Question on Rapier Blades

[SzabolcsWaldmann]

Hello my fellow Swordsmen,

I would very much like to ask you, if you can tell me about a rapier blade, like used by John in those videos by the castle. You see, we have our own rigid rapiers ( http://www.sword.sg18.net/hu/ruestkammer/hu_rk_rapier.htm ) but they are too hard and not very flexable. We would like to buy two or three blades and let our smith create hilts for it; these blades need to be meant for true Rapier play (no 500 g thingie) and yet flexible, so 'normal' safety equipment would be anough for free-play.

thank you,

Szabolcs

[Rod-Thornton]

Wowser... Just looked at yer' link. Are you guys really going at it w/rapiers without masks?

[Matthew_Anderson]

While extremely flexible rapier simulators are quite safe, they make accurate point control and proper perfomance of various historical techniques nearly impossible. Most of us in ARMA are using home-made wooden or fiberglass rapier simulators for free play in order to achieve the required stiffness but still enable firm contact with control.

[Jaron Bernstein]

We have been using PVC pipes with dowel rods inside. The balance is off (way too blade heavy), but they are certainly stiff!

[Shane Smith]

Hanwei's button-tipped training rapier blades aren't too terribly bad but the longer ones are still a bit whippy.

[Brian Hunt]

If your truly interested in a flexi rapier blade, avoid the schlager blades they have the wrong profile, and go with either a Darkwood Armoury bated rapier blade or a Del Tin Bated rapier blade. It is my understanding that these two are the stiffist flexi rapiers on the market. Here is the URL where you can order them. http://www.darkwoodarmory.com/ Please keep in mind that there are two ways to fence rapier. One is with control, the other is to build the safety into the weapon throught the use of flex in the blade. They both have pluses and minuses.

hope this helps.

Brian Hunt
GFS

[SzabolcsWaldmann]

Hi,

And thnxx for the answers. No, we are not doing 'it' without equipment - on the fotos you can only see training of technics, no free-play.
We are building on control, but a meant freeplay would be most desired.
I've done some rapier+dagger freeplay without proper equipment with lots of controll and it was of course much fun.
I guess I'll have to look at those blades of darkwood and Del Tin. (right now my firewall does not allow me in, I'll have to check them out later).
What do they weight?

TRhanks again,

Szabolcs

[Matthew_Anderson]

Here's what we are using for most of our rapier freeplay:







These were really simple to make. They are just a 7/8" hardwwod dowel, with a simple wooden cross hilt drilled to fit over it, then glued and pegged. Then I slipped a round piece of heavy leather over it to make a slightly more rapier-like hilt. I pegged and glued a wooden drawer knob on the grip for a pommel. The "blade" is tapered a bit with a block plane to give it decent balance. They are stiff as hell, have realistic balance and handle well although the weight is lighter than the real thing. They are perfectly safe for spirited freeplay when used with some control. Even with hits that are a bit too hard, a slight bruise is about the worst we've had. So far, no problems with cracking or breaking, they seem to be holding up well.

[SzabolcsWaldmann]

Could you please repeat your post with intact pictures? I am overly excited what they actually look like.... (And thanks for sharing)

Szab

[Brian Hunt]

Hmmm,

I can see the pictures that Matt posted just fine.

Brian Hunt
GFS

[jeremy pace]

Moi aussi.