[Nils Anderssen]

Last year one of my good friends an fellow re-enactor asked me if I could make him a blunt falchion for sparing. It was supposed to be a relatively big one with a fairly long, but also wide blade. Most of the falchions you get on the marked today is either to heavy or to short, and common for most of them is that the weight distribution (and therefore handling) is completely off.
So I took the challenge and started to work out the dimensions of it and made some drawings.
The overall concept is inspired from the Thorpe falchion, but with a shorter blade. Ia also has some traces of the Albion Vassal in it as well. The pommel is taken from a couple of swords now resting in England and Germany. I quiet liked the combination between the curves in the pommel and the curves on the blade and crossguard.

Since I don't have a workshop where I can harden blades I got in touch with Szymon Chlebowski, who is not only a bladesmith but also a very experienced martial artist. The blade was made to my specifications based on drawings.

After a couple of months the blade arrived. It was somewhat heavier than and I expected so I ended up doing quit a lot of grinding on it. Since the proportions of the blade is fairly extreme I needed to remove as much of the material as possible from the end of the fuller to the tip... hunting down 0.5 mm there and 0.5 mm there.
Quiet a lot of work, but it was worth it in the end.
So, after that I ended up doing the hilt. The crossguard is forged from spring steel and the pommel from mild steel. The only irritating thing here is that their color is not matching 100%...

And here are the results:


(The edge is up...










Here it is compared to the Albion Wallingford (which by the way is an awesome sword )


The blade is 72 cm long, grip 9.5 cm, balance point 13 cm in front of the cross and the total weight is 1098g. The back of the blade tapers from about 7 mm by the crossguard to about 2 mm by the end of the fuller and continues like that to the tip. The edge of the blade 3 mm by the crossguard and 2 mm by the tip.

It is defiantly a cutting oriented weapon, but is fairly agile and fast and it is not unpleasant to fight with. The tip also feels fairly light.

I am very happy with how it turned out, some bits and bobs here and there I want to do better, but that is always the case. I also had a lesson or two about weight distribution which is always nice


Hope you like it