were sent back to be fixed. And fixed they were- they are now the correct weight and balance and look and handle great.

When the first Longswords and Bastardswords from the Tinker Line came out a lot of people complained that they didn't cut all that well until they were re-sharpened. Personally I haven't seen one yet that I couldn't use to cut mats with right out of the box, but that's me... A lot of people also complained that it didn't have an 'Appleseed edge' like swords costing 2-3 times as much. CAS/Hanwei initiated a 'fix' for this.
Thus when the Fullered bastardsword arrived I was delighted to see that my initial suggestions about the edge geometry and bevels had been put into effect- the edge is MUCH thinner prior to sharpening and is bevelled at a shallower angle. Initially when I examined the sword I could see light at several places along the edge; I believed that these were simply burs, so I sliced a piece of cardboar and checked again. Bingo- the bur was gone. I'd recommend that the first thing that anyone try to slice with one of these swords be a piece of heavy cardboard or leather to remove this bur. Also with the better edge geometry those that just have to have an Appleseed edge will find it much easier to do themselves.

The real surprise came with the new EMSHSs, however. These actually have an 'Appleseed edge' with no defined secondary edge bevel! The pics below show this clearly:
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Moreover they have done a good job on the edge- after chatting with Barry I think that we can expect to see this sort of edge on future models as well...

Since I got mine I think that it's safe to assume that these swords are on dealer's shelves also. I'm pretty impressed that the folks at CAS/H have been so quick to respond to customer input, and that theses swords are coming out so well!

I've always wondered how an apple seed edge is applied and maintained...seemed like a lot of work, if beautiful.

I don't suppose we'll see these edges on the bastard and long sword models?

M.

I don't honestly know if they plan to do this on the older models, but it would make sense... I think.

I filled a few 2L pop bottles with water today to try out the sword with some cutting. the good news is that the EMSHS cut brilliantly- zinged through the bottles like they weren't there. I couldn't be more pleased.

The FBS spent some quality time trimming blackberry vines this morning, and even though it hit the wire fence there was no damage- but it didn't wiz through the canes like the standard bastardsword that I had re-sharpened earlier. On the 2L bottle it cut OK- but frankly I had hoped for a bit better than that. So- I gave it a couple passes with the diamond-hone 'stone' on each side, then sliced some 7-8 ounce leather. Total sharpening time about 5 minutes. The next bottle was a lot easier and cleaner- much more what I had hoped for.

I suspect that the culprit is a bur on the edge- the quick passes with the Diamond-hone were sufficient to take it mostly off and slicing the leather removed the rest and presto! Instant improvement to performance. Note that I did not spend hours turning this into an 'appleseed edge;' just a quick touch-up with hand-tools was all that was required.

I'll report these results to CAS/H and see what can be done to improve out-of-the-box performance.