Buying wasters and practice blades?

[Jake Glickfield]

I am an American living abroad but will be visiting family there in a couple of months. I was wondering if anyone knew the cheapest places (preferably online) to get wooden or plastic (nylon?) practice blades. America is a shopper's paradise as everything is so much cheaper there so I am hoping to take advantage. The specific sword types I am looking for are katana and longsword/bastard sword, as well as a shorter curved blade. Can anyone help me?

[Sal Bertucci]

No clue on the katana.

New Stirling Arms makes some of the best wooden wasters. They also make messers and dussacks.

Crecent Moon Armory makes a good dussack waster. It's not pretty, but it's sturdy and practicle.

The Dwarven Smithy makes nylon wasters for londsword, messer, and dussack. High quality, but can take time.

If you're serious about this then avoid the Cold Steel longsword waster.

[Jaron Bernstein]

I am an American living abroad but will be visiting family there in a couple of months. I was wondering if anyone knew the cheapest places (preferably online) to get wooden or plastic (nylon?) practice blades. America is a shopper's paradise as everything is so much cheaper there so I am hoping to take advantage. The specific sword types I am looking for are katana and longsword/bastard sword, as well as a shorter curved blade. Can anyone help me?

For quality wooden wasters I suggest:

http://www.little-raven.com/

http://www.newstirlingarms.com/shop/

For quality plastics I suggest:

http://web.emerytelcom.net/users/blhunt/sales.htm

If you want steel this it THE place to go:

http://www.albion-swords.com/

[Peggy Sue Coates]

The Dwarven Smithy makes nylon wasters for londsword, messer, and dussack. High quality, but can take time.

Dwarven Smithy is actually making the Long sword wasters fairly fast at this point as well as some of the other products, Helms are going out the door faster but still take a while and there is still a waiting list for helms which I have been told it is getting smaller but still exists.

[Michael Vuolo]

If you're serious about this then avoid the Cold Steel longsword waster.

I'm brand new to the German Longsword, and I ordered one of these though I hasn't arrived yet. I've seen a few good reviews, but alot of negative comments on the Cold Steel. Why should I avoid it?

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[Sal Bertucci]

mainly this page here http://www.thearma.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23829&highlight=cold+steel

[Michael Vuolo]

Well, after reading that link, and lots of other threads here, I can see the point. On the other hand, as someone who's taken just one class so far and has little to no expendable income, I think the Cold Steel is going to serve me well. My instructor ordered one as well, and was going to see if it was worth having a few as loaners for newbs. I'll have to ask him how he thinks it compares to the custom nylon and wooden wasters he has now, which cost 4x as much.

[Michael Vuolo]

Well, the Cold Steel arrived today and I will admit, lesson learned. It's considerable warped.


Stupidly, I bought it on eBay to save a few bucks from either BudK or Amazon and hence I cannot return it (seller has "no returns" clearly listed on their page). It was an impulse buy, but at least it was cheap.

My recourse now is to either try to resell it, shelve it, live with it, or find a way to fix it. I'm most inclined to try to fix it.

Does anyone know if this kind of polypropylene can be straightened with pressure or heat or a combination of the two?

[Sal Bertucci]

No clue, but it's worth a shot.

[Michael Vuolo]

I spoke to a friend of mine who's a toy designer and all around plastic genius, and he said that for polypropylene, that's not too bad of a warp. It tends to warp when cast into molds.

Still, he gave me an idea that involves a heat gun and lots of ventilation. I'm not 100% sure I want to try it.

[Kevin Hemmingsen]

The only other cold steel waster I have seen had the same type of problem when it was received. I think it is just due to the box being bent during shipping. It went away after a few days of use.

[Michael Vuolo]

That's promising. I already contacted the seller, but if that doesn't pan out I'll just have to wait and see and report back.

[Jonathan_Kaplan]

Well I ordered one of these as well, and it hasn't shipped yet, so I am hoping I get a good one! I did order it from here: https://yourcornerstore.com/

which seemed to be the cheapest after shipping place that had it in stock. About $37.50 after shipping!

[Jason Taylor]

Well I ordered one of these as well, and it hasn't shipped yet, so I am hoping I get a good one! I did order it from here: https://yourcornerstore.com/

which seemed to be the cheapest after shipping place that had it in stock. About $37.50 after shipping!

http://trophys.dealerease.net/catalog/p ... &pid=66747 is the best price I found for these. It has them listed for 24.67. I'm not sure on the shipping, but I don't think it's 13 bucks.

I know the Cold Steel wasters get a lot of flak, but really, they aren't *that* bad. If you're just starting out and need a waster to get yo going, they look good and that can be motivating. More motivating than a stick, anyway. And they;'re a third the price of wood and more like a quarter the price of plastic. My group has a handful, and we haven't had any complaints for what we use them. We *don't* spar with them, however; they're a little too heavy for my liking for that. But for drilling and practice, they're great if you can't afford something really nice, like a Brian Hunt waster. But really, the poor handling characteristics, bad as they are, just can't make up for the price differential in my book. Besides, there are plenty of options for modding your wasters to both increase the handle length and change the balance, both of which help (i've handled a few of these, as well).

By the way, as far as I know, Brian's the best out there for plastic. If you want plastic, go with him, even with the wait, because the other waits are just about as long and many have serious safety issues or even cost way more. We have a couple of British-made models in our group as well,but I can't remember the precise maker. Anyway, they're nice but they have metal crosspieces which make them kind of dangerous in some circumstances. The Like Steel ones (I think that's them, the Spanish made ones) have an incredibly dangerous metal rod as a cross. I'm not good with that. I personally own a discontinued With Intent model, which is awesome, but a little whippier at times than I like. So if you want epically good, go with Brian. If y want cheap and functional, Cold Steel will work for your needs.

Jason