Recycle your old, broken waster and save a ceiling fan too!

[Shane Smith]

If you have a stack of old broken wasters, don't throw them all out. Get out the hand saw and cut the blade off about 10" to 12" in front of the guard and now you have a handy waster to practice your guard transitions and cutting excercises with indoors without endangering your ceiling fan or chandelier. The balance isn't great so find your most nose-heavy waster and use that one as when it's cut down, it will have more heft out front to give you a better feel in transitions and cutting. Not a big hint, but an idea I thought I'd share with some of our newer folks who are already in the dog-house with their family for breaking light fixtures while watching 13th warrior

[Stacy Clifford]

Something else you can do to balance it out is leave it slightly longer (mine is cut off at 16 inches of blade) and put a bolt through the end with large washers stacked on each side. It winds up looking like a small dumbbell on the end, but it makes the workout feel more authentic by replacing the weight lost on the end of the sword, even if the balance isn't perfect.

[Vincent Le Chevalier]

With a bit more work it should be possible to fully replicate the balance of a sword, including pivot points. However this can only be done if a sufficient length is preserved...

It has been discussed in more details here:
http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.php?p=1020714#post1019358

I confess I have not tried yet, just did the math, but in theory at least it's possible