Baltimore Knife and Sword Tactical Gladius arrived! Pics and first impressions

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I would also like to say that the picture I posed above. Is the picture I sent to him for approval. I felt it showed the handle from all angles and you never once asked for it to be modified. I felt it was a fair showing. Having seen the close ups of the hilt area...I do feel that pic didn't show that well enough to judge and I am sorry for that.
 
I would like to add that even thoough he already stated that he didnt want to do this I want to offer to re work the sword free of cost. I take pride in my customers being happy with the end result.
 
Hi Matt

My feelings have been expressed even more fully in personal mail.

You are asking the customer to measure distal you should be able to list, since you made it. I assume you have calipers by your side when working a blade. If you are that great by eye, well good for you.. The direct comparison to Gus' work could be well made in this case as fairly apples to apples (cost and general purpose). I cut you a lot of slack for overall ability but the rap is poor, as indicated several times. You should in no way be offended by comparison and critique when made in open displays such as forums. Have you got a scale yet?

I have also given kudos along with some faults I see, so we will leave opinions of each other personally out of it but my observations are just that and the work you display prompts the replies sometimes specifically to ask my opinion of your latest hanger or trying to convince me I am worthy of your efforts, even to the point of solicitation.

You were upset in the past in my pointing out that there are lots of sources for a given specialty and that you don't even list the specifics on the sale page you linked. My main critique continues to be bling instead of the thing, meaning specifics.
In this case, there is apparently equal if not much better work at the same price. Better may read as subjective but my objective view of the sword market (I am no customer shopping either source) in this case would seem to hold true.

Cheers

GC
 
I don't want Matt to take flak here for this, and I apologize if my comments seem overly negative. There were a few things here that didn't happen, probably because Matt's a busy guy, and I understand that, and am by and large fine with it. There's a few things that rubbed me wrong, but nothing major, and seriously, this is a sweet blade. I can barely put it down. I AM happy with the sword, especially with a bit of elbow grease on my part put into it, and while I can certainly see that there are issues, they're not worth me wanting Matt to rework them, in my estimation. Seriously, as 42 Blades says, they're all easily fixed with a little time on a dremel, except for the mismatched plunges, which I don't mind, and probably won't change, because the finish on the blade is way nicer than I can do at this point.

Still, the issues with being so busy are something to watch out for next time on a custom sword order, and to be fair, I'd expect that a one-of-a-kind blade like this takes a lot more work to reach the same fit and finish as a production sword, so as I tried to make clear on my first post, I don't really see these as being major issues. I was mostly just surprised to see F&F issues at ALL because all the other BKS swords I've seen have been perfect in F&F, as near as I could tell, and I've been drooling over them at local shows for a long time now. Maybe that was unfair for a custom at this price point. In my opinion, this sword is easily worth the money I paid for it.

As far as the picture being sent, I feel like I'd been presented with a bit of a fait accompli. The sword was already done, without a sketch to go over, and it didn't seem to me that it would be easy to put on a pommel or amend the handle at all, which is pretty simple in design. And, in my opinion it's still a very cool sword. Maybe not EXACTLY what I wanted, but close enough that it counts.

From my read through of the Angus Trim blade you mentioned, I am of the opinion that this one requires far less in terms of F&F work after the fact. I do like the idea, since it looks like it would be a neat blade to remove the paracord and put on a custom handle. But this is one of the fastest gladii I've ever seen, and the blade design is pretty much exactly what I wanted, and maybe even better. It could use some improvement, and that's fine, as this is a prototype. I do feel like this sword, with a more comfortable handle and pommel (and BKS's usual F&F), could easily become one of their most popular short swords.

Also, with regards to the shipping, and I replied via email to Matt as well, my issue wasn't paying shipping. It was that I had a quoted price of 400, and that particular payment I'd asked to have "half" put on. Half meant 200 to me, and we'd never spoken of shipping, nor of paying shipping in the middle of my payment. So when a payment gets put on that's 10% higher than the amount I'd requested, that really has the potential to screw things up for me, and as as result, I had to spend some time on the phone with my bank straightening things out so that I didn't end up with a $60 overdraft charge and a hit on my credit history. I was expecting the quoted price to be shipped to my door, and I was also expecting to pay half the quoted price on that payment, not half the quoted price + shipping charges that we'd never discussed. That all worked out fine, but it did make me mad, because if I'd just been told, "hey, can I put on the $20 shipping charge on this one," I could have moved funds first, or said "no, let me take care of that with my next payment please." Instead it left me in a tight spot.

That shouldn't detract from the sword at all, and it's just sort of a side CS snafu that we had due to a misunderstanding. Bear in mind also that a lot of this happened while I'm sure Matt was preparing for Shot Show, as it was right around that time, and I wasn't really expecting super rapid responses or great communication.
 
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Matthew Stagmer said:
I would like to add that even thoough he already stated that he didnt want to do this I want to offer to re work the sword free of cost. I take pride in my customers being happy with the end result.
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Good on you for making the offer! I'm willing to bet Crimson is just gonna' patch it up himself though. He seems like the tinkering type. :D
 
I sure am! The grinding flaws in the handle are mostly cleaned up now anyways, rounded the handle scales a bit more, and the blade has now been hand polished to 2000 grit. Also, I've chopped clean through 3 feet by 1" of plywood, and there's not a single issue with the edge. I wouldn't want to put one of my shields up against it, that's for sure. It's light, quick, and strong. Just what a sword should be.

