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Leo Todeschini
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PostPosted: Wed 03 Feb, 2010 9:51 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Quote:
Chad Arnow wrote Do you mean this sword, one of my favorites


Yes that very sword - thanks.

Looking at it again here though the tang could have corroded away near the top of the pommel and so everything moved, but still it does look to me that it was on pretty squiff in the first instance. I guess the man looked at his new sword and liked what he saw, he certainly had the money to tell the man to go back and sort it out, but he didn't. It was acceptable as it was.

Tod

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Christian Böhling
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PostPosted: Wed 03 Feb, 2010 10:06 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I can´t help, but staring at the tang, I feel if the pommel sits a bit to deep on it, as if it was kind of not sitting right. Perhaps if we could get it in our hands it would rattle....mybe a stupid suggestion.
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Timo Nieminen




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PostPosted: Wed 03 Feb, 2010 12:37 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Allan Senefelder wrote:
Did the medieval world have standards? Of course they did, but how things were made, even the very finest things was very different from how much of the very finest things or for that matter everyday things today are made ( one Ferrari will look like the next ,one Lamborgini like the next ) by and large.


And then there was the man to whom a hand-made English car had just been delivered (a Bentley, iirc), who complained that the flat bit next to the boot was one finger-width on one side, and three finger-widths on the other. Customer service replied that "We make all of them like that."

Given the demands made on, e.g., fruit, individually grown, subject to the whims of Nature, or at least weather and bugs and slugs - this is truly variation beyond handwork - by customers, can the demands of buyers of modern swords be surprising? Sometimes one sees the bug-bitten/frost-bitten/sunburned fruit being sold at high "organic" prices - agin, no surprise to see the same in sword-marketing.
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Sean Flynt




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PostPosted: Wed 03 Feb, 2010 12:59 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

As a service to the community, I'm willing to dispose of all of your unwanted "too perfect" work from Albion, Peter Johnsson, Tod, A&A, et al. I'm willing to split the shipping charges.
-Sean

Author of the Little Hammer novel

https://www.amazon.com/Little-Hammer-Sean-Flynt/dp/B08XN7HZ82/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=little+hammer+book&qid=1627482034&sr=8-1
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Sean Flynt




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PostPosted: Wed 03 Feb, 2010 1:06 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Is it possible that the inlaid arms on that pommel are meant to be perfectly vertical when the sword is worn? The cutler could have had a model wear the sword at the ideal angle, then marked the pommel for the correct vertical positioning of the arms. Ostentatious display clearly is the point, and there are certainly examples of that kind of obsessive attention to detail of dress even in our own time--military dress uniforms are the obvious example.
-Sean

Author of the Little Hammer novel

https://www.amazon.com/Little-Hammer-Sean-Flynt/dp/B08XN7HZ82/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=little+hammer+book&qid=1627482034&sr=8-1
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David Teague




Location: Anchorage, Alaska
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PostPosted: Wed 03 Feb, 2010 5:46 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Sean Flynt wrote:
Is it possible that the inlaid arms on that pommel are meant to be perfectly vertical when the sword is worn? The cutler could have had a model wear the sword at the ideal angle, then marked the pommel for the correct vertical positioning of the arms. Ostentatious display clearly is the point, and there are certainly examples of that kind of obsessive attention to detail of dress even in our own time--military dress uniforms are the obvious example.


I wondered about that myself from the angle it was off. Happy

David

This you shall know, that all things have length and measure.

Free Scholar/ Instructor Selohaar Fechtschule
The Historic Recrudescence Guild

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Ken Speed





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PostPosted: Wed 03 Feb, 2010 9:33 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

One of the factors we are overlooking in this discussion is romance. We early 21st century types are buying swords for romance. The smith, cutler, and sword wielder was looking at a sword as a tool to kill and a tool to keep the user alive, finish perfection was secondary to utility. Clearly swords for royalty and parade armor and weapons fall into a different category.
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Michael Pikula
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PostPosted: Wed 03 Feb, 2010 9:36 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

When I make the "perfect" piece, it will be the last piece that I make and I will keep it for myself. Perfection is something that is very easy for one to say, but to achieve is a different world. I feel that every craftsman should put forward their best work that they can at the time, but there is no such thing as "the perfect work." Machine made or not, Perfection is in the eye of the beholder, and pure perfection transcends the border of individual speculation. Perfection is something that you work a lifetime at at and very few, if any achieve.

I was taking a tour of some metal work once and my teacher pointed out how none of the lines matched up, or ran parallel, or had the same level of finish, yet all worked together as a whole, and made everything seem natural and organic in a way that you can't force or try to make happen, it just happens. Perfection comes from a refection of the inner Zen of the creator.
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