Shrewsbury Sword broken after 1st day

[david welch]

I got my wife Donna an Atlanta Cutlery Shrewsbury sword for Christmas. Actually what I did was get her an "IOU a Sword" for Christmas so she could pick out something she liked.

A couple of days after she received it we had it out in the yard playing with it, swinging it around, seeing how it felt. It felt like a very nice sword for the price, lively, and felt like it wanted to be used. An easy eight cut exercise felt great with it, and at it's size worked wonderfully as a two handed sword for Donna, and I could use it as a one hander.

We were standing next to our pell, and started to talk about a Talhoffer plate. To show what I was saying I made a murder strike from the wrists, bumped the padded pell, and the hilt fell off. The sword broke not at the shoulder, but right in the middle of the tang. When you look at the end of the break, you can see a big black spot in the metal where it broke, and see where grinder marks went up that side of the tang.

When we called Atlanta Cutlery, they were apologetic and immediately sent a return label to us so they could replace the sword. What I am wondering is if Windlass has decided to use this as their method of quality control, figuring it is cheaper to replace broken swords from people that use them, instead of inspecting all of them and weeding out the defects.

This is a hit and a miss for us, as I bought one of the budget long swords from Huge, and have abused the heck out of it to no ill effect.

I'll post some pics of it once I get them downloaded.

[Mike Cartier]

thats the problem with MRL, crappy tangs
My grosse messer broke right in the tang.

The only reason I recently bought the Dusack from MRL was that its one solid piece of steel so even they couldn't screw it up in the tang area.,
They make their tangs too small and i think they are brittle from improper heat treatment or something.
After the messer i don't trust their tangs at all.

[Bill Tsafa]

Thanks for that info. I was considering buying that sword but I have not because I am not too happy with my Windlass Classic Medieval. Infact there are a few swords from Windlass I would have bought already if I had more confidence in them like that 15 th Centurey longsword with siderings. Windlass is realy hurting their own sales.

I think it is very important that we continue to share test results. I have been running a sword review website for about a year now. You can see it here: http://mysite.verizon.net/tsafa1/swordreview.htm

I extensivly test tires on a tire-pell I constructed. I would be interested in expanding this review site to include tests that other people have done for the benefit of everyone. Let me know if you or anyone is interested.

So far I have broken three swords. All in the tang. Mnufactures need to get it into their thick heads that they must make those tangs thicker.

[Ben Strickling]

So far I have broken three swords. All in the tang. Mnufactures need to get it into their thick heads that they must make those tangs thicker

I remember reading an article that also helps to explain frequent tang breakage. I've tried to go back through to find it but for the life of me I can't remember where I read it so I'll just put it out there and see if anyone else remembers reading this.

Anyway, in addition to the tang not being strong enough, this article proposed that many also break due to problems with the sword's balance. Their argument basically goes like this: All swords have a point of percussion, which of course is the place on the blade that produces the least amount of vibration when the blade makes contact with another object. This is an ideal place to make contact since it allows the most energy from the swing to be transferred into the point of contact without it being dissipated through vibration. What many people don't realize is that there is also a point comprable to the point of percussion on the other end of the sword. Ideally this should be right over the crosspiece, since this allows for the least amount of energy from vibration to be transferred to the hands through the tang, at least that's my recollection of how it works. So basically if this lower point of vibration is off you may get an excessive amount of the energy from vibration distributed through the tang into the handle of the sword. This combined with a thinner tang supposedly causes many sword breaks at that part of the sword.

So, that's my recollection of how the argument went. Thoughts?

[david welch]

What startled me was actually being able to see the defect in the metal itself.

[Randall Pleasant]

Ben wrote:
Anyway, in addition to the tang not being strong enough, this article proposed that many also break due to problems with the sword's balance.......So basically if this lower point of vibration is off you may get an excessive amount of the energy from vibration distributed through the tang into the handle of the sword........

Ben

I may be mistaken but this is sounding a lot like the Harmonic Balance theory pushed by select people else where on the Internet. This theory has more to do with martketing than actual physics. For a better explaination of why tangs breaks check out George Turner's article Sword Motions and Impacts here on the ARMA site. In short, tangs break because they cannot handle the stress of impact put on them, not because there was too much vibration. Think about it, you are holding the hilt and the blade is in contact with the target - how much vibration can there be with both the target and you hands dampening any vibration! <img src="/forum/images/icons/smirk.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forum/images/icons/tongue.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forum/images/icons/grin.gif" alt="" />

[Bill Tsafa]

In the picture look how thick they make the wooden handle. They could have made the tang a bit thicker and made the wood a bit thinner. The grip would have maintained the same size.

It seems to me from what I have seen, that that tangs on two-hand swords are the same size as the tangs on one-hand swords. Meanwhile, when you put a second hand on the grip, you double the amount of torque. You would think common sense says to double the tang thickness.

[GaryGrzybek]

I'll go with Randall on this one. When a tang breaks it's usually because of forging flaws, improper temper (too hard) or stress points due to poor construction. Excessive vibration doesn't help matters but I don't believe it's a leading cause of blade failure. As far as vibration and performance goes, it's probably less critical than most think. None of my high end swords show undue vibration so no worries here <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />

[GaryGrzybek]

Bill,

From what I see there's no issue with the proportions of that tang. It looks just fine to me. It's more likely an issue with the steel itself as I stated below.

[GaryGrzybek]

Actually, here's a good article on hilt construction which might be of interest.

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

[Ben Strickling]

I may be mistaken but this is sounding a lot like the Harmonic Balance theory pushed by select people else where on the Internet. This theory has more to do with martketing than actual physics.

You're probably right, Randall. I wasn't sure how much credibility to give that theory in the first place. I was curious what people thought of it, though, since I personally have little experience when it comes to the actual process of swordsmithing. I'll check out the article.

[s_taillebois]

M. Gryzbek,
It seems very probable you pinned the problem. Hard to tell from a digital shot...and from somewhat fallible memories of long ago foundry working...but it looks like when they made that tang, they may have gone too hot when tempering it, or in when the blank was made. A bit crystalized...
That said, unfortunate that it broke, but at least MRL seems to have made good the problem. And also illustrates how hard these things are to make, a lot of variables, even on what is a technologically simple object.

[Brian Hunt]

While it is hard to tell from the pictures, to me it looks like there may have been excessive grain growth in the tang making it brittle and allowing it break. As for the black area, it may be some sort of inclusion or defect in the steel. If indeed it is grain growth that caused the fault, you can put it down to a badly heat treated blade.

just a thought on this.

Brian Hunt
GFS

[david welch]

As for the black area, it may be some sort of inclusion or defect in the steel.

The black part is almost like slag.

[Bill Tsafa]

One more thought. Most people who know football will say that footballs is all about skill too. You ask any lineman and he will tell you on the line they try to outbalace their opponent rather then muscle him if they can. More importantly winning is all about coordination and planning. Yet strength training is a key component to the training. In that billion dollor sport I do not think they would have athlets spend so much time in the weight room if it was not a vital factor.

Thanks for the link <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />