OT: Buying Weapons

[Atomic Requiem]

Heya... This is a little off topic, but I figure it's not completely out of line to ask here...

So I'm interested in buying a replica medieval weapon, and I've been searching for good sites. I found http://www.museumreplicas.com/home.htm

and it has a really nice flanged mace (http://store.museumreplicas.com/cgi-bin/www11650.storefront)

for sale at what seems like a good price (~100USD).

Questions for you guys:

Has anybody dealt with Museum Replicas Ltd? Any recommendations in regards to them, or even this particular product?

I live in BC Canada, so if anybody knows of a closer reputable place that would be interesting to peruse as well.

Any others thoughts regarding starting such a collection would be useful to me as well.

My primary objective is basically to have real examples of these weapons I've been taking for granted in all these games. Holding them in hand really brings home what we're talking about when we bash a guy over the head with a mace, or slice him sternum to throat, or some guy runs around with two great swords or something. A grounding in reality, if you will.

*AR*

[Valamir]

That company is a good company to deal with in my experience from a business standpoint.  I wouldn't rank their stuff as being particularly authentic.

As far as using props to ground your play in reality, you'll likely come off with more misconceptions than actual help in that field.

By far the majority of weapons you can buy as replicas, or by so called blacksmiths at renfaires are 20-30% (or more) too heavy relative to a real weapon of that type, and the blades are way to stiff.

I had a guy at this faire I went to tell me all about how his swords were authentic because he uses a charcoal furnace and hand bellows yada yada.  His rapier was so ridged that if I'd bent it over my knee it would have folded in half.  Similiarly a flanged mace they had on display was WAY wicked looking...but so heavy I could barely lift the thing let alone recover it after a swing.

Just something to be aware of.

[Lyrax]

only 20-30%?  I think that's being WAY too generous to the blacksmith.  More like 50-100% for most swords (not as certain about other weapons...).

Oh, BTW, we (the humans of the 21st century) still haven't figured out how to make swords as good as the ones in medieval/rennaissance times.  Sounds strange, but it's true.

[Valamir]

only 20-30%?  I think that's being WAY too generous to the blacksmith.  More like 50-100% for most swords (not as certain about other weapons...).

Yeah, the real amateurs...like La Forge who shuck their wares at the PA Ren Faire.

Oh, BTW, we (the humans of the 21st century) still haven't figured out how to make swords as good as the ones in medieval/rennaissance times.  Sounds strange, but it's true.

Well, true, if you mean using the same materials and basic techniques as them.  That's true of just about every field.  I doubt most modern farmers could get as much yield as a medieval farmer if they didn't have access to chemicals and big machinery.

Make a sword out of modern alloys and composite material, and I bet you can up with something, lighter, stronger, and sharper.

[Lyrax]

You cannot, however, make something lighter, stronger, sharper and more flexible.  In essence, you still can't make swords as good as those.

[Paul Czege]

You cannot, however, make something lighter, stronger, sharper and more flexible. In essence, you still can't make swords as good as those.

Why not? What's the limitation? Can't a complex structure solve all of those things? I'm no engineer, but why not something like a surgical steel exterior and a graphite core with a channel of mercury in it to deliver power into the strike and make the weapon easy to recover?

Paul

[Valamir]

You cannot, however, make something lighter, stronger, sharper and more flexible.  In essence, you still can't make swords as good as those.

Not sure I follow you.  Are you claiming that modern metalurgy can't turn out a better blade then some centuries old Toledo or Katana.  If you are, I don't buy that for a second.  Common steel turned into replicas by blacksmith hobbyists I'm in full agreement on.  But if you want to convince me that some tungston, titanium, carbon graphite polymer concoction wouldn't be lighter, stronger sharper and more flexible than some 16th century smith could make, you'd need alot more evidence.
I don't buy that for a second.

[Lyrax]

All I have to say is this:

1) You'd be surprised.

2) Nobody's done it yet, to my knowledge.

Perhaps we only lack the need.

[Bob Richter]

You cannot, however, make something lighter, stronger, sharper and more flexible.  In essence, you still can't make swords as good as those.

That entire line is complete BS. Japanese traditional metallurgy was good, but we can do better with modern techniques.

