| Jeffrey Faulk wrote: |
| Minor note: Hanwei CAS Iberia blunts are of OK quality. Not awesome, but not utterly dog's meat either. They will have softer metal than the better quality blunts, so you'll spend more time cleaning up dings and such. Hanwei Tinker blunts are a little harder (not by a whole lot but some), and the hex-nut assembly means that while they may loosen somewhat with use all you really need to do is tighten up the nut a little. The grips aren't glued in with those, either, at least not on the hex-nut pieces.
Hanwei does have a Federschwert for reasonable price, it won't really compare to a Fabri Armorum or Albion or A&A but it'll do for a beginner. Or you could just save your pennies while you're at it. One of the best pieces out there... IF you can find it in the classifieds... is the Angus Trim "I-beam" blunt. They're not really being made anymore though and those holding them tend to hold them very tightly indeed! You're really better off buying a Hanwei Tinker blunt than trying to file down the edge on a cheap Windlass or some such move, though. Not only is it safer from the get-go, you won't be screwing up a perfectly good sword to make a half-hearted blunt. |
Thanks so much for the informative response! I believe I will definitely wait for some time before sparring with steel, that way I can afford a good Fabri Armorum, or better yet, an Albion--I would prefer to have a blunt longsword over a feder unless feders have some great advantage over the Liechtenauer, for example.