Good rapiers

[Brian Hunt]

I have said it before, but I will repeat myself again.

It is not about weight, it is about mass distribution. You have the same problem with most commercial swords, but it is much worse when you are talking replica rapiers, whether they be blunt or sharp. I have held extremly light historic rapiers and extremely heavy historic rapiers, but they handled well despite the weight because of their mass distribution.

Most commercial rapier blades I have seen or handled start with 1/4 inch flat stock and either forge or grind them out depending on the factory/smith. They don't have the correct distal taper or enough beginning mass to handle correctly.

If you want a better blade that would be fairly accurate historically, start with 1/2 flat stock, grind a distal taper into it that goes about 2/3rds of the way towards the tip where it will reach a thickness of somewhere between 1/4 to 3/8ths of an inch, then level off and run at that current thickness towards the tip. At the very tip, the blade may even thicken some to support a stronger tip that will not easily bend over if it hits a hard object during a thrust.

You will also find this type of distal taper in historic longswords, arming swords, etc though the blades are not ususally as thick at the cross as a rapier, often being somewhere between 1/4 inch to 3/8 inch.

This type of construction will go a very long ways towards giving you the proper mass distribution for your replica rapier. However, the cost of grinding away that much steel, or forging out that strong of a taper takes a great deal more time and effort, therefore costs would go way up.

all the best.

Brian Hunt

P.S. I have handled many extremely floppy sharp replica rapiers. Some of them have had even more flex that some schlager blades I have handled.

[Vincent Le Chevalier]

I assume that whippiness in a modern rapier can be in problem in any plane of the blade. I should have stated in my post that I was speaking of whippiness from flat to flat. You are right that whippiness by be related to other factors such as the quality of the steel, its temper, etc., but my post was in regard to a rapier blade being whippy because it is thinner than what is found on historical rapiers.

Well I don't have enough data about reproductions and originals to be sure. I think my Darkwood bated blade is a bit thicker in the foible than a sharp would be, and that can amplify whippiness as well in the flat-to-flat plane (because there is more mass to flex the blade), but clearly it won't make it a better cutter. If it were sharp, that is

I also doubt the guys at A&A, for example, would build a sharp blade by just sharpening a blunt... I think everyone is aware that these are different beasts now.

Also, as far as I've seen the debate on rapier cuts is not really about test-cutting, but revolves around definition issues, more precisely the definitions of "rapier" and "cut"

I have to strongly disagree, John Clements and other ARMA members have conducted testing cutting on meat and other materials using historical rapiers that has shown very limited cutting abilities compare to Cut & Thrust swords.

What I meant was not that no test-cutting had been done on either side of the debate, but that the result of these tests are not really what is argued.

Personally I've decided to follow this:
- Fabris and Thibault are about using a sword that the vast majority would call a rapier straight away
- They both use cuts, and teach the defences against cuts by similar weapons
- These cuts are often the end of the action and not just a preparatory action
So... For me swords unable to cut are just a subclass of rapiers, and not necessarily the ones that were most widely used. I know this is irrevocably opposite to the ARMA standpoint so let's just agree to disagree on that.

What we need for better understanding of rapiers is not a lumping of swords but rather a fine grain classification based upon real knowledge and real scholarship similar to the one by Ewart Oakeshott.

I absolutely agree on this need of a better classification, and basing it on dynamic properties and blade profile would probably lead to some interesting insights. However I don't think we need to narrow the meaning of the common word rapier so drastically. Why wouldn't rapiers show different profiles and properties, just as longswords can? We could have rapiers that cut better than others, and learn to call them by their type just like it's done with the Oakeshott classification, when it is necessary to distinguish them... Instead of trying to find a common word for each sub-type, that will not be historical anyway (because back then they were all just "swords").

Regards

[Mark Winters]

I'm a longtime lurker but I feel like giving my two cents on this one...

I think that we need to distinguish between wobbly/whippy blades and those with 'Flex' towards the tip to at least somewhat spare your training partner. Because they do not nessicarialy go hand in hand.

If you grab a rapier by the hilt and wave it vigorously and you can see or/and feel the blade whip & wobble back and forth - this is not good. I think we can all agree on that.

I personally would be very interested to find out if the surviving examples of historical rapier foils had any flex in them. I don't think anyone has done so yet. And it would shed a lot of light on what our expectations should be for good practice blades.


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