myArmoury.com - Thoughts on the EBE/ ATrim collaboration?

Posts: 870 Location: Seattle area

Sun 13 Mar, 2005 11:24 am

Thoughts on the EBE/ ATrim collaboration?

I've had the Eljay hilts mentioned in Mac's thread on the Eljay hilts, but until yesterday, hadn't been able to find or create the time to open the package. Yesterday I did, and the photos, as nice as they are, do not do justice to the hilts.

Last year, with the early Scot baskethilt and the off the shelf AT blades, the concept was proven that this was doable. The best of them though, was the piece that Eljay made the entire hilt assembly, I assembled it on an AT1315 blade, and it became the myArmoury contest sword that Sean Flynt won.......

The others were ok, and I learned a lot doing them, but really, as far as potential goes, that first year was just proving the "concept".

These current hilts from Eljay are a step up in quality, one that will force the same from me.

Nathan desires the German hilt, and what has been discussed is a slightly modified AT backsword blade {fuller, false edge model}, at 34 inch blade length. I'm also thinking about designing a double edged blade for future EBE German hilts, making for an option, and making for very exclusive swords, as these double edged blades will only be made for the EBE German hilts {and Eljay will only supply me with 5 to 7 hilts a year}.

I couldn't stand it, so this morning I re-did a shop 1315 blade, refinishing it to my current standards, and mounting it up. Its very similar {except of course the hilting} to Sean's teastrainer....... This proves the "concept", but I'm also going to design a longer double edged blade {short ricasso, two or three fullers} that will feature the characteristics of blades I've seen on antiques owned by Pat Tuffer.

Then I have this beautiful Proto-Mortuary hilt. I hate to admit this, but I know very, very little about these later period swords, and certainly would love any ideas of what to do with this...........

I still have two more hilts coming this year {have no idea what they're going to be}.

One of the things Eljay and I discussed is seeing what is the most popular this year, and possibly taking deposits for next year, depending on what impressions and desires are this year.......

Rambling mode......

I am going to design new blades around these later period hilts that Eljay sent me. The excellence of them demand that I do my utmost to match the hilts' quality....And later period blades tend to be smaller {thinner in crossection and sometimes in width}.......Just two years ago, I wouldn't countenance making "historically correct" blades for these hilts, because I felt there was too much chance that a typical sword lover would wrap one around a target. Today, I'm convinced that the level of martial artist's knowledge, and the level of collector knowledge has reached a point that folks understand that these swords aren't indestructable, and that an "average" sword of these period would have a "finer" blade {mass wise} than most modern "medieval" reproductions. Matching one of the latter blades does not fully do justice to a really fine reproduction of one of these baskethilts. Designing accurate blades just might......

Looking back at what I've written, it doesn't look much like asking for ideas and help. But I am, particularly on the Proto-Mortuary hilt, but even the others.........

Thanks

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