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Review
by -
Jason Ryan, Owner, Arms of Valor
The sword is 36 inches overall,
with a 28 inch blade, weighs exactly 3
pounds, and has a balance point of 4-1/2
inches. The blade and hilt parts are
blackened through a heat treating
process. One of the minor draw backs is
the blackening will rub off if scraped
or dinged against another hard object.
Out of the package I found a few small
areas on the tips of the crossguard
where the blackening had been rubbed
down to expose the steel. These were
very minor and did detract from the
overall beauty of the sword.
Initial handling impression of
the sword was very good. All the
fittings are extremely tight and the
sword feels very sturdy and strong.
There is no wobbling in the blade of any
kind. Needless to say the sword is very
stiff without much flex. I don’t mind
this as I feel as a cut and thrust type
of sword it will serve its purpose very
well.
Now onto the test! I wanted to
do something very different with this,
so I decided to use my practice pell as
my test subject. It is a 4x4 cemented
into the ground with two 2x4 cross
section creating shoulders. Everything
is covered in about three layers of
carpet and then a few layers of duct
tape. The sword being tested is not
sharp, but I still had concerns that I
might cut my pell into bits. Normally I
don’t like to talk in my videos, but
another new thing I wanted to do was
talk to the camera as if I was face to
face with someone and explain to them
what I was doing and the results. This
actually worked out better than expected
as you can see in the video.
 Overall
I did about 30 minutes of pell work
trying to work various angles and speeds
to show off the agility of this sword.
Watching the video many of the shots
look like they landed flat, but actually
the edge was making contact with the
target with the blade at an angle. It
would be like cutting a water bottle at
a 45 degree angle rather than 90
degrees. After the 30 minutes there was
not a single rattle from the fittings
and no need to tighten the screw on
pommel. It was just as solid as it was
before the start of the test. I was
very pleased with this sword and will be
adding the one I tested to my personal
collection. I will probably also
customize it by adding a dark red high
end grip (to see the AoV custom grips go
to
AoV Custom Grips and don’t be
surprised if you see me carrying this
sword at events.
The video shows the rest: speed
and balance as well as (without
intending to) the durability and
structural integrity. |
