Sword build: forged titanium [s]fauasart[/s] giant razor blade on a stick

[Mecha]

Mecha, at first you had my curiosity, now you have my attention. I know titanium can be used in making a sword, but I've never encountered anyone who believes it to be a good metal for such use because it can never be as hard as steel.

Most historical swords' steel is softer on a Rockwell test than my ti swords, but that doesn't mean current really good steel, which can be very hard AND tough, can't also better than what you would see in many historical blades. The thing about the ti alloys isn't just hardness, it's that the ti can absorb incredible shocks without bending, fatigue, or cracking and breaking, and can also get quite sharp. It's flexible, but also rigid and stiff, and just really fast and snappy in general. It also has a blatant harmonic-deadening quality...

The Rockwell test hardness is not as all-seeing as one would think, particularly with something like a sword, and especially with ti alloys. Metal used can be very hard and also be a horrible blade, or fairly soft and just fine due to other reasons.

 

[horseclover]

This you could do. 32" of blade. An inch or so wide. 5/16" or so, even 3/8" at the hilt. In steel, would have a rapid concave distal to the cog then more linear. A fuller not really the issue so much as a shallow wedge of a blade.



Lewis&Clark stuff

Really though, a simple stirrup hilt spadroon should be right up your alley, fuller or not.

Cheers

GC

 

[Mecha]

Horseclover are you saying ti spadroon or gtfo?

 

[horseclover]

If yew build it.... and all that. There are a lot of fencers out there. There is also a lot of interest in slim backswords for bouting in the HEMA circles. Stage work as well. A for instance is the Cold Steel English Backsword is quite hefty but a blade as broad and long on a simpler hilt, or even s bare blades would find a market.


Some of the Silver guys still use the skinnier Hanwei mortuary but if they had an uber blade as big as the CS, they might really want one.

Cheers

GC

 

[Mecha]

If yew build it.... and all that. There are a lot of fencers out there. There is also a lot of interest in slim backswords for bouting in the HEMA circles. Stage work as well. A for instance is the Cold Steel English Backsword is quite hefty but a blade as broad and long on a simpler hilt, or even s bare blades would find a market.
View attachment 889827 View attachment 889829

Some of the Silver guys still use the skinnier Hanwei mortuary but if they had an uber blade as big as the CS, they might really want one.

Cheers

GC

Basket hilt type straight swords like those, have always seemed like exceptional weapons, worthy of the best attention, and conducive to using a light-weight material, by design.

 

[Mecha]

And after a whirlwind of grinding and filing, here we have it, folks. A real Romulan whoopin' stick. It took some stretching of such an eccentric blade design to keep all of the pointy bits within the acceptable non-deadly radius. It's like a nerf polearm, other than the fact that you could go full-on E-Honda on a car with it:

This is roughly 39" oal, with a blade zone of about 2 feet, with a shallow distal taper and a shallow diamond section grind. The weight was something like three pounds, and 0.29" thick at the ricasso. The titanium crossguard is also rounded, 0.29" thick and an inch wide. It will be fit with a rattan staff that inserts into the copper cup on the tang, and most likely secured with a single mekugi pin.

Whoever is on the receiving end of this thing is gonna get his helmet smacked right off his stupid face.

It wasn't the fauasart or an epic titanium trip hammer spring, but I'm eager to see how this crazy thing does in the fighting competition.

 

[Mecha]

The fellow who received the polearm head has mounted the weapon into a rattan staff, and well done. There is a bronze counter-balance on the back end that can't be seen. I met him irl and he is built like a brick shithouse, pardon my French, with forearms that even @JParanee would think was nuts. The piece will be put to the test in Rome next week.

Pic of the gentleman-in-question in titanium and steel body armor:

 

[horseclover]

Neato to see it mounted up. What is the overall length of the mounted piece? are we looking at more than about 7" overall?

Cheers

GC

 

[BitingSarcasm]

Nice work! I wonder if rattan is going to have the structural stability to withstand the torque and shock from use. Fortunately, he's left the skin on, that helps a lot with Rattan. After seeing the picture, I can safely say that I will never have the resources to match his geek cred, and I wouldn't want to challenge the King of the Moai for supremacy. Nice kit, and he has great instincts to hit the Mad Scientist for his arms race.

 

[Mecha]

Neato to see it mounted up. What is the overall length of the mounted piece? are we looking at more than about 7" overall?

Cheers

GC

For sure over 7 feet, probably 8 feet.

 

[Mecha]

Nice work! I wonder if rattan is going to have the structural stability to withstand the torque and shock from use. Fortunately, he's left the skin on, that helps a lot with Rattan. After seeing the picture, I can safely say that I will never have the resources to match his geek cred, and I wouldn't want to challenge the King of the Moai for supremacy. Nice kit, and he has great instincts to hit the Mad Scientist for his arms race.

He said rattan is preferred because it's so fibrous that it doesn't break, whereas the wooden staves can get notched and then broken by impact. That polearm head, despite being blunted, will absolutely smash through a wooden staff, and then some. If it wasn't for the blunted weapons and heavy body armor these medieval fighting enthusiasts would kill each other on accident, for sure.

All that armor and such is really cool to see in person. Imagine going back in time and informing the knights and warriors that in the future their weapons and armor would be geek fodder! Perhaps in the year 2350 people who own gauss guns and personal force-field generators will chuckle at the LARPers who love to mess around with classic old-time lead-slinging gunpowder weapons, and have shooting competitions and such.

 

[BitingSarcasm]

He said rattan is preferred because it's so fibrous that it doesn't break, whereas the wooden staves can get notched and then broken by impact. That polearm head, despite being blunted, will absolutely smash through a wooden staff, and then some. If it wasn't for the blunted weapons and heavy body armor these medieval fighting enthusiasts would kill each other on accident, for sure.