I do appreciate Matt's offer, but the issues aren't worth the time. I've seen a lot worse issues on HI products, and I love those, and frankly, it's good evidence that it's a handmade creation.

I can't wait to see where Matt takes the design in the future, if this really does become a production piece. I do recommend some sort of a flared pommel for sure. Blade is perfect though.
 
hank_rearden said:
any FMA practitioner with experience in using a gladius-type sword?
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Been doing FMA for a few years and have a gladius sitting around the house. And I have a good idea of what I don't know. What's the question?

(There's also Practical Tactical, but I can understand if you'd rather not ask a question there.)
 
i like a one-question-one-answer guy. so, is a 20" bladed gladius adaptable for FMA, say, pekiti tirsia or sayoc kali? i know pekiti fighters prefer a crooked blade:handle alignment instead of a straight one. my own experience is modern arnis and rattan sticks are of course straight. i never tried drilling with live blades.
 
hank_rearden said:
i like a one-question-one-answer guy. so, is a 20" bladed gladius adaptable for FMA, say, pekiti tirsia or sayoc kali? i know pekiti fighters prefer a crooked blade:handle alignment instead of a straight one. my own experience is modern arnis and rattan sticks are of course straight. i never tried drilling with live blades.
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I can't speak for PT much, but I don't imagine that preference for a ginunting would translate into a problem with a straight blade/hilt weapon. It should work with most any bolo+ length blade in principle.

The guro at an affiliated school, however, is a certified Sayoc guy and I've seen a fair bit of it. From what I understand, though, Sayoc is primarily knives rather than swords and 20" of blade is far more sword-like than knife-like in the dynamics of what you are doing. I'm sure a Sayoc guy would be able to use a longer blade, but the art itself is optimized for an encounter at punching/trapping range. He usually shifts into Lacoste/Inosanto or Giron style when the sticks/blades get much longer than a foot. Any shorter, though, and he's all about the Sayoc.

As far as drilling/sparring with longer blades, I've done drills with aluminum blades from 20" to 30" and with different balances. Some of them feel rather gladius-like in the hand (the thickness of training aluminum pushes the weight close to steel but puts the balance a little more towards the blade end because there's no distal taper). Blade-to-blade contact with a trainer feels very different from rattan-to-rattan contact. You can really feel the flat and the edge and this makes a difference in how you block, parry, and fan as well as in your follow-up strikes.

I have not, and would not, spar with even a dull steel blade. I'm not good enough to do that and still be safe for my training partner. I have, however, done striking patterns with sharpened bolos, a gladius, a wakizashi, and a fully sharpened Windlass dirk that's around 21" in length. I love that dirk for escrima. It's really fast and precise and good for media range work. You can hear a good cut from the way the edge splits the air rather than pushing it.

I prefer the dirk to a gladius for arnis because it's got a sharpened swedge but the blade is backed rather than double edged, which gives you the ability to reinforce with hand or arm when blocking or deflecting without fear of a cut or of chipping an edge. After the first few times you find yourself touching the back of the blade during drills you become pretty aware of how dangerous that other edge could be. The gladius was intended to be used with a shield in the other hand so there would be less temptation to try to reinforce or do any 'live' hand stuff in conjunction.

2¢. Not particularly authoritative, but it's what I've noticed in the scant few years I've been training.
 
that was more than i hoped for thanks. the double edge might be a problem, whether during reinforced blocks (two-hand) or even during trapping movements.
 
$420??

Way too much. I can't help posting on this because as a maker who struggles with pricing, $420 is a lot of money and this terrible work. There is seriously about 15 mins extra to fix these things I'm showing and the maker says:
"I spent a ton more time on this then I should have on a $400 sword."

Shame on you. Take a couple extra minutes and at least do one of the fundamentals when starting out as a maker and at least line up your scales, clean up the glue and for all that is holy, have more respect for your customer than to sell him a guard that is so far out of whack as this one is.

And frankly your excuses... too busy, sorry I missed it????

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I stopped reading so I don't know how this resolved. I hope the buyer gets some satisfaction.
 
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hank_rearden said:
that was more than i hoped for thanks. the double edge might be a problem, whether during reinforced blocks (two-hand) or even during trapping movements.
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Oh...one other thing while I'm thinking about it. the FMA's advertise themselves as blade arts that practice with sticks for safety, but it's really easy to get lazy with a stick and lose things that make a difference when it is a blade in your hand. Likewise, a person wielding a stick like it's a blade will not be as effective if they target and generate power as if the stick is a blade. It's a different sort of 'practical' than gets talked about in the Prac Tac forum, (where a sword would not be considered a 'practical' solution), but if you want to preserve the essence of the blade in your FMA you really have to work with a blade because it teaches you more precision and caution than a stick ever can. Training with a blade, even a dull aluminum training blade, is 'practical' in that it forces you to consider how the nature of the tool shapes the practice. It's why what Sayoc does with knives looks different than what the Dog Brothers do with sticks and why what both of these do looks different than a larga mano fighter with a 3' blade.
 
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