Posts: 211 Location: United States
Sat 21 May, 2011 1:04 pm
New Raven Studios Gladius waster
I would like to put in a good word for Raven Studios and to show off my new toy. I enjoy playing around with pell work and I purchased jian and dao wasters from Raven Studios several years ago. I've recently become more interested in Greek and Roman warfare so I contacted Carina about making me a Mainz
Gladius waster. I wanted it to be as historically accurate as possible in size and handling characteristics so I used Albion's Mainz Gladius for the specs. The shape of the blade is a bit different, I suspect to get the
balance point correct and to reinforce the tip, since the Gladius was primarily a thrusting sword.
The blade length and width at the base match the Albion Mainz Gladius, the PoB is 4" in front of the guard and it weighs 1 lbs, 5 oz (about 1/2 lb lighter than a steel version....not too bad!). My first impression was how massive the sword is! When I think of a Gladius I think of a much smaller sword. Now I would really like to get one in steel!
Overall, I couldn't be more pleased. This thing is solid as a rock and I expect to get many years of use out of it.