hilt weight and shape, mass distribution...

[Guest]

Hello,
in building wasters for basket hilted swords, I came across a strange phenomenon: I wanted a backsword with handling qualities that my puny arm could easily manage and that resembled the kind illustrated by Miller (short, thin).
As I saw in the Edimburg castle and elsewhere, Scottish swords come with any sort of blade shape and one just has to chose the one he [censored] (sword manufacturer today seem to reproduce only the broader ones, that's sad).
Well the strange thing is that since my wasters seemed to handle poorly, I attribuited it to the weight of the blades and made them thinner, which caused them to handle more poorly.
After considering the problem, I took weight out of the hilts and things went better, to the point I realized I could have left the blades heavier...
Discussing of sabres with Matt Easton time ago, he told me that the best cutters among military sabres were the ones with moderate hilt weight, even if the sabres themselves were light.
Has anyone studied the relation between the weights of blades and hilts and handling qualities of the swords?
For what I've seen, I'd say heavy hilt and light blade is not good, light hilt and light or heavy blade is good, as long as good balance is kept, heavy hilt and heavy blade is good only for a strong arm.
My impression was that the weight in front and to the sides of the grip has an influence over the handling of the sword and not necessarily a good influence, in fact I do not like cup hilted rapiers as much as lighter hilted ones, for the sensation of having a lot of weight just in front of the grip, with wrist fatigue coming from this.

[Shane Smith]

Hi Carlo,

There are alot of different lines of reasoning on this. I think it comes down to one thing;What's the sword in question designed to do well? If we are speaking of an early XIIIa warsword,we are speaking of a sword optimized for the shearing cut.As such,it will be blade-heavy with a balance point about 7" in front of the cross...Light hilted if you will. If we are speaking of a later bastard sword with an acute thrusting point and fast handling,we will probably see a balance point around 4-5" from the cross...Hilt heavy as it were.This allows much more agility at the tip.I would imagine taken to an extreme,the rapier would be a prime example of a hilt-weighted weapon but that is suppostion as I am not competent with the rapier as that weapon does not currently appeal to me.

I think that heavy blades with heavy hilts perform worst of all in my own hands,they feel to be neither fish nor fowl.They just don't "tell" me what they want to do ,in fact if anything,such weapons tell me they want to stay at rest and do nothing.They are the couch-potatoes of the sharp and pointy world in my opinion <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />

[George Turner]

Hi Carlo,

There's a bit of strange physics involved in the mass distribution of the hilt. As you make the hilt heavier you're pulling the balance point back. Think of this as moving your hand closer to the balance point, and you'll see your sort of choking up on the weapon. Eventually you get to the point where you're essentially holding the sword by the balance point, as if it was a spear, and it won't want to swing. Grab one of your swords above the cross and try to swing it, and you'll see what I mean.

Strangely enough, if you make the hilt heavier and bring the balance point back, the sword actually hits harder than the ones set up for "cutting". You can't make it "lighter" by adding mass. However, it also doesn't respond as quickly to short saber like swings, and needs either more wrist torque or broader arm sweeps to bring it around.

[Jeffrey Hull]

Well, there is the example of the revolution in Teutonic blades around 800-900 AD:

Earlier Voelkerwanderung blades had been parallel-edged, with sandwich-built hilting, and thusly of a poorer balance. Then came, to name one "brand" of the era, the Ulfberht-blades, with a bit less weight, yet much more importantly, a bit wider at the cross-guard yet much significantly narrower near the point, the whole thing of course no longer parallel-edged but now markedly tapering. Add to that more solid and all-metal and thus heavier hilting, and you get a better balanced sword.

JH

[Derek Wassom]

With the balance point closer to the guard, it loses its "chopping" ability, but I would think that it would increase its "cutting" ability. Does this make sence? With a heavy hilt it would be easier to draw it back while you cut, and with a curved blade this is what you want to do, right? I'm pulling all of this out of my rear-end right now, so don't think that I know what I'm talking about. <img src="/forum/images/icons/tongue.gif" alt="" />

[Guest]

Good points Shane, we will ask Bart when he comes back from holidays, I suspect the principles of forces composition have to do with what I saw with regard to basket hilts. Since all parts of the sword are subject to acceleration when the sword is moved, the mass of any part generate momentum and energy, those are to be "composed" to see which point (not necessarily inside the sword) you are moving <img src="/forum/images/icons/shocked.gif" alt="" /> .
Sure the point of balance is effected, but I suspect there is something really strange behind this.
Carlo

[Randall Pleasant]

Carlo wrote:<br>Since all parts of the sword are subject to acceleration when the sword is moved, the mass of any part generate momentum and energy, those are to be "composed" to see which point (not necessarily inside the sword) you are moving. Sure the point of balance is effected, but I suspect there is something really strange behind this.

Carlo

You might want to read George Turner's article Sword Motions and Impacts. It will help to remove the strangeness.