Edge on Edge Contact with Sharp Swords

[@kaizen5023]

A note on nicks and sword breakage: Nicks create microfractures which later leads to breakage, despite good maintenance. I've broken a couple of excellent blades over the years in historical European fencing and they've always broken at the Center of Percussion (e.g. 2/3 towards the tip) or the parrying point on the forte (e.g. 1/3 towards the tip), and usually at the CoP. I have always kept my blades maintained with filing and grinding to remove the nicks, and you start getting excactly the kind of wavy look as historical blades that have seen battlefield use. Then when they break (usually at the C.o.P.), it is because they get microfractures in the steel, and even though you keep rounding out these areas, the microfractures have already started. So it is only a matter of time before they break at one of these points where one (or multilple) nicks created microfractures.

[@armsarmorinc.4153]

Great description we may steal this with your permission when we do the episode showing the nicks worked out of the blades.

[@jacobmcdonald4386]

Very grateful for you sacrificing your sharps for this. Thank you 🙏

[@armsarmorinc.4153]

Our pleasure!

[@thescholar-general5975]

Nice video! It is interesting how much the presence of a notch impacts how the edges slide!

[@armsarmorinc.4153]

It does!

[@mugenGRTC]

This is why in Chinese Swordsmanship we purposely deflect with the blade flat and avoid edge parries.

[@indeswma4904]

A lot of HEMA longsword styles also use the flat for shedding parries or attack the opponents flat to displace their weapon.

[@consumer1073]

what i really want to see is a few parries and techniques done with as much force as possible. what i mean by that is, with all the vigor and speed you'd see in a real death match. done in armor obviously, but even videos like these have guys swinging really lightly compared to full anger, where you'd be swinging much faster and with much less regard to hitting something on or with the flat. the longsword parry where you receive a downward strike somewhat on the flat, above your head with the sword horizontal and let their blade slide down yours then counter with a cut to the left with the sword still above the head would be particularly interesting since it's one of those techniques that's a response to an imminent deadly cut with a lot of force being guarded against

[@greghenrikson952]

I've noticed a difference between cuts *to* the opponent's blade and mutual interceptions where you are both aiming for each other. Direct right-angle parries tend to leave a nick, but acute angle ones just feel kind of sticky for brief moments. Though obviously testing this stuff gets kind of dicey when you're both aiming for the head. Ultimately the fact is we don't have many surviving blades that saw action from the middle ages, and later ones tend to be from armories or from some royal collection. It may well be they would get torn up when they were used. Better for the sword to get damaged than your head. I can't think of any fightbooks off hand that warn you to make sure your blade stays pure and intact. And some of the moves such as Glasgow's left-hand-supported interceptions would almost certainly result in blade damage.

[@armsarmorinc.4153]

Agreed, the actions at speed in a fight would obviously vary and in this case we wanted to make sure we where quite safe as we had no guard on the one blade. It is notable that the glancing blow was quite a bit less dented than the more right angle actions. We wanted to have a variety to work with when we start honing on the blades.

[@AggelosKyriou]

Very important test. This channel is so underrated!

[@armsarmorinc.4153]

Thank you!

[@bruisedhelmet8819]

Honestly this is something I been waiting for.... and I love it. But I swear, if I was you, or had to do it to the swords I own, I would cry, or attempt to hide my crying. And I have a beautiful Durer! And that is why I also been dreading this.

[@jessecunningham9924]

Hey there, new to the channel. Came here on the recommendation of Matt Easton from Scholargladiatora. I love what you’re doing here! I can easily see why you might need several weapons in a protracted battle. Those were some deep cuts!

[@armsarmorinc.4153]

Glad you like it. Hope to keep doing good stuff.

[@ozgundemirr]

so I wonder how would a sword last even for one medieval battle if it gets damaged that easily.

[@armsarmorinc.4153]

Wear and tear would vary greatly on how it was used and what the sword was up against.

[@Matthew_Jensen]

Love it! Well done gentlemen.

[@armsarmorinc.4153]

Thank you kindly!

[@FortuneFavoursTheBold]

Thank you for damaging your own sword in order to demonstrate this to us!

[@armsarmorinc.4153]

Our pleasure!

[@WhatIfBrigade]

I kinda wish you were wearing mail and a helmet for this particular demonstration.