All that armor and such is really cool to see in person. Imagine going back in time and informing the knights and warriors that in the future their weapons and armor would be geek fodder! Perhaps in the year 2350 people who own gauss guns and personal force-field generators will chuckle at the LARPers who love to mess around with classic old-time lead-slinging gunpowder weapons, and have shooting competitions and such.

Rattan breaks apart longitudinally, like string cheese. I have damaged a number of them over the years, and there was a progression: my bo staff would get the nasty bit trimmed off and be a jo staff, the jo staff would become a pair of fighting sticks, and the sticks usually got tossed after they were dented and coming apart. It's tough wood, but I am curious to see how it behaves with a piece of titanium split down along its direction of failure. Reenactors have to use rattan because it won't leave nasty jagged shards when it breaks, too...I did a Chinese form with an Oak staff instead of Waxwood, and snapped it in two. I suddenly had a 4 foot improvised spear in my hands, with a 3 foot wooden short sword rotating freely through space. It was a wonderful demonstration of both Newton's Laws of Motion and Murphy's law of "Oh crap, run!"

I totally geek out over archaic arms and armor systems. I hope I never get tired of them, it makes me feel like a kid. And the man who taught me to shoot a muzzle-loader and throw a tomahawk was a modern day mountain man, so we don't even half to wait until 2350 for classic gunpowder fun! Honestly though, it's a lot more fun if you are on the upwind side. But this build of yours has me wondering what other anachronistic mashups could be done.....thank you for sharing your build on this one, it has been quite entertaining.

 

[Mecha]

Rattan breaks apart longitudinally, like string cheese. I have damaged a number of them over the years, and there was a progression: my bo staff would get the nasty bit trimmed off and be a jo staff, the jo staff would become a pair of fighting sticks, and the sticks usually got tossed after they were dented and coming apart. It's tough wood, but I am curious to see how it behaves with a piece of titanium split down along its direction of failure. Reenactors have to use rattan because it won't leave nasty jagged shards when it breaks, too...I did a Chinese form with an Oak staff instead of Waxwood, and snapped it in two. I suddenly had a 4 foot improvised spear in my hands, with a 3 foot wooden short sword rotating freely through space. It was a wonderful demonstration of both Newton's Laws of Motion and Murphy's law of "Oh crap, run!"

I totally geek out over archaic arms and armor systems. I hope I never get tired of them, it makes me feel like a kid. And the man who taught me to shoot a muzzle-loader and throw a tomahawk was a modern day mountain man, so we don't even half to wait until 2350 for classic gunpowder fun! Honestly though, it's a lot more fun if you are on the upwind side. But this build of yours has me wondering what other anachronistic mashups could be done.....thank you for sharing your build on this one, it has been quite entertaining.

I think the staff is sort of a consumable in this instance, expected to be damaged and just replaced, so the rattan's "shear toughness" is desirable over the danger of splitting lengthwise over time. The copper cup, bronze bands around the tang zone, and the counterbalance on the back end will hopefully keep the staff from splitting! All I know is that the fellow who it was made for seems to know what he's doing. I was surprised to see him show up with a rattan staff, but did note that it seemed sort of like waxwood but quite light in weight.

Glad you liked the thread, even though it didn't go as planned. Of course it's my pleasure and a lot of fun to show off these ti projects, being a total arms and armor geek as well! I like this weird polearm even more than the fauasart.

 

[Mecha]

Update:

After about a year of use, this polearm has made its way back to me for a new titanium crossguard. The original one was deemed too dangerous, and so the ends were cut off for competition use.

The new guard has curled ends and is shorter which should get it the OK for use by the weapon inspectors at the next big competition. It's left rough so it matches the scarred-up polearm head.

This thing worked great, as a matter of fact the owner sent a guy to the hospital with a concussion just last week, right through his steel helmet!

The guard isn't abutting the tang shoulders because he's not sure yet which way he'll orient the guard. A few hammer whacks and it will be on there tight and snug.

 

[BladeScout]

This thing worked great, as a matter of fact the owner just sent a guy to the hospital with a concussion just last week, right through his steel helmet!

Presumably he is able to move faster than an opponent with a weapon made of steel

 

[Mecha]

Presumably he is able to move faster than an opponent with a weapon made of steel

That's right, and because the physical size of the thing can be bigger for the same weight parameters, there is just more weapon in their face in general, more to block and parry with, more for the opponent to try to evade.

These days the body armor these people wear is also slowly morphing into titanium, piece by piece. They all notice the shock deadening, impact absorbing aspect, in addition to the obvious light weight benefit.

 

[BladeScout]

Titanium just plain rocks.

A sage once said "Everybody should have a bigass titanium sword!"

 

[Mecha]

Titanium just plain rocks.

A sage once said "Everybody should have a bigass titanium sword!"

That indeed sounds wise.

 

[LEGION 12]

Update:

After about a year of use, this polearm has made its way back to me for a new titanium crossguard. The original one was deemed too dangerous, and so the ends were cut off for competition use.

The new guard has curled ends and is shorter which should get it the OK for use by the weapon inspectors at the next big competition. It's left rough so it matches the scarred-up polearm head.

This thing worked great, as a matter of fact the owner sent a guy to the hospital with a concussion just last week, right through his steel helmet!

The guard isn't abutting the tang shoulders because he's not sure yet which way he'll orient the guard. A few hammer whacks and it will be on there tight and snug.

I want one !

 

[BitingSarcasm]

Titanium just plain rocks.

A sage once said "Everybody should have a bigass titanium sword!"

Tsk. Titanium isn't just rock, it is METAL!

And who wouldn't want a bigass titanium axe? Mecha has already been there.....
Cool to see the battle scars on the polearm, too. Nice to see tools getting used.