This is for those of you ARMA folks who are looking for a decent padded sparring sword. You don’t have to look hard any longer. Jeanry Chandler makes sparring swords that are works of art. They look, feel, and handle much like the real thing.
I got interested in Jeanry’s work at the Southern Knights get together in New Orleans last winter. Jeanry had a large collection of padded sparring swords for the participants to inspect and use. Jeanry gave me one of these weapons, a longsword not unlike the Towton hand-and-a-half sold by Museum Replicas. Shortly afterward he published on the web instructions on how to build one of his swords. I’ve made three, though none of them comes close to Jeanry’s in workmanship.
We’ve given Jeanry’s and my efforts hard use since Southern Knights, and at the Florida gathering in Orlando in November, members had a chance to use them in hard sparring. (See the ARMA South Florida website for some of those videos.) Jeanry’s weapon was well received and suffered only one problem: the cross was weak and had a tendency to bend (it’s made of wire).
After the Florida gathering, I asked Jeanry to make me a pair of longswords. He’s delivered and they are great to behold. Like his original gift, they look, feel, and wield much like a steel weapon -- light, fast and faux deadly. They taper from the cross to the point and have a noticeable edge, so players will know when they hit with the flat -- they won’t develop that bad habit with these babies. He’s also remedied the problem with the cross and markedly strengthened it. It’s so firm now that you wouldn’t want to use it for a murder stroke.
Altogether, Jeanry’s latest models are fine looking and durable. We’ve had them out in the yard for hard practice and they handle and hold up well. He’s even added a frill not present before. The grips now are oval instead of round (the core is PVC pipe), so you can tell by feel where your edge is.
As a bonus, Jeanry threw in two padded daggers. They make for much safer hard contact sparring than dagger wasters and make possible such staple techniques as the high and low shields.
Although you can make these weapons yourself by following Jeanry’s instructions, it isn’t as easy as it looks, especially for us shop-challenged folk. If you want a padded weapon that will give you a great sparring experience, I highly recommend getting in touch with Jeanry.
 |
||||||||
|
|
||||||||