[@armsarmorinc.4153]

Saftey third. We were being relatively safe get closer to getting hurt in the shop more often then fighting with swords.

[@WhatIfBrigade]

@@armsarmorinc.4153 I'm much more likely to be badly injured or killed biking to work than anything with swords, still I wince a little when I think someone might try to re-create this without a helmet and mail.

[@freifechterbasel6115]

Could you do cutting with the damaged blade? Pretty please??? I'd love to see the effect of the nicks on cutting capacity...

[@bruisedhelmet8819]

Yes, now a mat cutting should look very different.

[@armsarmorinc.4153]

We will see what we can do, its been insanely busy of late.

[@freifechterbasel6115]

@@armsarmorinc.4153 I appreciate your videos a lot, at your own pace is best! Cheers!

[@kermit2999]

Is that 52 Rockwell throughout the blade or just the edges?

[@armsarmorinc.4153]

Hi Kermit it should be a solid through hardness at 50-52 Rc

[@kermit2999]

@@armsarmorinc.4153 Thanks, do you any differential hardening between the center of the blade and edges on any of your blades?

[@armsarmorinc.4153]

There is probably some due to the thickness variable but with modern steel and hardening techniques this would be minimal.

[@kermit2999]

@@armsarmorinc.4153 I would suspect that also using modern techniques. It was that rare and renowned blades that I've been reading in the Eddas that was always mentioned as a sword cutter. No mention of the smith who created the blade because they were usually repurposed from a burial site. Fiction or truth?, but we do the same with our tooling we forge. Hardening the working surface while maintaining approximately 52 Rockwell for the struck end to minimize damage to our hammers.

[@jasonjames9836]

Appreciate the sacrifice for knowledge. Doing that to your own sword had to make you cringe at first, but it was what they were for... still

[@sfasdhga]

This is why we have to 'edge on flat'

[@chroma6947]

I'm sure in a real sword fight you wouldn't care about edge damage

[@junichiroyamashita]

One thing i would like to ask and don't know where to ask. I have seen your custom partizan ,and i would like to know how much it would cost to buy a head,withouth shaft,exactly the same as the one shown on your site.

[@armsarmorinc.4153]

Send us an email at [e-mail]

[@ron1355]

Just a thought, Why making the swords only 52 on the Rockwell scale is that just to stay true to historical accuracy? while making it higher on the Rockwell scale will be much more realistic in our time giving it more durability and toughness against much harder targets

[@armsarmorinc.4153]

We have always strived to make items that fit the historical model as opposed to maximize modern materials. It's kind of our focus.

[@ron1355]

@@armsarmorinc.4153 With saying that, based on what was showen on the video that even just a slight contact between the 2 swords without even going all in cause such damage to the steel what is your intake on that?

[@fettmaneiii4439]

there is a rockwell hardness study on historical blades and many of them had high 50 rockwells on the edge, like 58-60 hrc on the very edge but transitioning to 52-48 in the middle.

[@armsarmorinc.4153]

I would love to see that study if you have the reference, I've been looking at this issue for near on 30 years and have found that majority of medieval blades appear to be in the high 40's and maybe into the low 50's but this is variable all over the blade and not consistent even in a few inches of blade.

[@kermit2999]

@@armsarmorinc.4153 I've heard of that study also, but have never seen it or discovered the authority behind it. That would be neat to find.

[@SamT-rf1dx]

I think swords clashing constantly and warriors cutting tens of opponents in a battle is pure fantasy. How many times do you get to swing at an (equally armed) opponent in a battle? Should be a rare occasion. Somebody parrying a blow should be ever rarer. After all, most battles are constant maneuvering, shooting arrows from distance, and action with longer arms like spears. I don't think swords were employed as frequently in the past as they are in HEMA today.

[@armsarmorinc.4153]

Possibly, the specifics of any tactical situation are dictated by the conditions and tactics employed so some encounters would be as yopu describe while others would be heated toe to toe situations.

[@alexyu6928]

In an actually life or death sword fight you and your enemy are striking at each other for the kill there is no time to turn your sword flat side to block enemy's edge. Edge to edge contacts will damage both swords and depends on the edge profile the sharpest (thinnest) edge will suffer most damage. It is pointless for a combat sword to have a razor sharp edge and that was why combat swords such as European long swords, Chinese war swords were not very sharp but they could hold that edge for quite some abuse.

