Heavy armor's not a problem. In fact my friend has the rubber axe from Mandrake armory, also skeletonized. If anything he says it doesn't hit hard enough :eek:

---

 Attachment: 55.98 KB

I suggest starting or splitting off this into a Poleaxe topic as I find it very interesting but the original topic is also worth discussing further: The temptation will be great to go back and forth between both subjects to the possible confusion of all !IMHO.

( Not, trying to play moderator here. ;) :lol: )

Ah, I think splitting the topic was a good idea. Now I don't feel so bad. :)

George Hill wrote:

Bill, How much tripping have you and your guys done with the poleaxe/polehammer? What are the results like?

Well, I've only recently acquired mine, and most of my group haven't gotten there's yet. But from the limited tests, and from Brian Price's poleaxe workshop at WMAW, these work great. The hammer heads need to be hammered onto the pole, but at that point it takes a lot to get them to shift at all. You can tear down at your opponent's shaft and pull at an opponent's shoulder or knee with ease.

Bill;

Being a non-trainer I can only guess at what makes good safe training with potentially dangerous things: To me an attitude of exploring the results of one action versus another in the spirit of both participants being simultaneously student & teacher, and with full control over ego and emotion. Every defeat being a positive learning experience as well as any victory.

From my A & A Poleaxe I can imagine that the axe part of the pole axe would be very good at hooking and pulling off balance or even pushing and unbalancing: Although with the pushing it might be resorted to because the opportunity presented itself after a missed attempt to stab with the spike of the Poleaxe.

Anyway, my little un-informed attempt to keep this interesting discussion going. ;) :lol:

I can only speak from an SCA perspective ( which I think is held in quiet distain by many, but that's another thread and I dont think a constructive one) but since all of our fighters are pretty much head to toe in armor, the main concern os weapon weight. If memory serves the total weight of a polearm must be less that 6lbs. in practice noone I've ever met comes close to this, it's just ridiculously heavy; two battles and you be in cardiac arrest.

As has been stated, revival has an SCA variant which has a more rounded butttspike, what would be the advantage of the less rounded version? longer? more historically accurate?

Anyhow we are definitely full speed users, I'm sure that with a helm and some personal restraint these would be very safe.

I have not seen the SCA version of the Revival dague; but my guess is that the size of point required for SCA use is significantly larger than the WMA version. One possible disadvantage of this larger size might be that it would tend to catch onto snags, rather than slipping past them. The WMA version has a relatively small ball at the tip.

You use flails? Now that is interesting. I would think a flail FAR more dangerous for any kind of WMA/SCA/ETC fighting. The magnification of power is very cool or horrifying, depending on which end you're on. In fact they're explicitly banned for us because they're simply too easy to overpower. If you'd even consider letting someone hit you with a two handed flail, I would think a polehammer would be, again, safe. Of course safety is relative, one mans sport is another man's deathwish.

I am now more interested than ever in this hammer. When (not if) I get one, I'll be sure to post my findings. maybe even a pic or three :D Rest assured, if this thing has a safety limit, we''l find it and report it accordingly.

Having played around a little more with the Revival poleaxe simulators, I must say that they are really, really cool. At first I was a little bit leary of the mass on the head, but provided you have controlled partners (or some really heavy gauge armor) they're actually pretty safe over all. They're a little lighter than the real thing, and that has to be taken into account when bouting, but you can still do a lot of realistic techniques with them. The only real problem I've found so far is that the rubber heads can sometimes stick together. For instance, if I strike and my opponent sets me aside, I might try to use the hammer head to pull back against the opposing staff. There've been a few times where this caused the rubber head to pull against the other rubber head, and there was quite a bit of resistance in trying to "let go" with it due to the rubber sticking to rubber. That's pretty minor, but it's worth mentioning. Otherwise, these are really great tools.

Bill;

For the rubber sticking to rubber problem how about covering one of the heads with some sort of tape with a slick glossy finish. you might want this easily removable if you don't want to mar the surface, although with a training tool like this, aesthetic considerations are a low priority.

You could test the " slickness " of various tapes surfaces when in contact with the rubber before using it.