[@willaumep]

Well from a fencing point of view is is better to defect//redirect the blow of your opponent, now a small dent in your sword is better than a big dent in you.

[@DETHMOKIL]

Sparks! the movies were right! take that everyone else!

[@armsarmorinc.4153]

High carbon will spark but its never going to be like highlander. 🙂

[@elshebactm6769]

🤠👍🏿

[@asa-punkatsouthvinland7145]

These nicks are the reason I personally feel avoiding direct edge to edge parries, in the medieval peroid & possible early Renaissance, were not done intentionally. It ruins costly swords edges & more likely to break. It also reduces cutting efficiency. I'm aware by the time of military saber edge blocks & parries were the norm. BUT I feel this has secer reasons for coming into existance. Including improvements in steel quality & as a result reduced cost of swords, professional soldiers relying more on firearms thus using a sword less & less time for training swordsmen. With less time to train a more instinctual style of fence became necessary. As such the natural reaction of putting ones hands/arms towards danger led to parties where that was incouraged; thus edge blocking. Learning to position oneself & one's sword to naturally avoid direct edge to edge contact isn't instinctual & requires more training to oner one one's instincts. This is somewhat analogous to how the motion of a cut for most is more natural than the thrust but the value of the thrust, especially in duelling, meant that people had to unlearn their natural desire to cut in order to learn the rapier or smallsword.

[@emarsk77]

Giovanni Dall'Agocchie (1572) says to parry with the edge, just to name one. Do you have any reference of a treatise explicitly saying otherwise?

[@asa-punkatsouthvinland7145]

@@emarsk77 the question isn't weather he, and others, say "to parry with the edge"; but what they mean by it. If i take my edge & hit your flat I have used my edge to parry; parrying with the edge doesn't imply edge to edge contact, only that the edge is used to parry.

[@emarsk77]

@@asa-punkatsouthvinland7145 I'll rephrase my question: "do you have any written historical reference where they explicitly say to avoid edge parries?" I'd be genuinely interested in reading it. What I'm not interested in is a discussion between modern people sharing their modern opinions, it's been done over and over and at this point I think it's pointless. But I'm interested in historical sources on the matter.

[@asa-punkatsouthvinland7145]

@@emarsk77 I do not. However just because it isn't stated doesn't invalidate my interpretation. In reading sources of medieval weddings we tend to not get details of what happened because to the writers & audience the details would just be common knowledge. I don't feel the masters of old didn't say not to whack swords edge to edge because it damages the edges significantly. I feel common sence dictates that intentionally damaging a cutting tools edge is not a good idea. The fact later sword systems do it in no way means it was always done. People who use that justification are often hypocritical as they will frown upon using I.33 as a starting basis for reconstructing Viking era sword & shield. While you can use longswords edge to edge to parry or a Viking sword & shield like sword & buckler in I.33 neither has any certainty of being accurate as in each example the examples are centuries apart in era

[@asa-punkatsouthvinland7145]

@@emarsk77 But you ask of sources .. let me put that on you Do you have any sources from the 1600s or earlier that specifically state to strike edge to edge? Or do they say parry with the edge? If they don't explicitly state that edge to edge then you doing so is an interpretation of parrying with the edge, but that doesn't mean your interpretation is correct. Personally I find when I move the way I feel the manuals want me to move it's actually harder to align blades so that edge to edge contact happens. Also go look at medieval swords in museums that are in good condition & see how much evidence you can see of either edge trauma if the type seen with edge to edge contact or the obvios edge reshaping that would be required to fix such edge trauma. I haven't seen much that I feel indicates such.

[@petesouthwales867]

Who taught you that rubbish? In none of the medieval manuals does it teach cutting edge on cutting edge. The idea of a parry is to deflect your opponents blade and then strike. You are teaching: turn your sword so as to hit the cutting edge, turn it again so the cutting edge is facing downwards then cut downwards. Instead it should be just two moves: parry with the flat or at a slight angle then cut (or thrust). Accidents did happen in the heat of battle but a very expensive and sharp sword would be ruined if trained like this in a very short time.