Metallurgy practiced by the Muslims at the time was pretty good, but we can do WAY better with modern techniques.

Western European metallurgy was crap, and that's all there is to it.

We have swords today that are half the weight, ten times the strength, will hold their edge through steel, and can bend to half their length WITHOUT BREAKING. Show me one authentic 15th Century sword that can even approach that.

[Ben]

Fact: Modern metallurgy has never made a sword(to my knowledge) that is on par with the swords of old.

The truth of it is though, they could if they they wanted to (they being the scientists who employ MODERN metallurgy). But there really isn't reason or incentive for them to build an antiquated weapon with materials that co$t out the wazoo. But they could if they wanted too and the safe money is on them doing it far better than it was back in the day.
However, modern swordmakers employing the OLD metallurgy have yet to match par with their historical counterparts and probably won't until they have climbed as far up the giant as their peers of yestercentury did (or some rich eccentric drops enough cash for them to dabble in the modern metallurgy). anyway...

[Jake Norwood]

Most experts (every one that I've read or know of) agrees with Lance. If it's possible, then it can't be done. As for Old European Metallurgy--it was phenomenal. Armors and swords from the west were unrivalled in the mideast (any good book on the Crusades will support this). European swords were light, flexible, and all that other stuff.

Some sword makers, like Paul Champagne (a fine guy--I had dinner with him once) are getting there, but agree that we're not there yet. His Katana's average $8000 a pop and one of them holds the record for Japanese armor-cutting since the mid 1300s. His European pieces are phenominal, and average about $4000. I've handled them. All this crap about medieval swords being crap is...crap. It's just not true. Do we have better metallurgy now? Yeah. Better technology? Hell yeah. Can we surpass it? Maybe. Have we? No, no no no no no no and no. Any--I mean any--bonafied expert in the field will agree with this.

Jake

[Ace]

Want to see a supersword made with modern metalurgy.

Its meteroric iron no less

QuesTek Dragonslayer, one gorgeous Arming Sword

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.02/dragonslayer.html

and here  http://www.questek.com/

[Lance D. Allen]

That's really rather interesting, the article.. And a very nice looking blade, too. I've never actually seen that patterning before on any of the replica blades I've seen, or even in pictures of older swords.

Thanks for sharing it, Ace.

[Valamir]

Ben is 100% right IMO.

Jake, I'm well aware that western metalurgy was quite advanced.  Hell the wealthiest most powerful people in Europe relied on this stuff for their lives and livlihood.  To think that 1000 years of practice with that kind of motivation would produce crap is to believe all of the Renaissance self dealing propaganda about the "dark ages".  Sure, the early Celtic iron swords bent when you swung them, because the iron was so soft.  That was like 300 BC or thereabouts.

BUT:  take a look at a catalog of modern knives sometime.  There is a large demand for quality knives, and that demand is for actual utility, not just wall hangers.  I've handled a graphite hunting knife (not a single piece of metal on the thing, it was all some crazy ceramic carbon stuff) that was almost as light as plastic silverware, cut through a 3 inch diameter rusty pipe, and a 6 inch diameter tree (with the saw back) and was so razor sharp even after this abuse that i sliced my thumb open with just light preassure  (according to the advert, the laser honed edge was 1 molecule thick at the tip, not sure I buy that, but it sounds cool)

The ONLY reason that there are no "super swords" is because no one wants one.  Swords today serve 3 purposes.  Wall hanger, stage prop, or reinactment tool (not including sport foils).  The wall hangers just want something that looks kewl, stage use doesn't want them to be deadly, and reinactors and period students want authentic.  There's no one left who wants this technology applied to swords (though I'd be surpirsed if theres no one out there whose done it just for personal fun).

Its not that we CAN'T equal their mastery using modern stuff...there's just no reason to, at least not for swords.

Same for armor.  I'm sure Paul's sword is a work of art.  I'm also sure that if he were to use it against a plate of some modern alloy designed to stop cuts it wouldn't get nearly as good results.

[Durgil]

I have read a lot of stuff from David Edge and Dr. Alan Williams, who are both experts on this sort of stuff, and the Earth period that this game is to model (late Medieval to early Renaissance) had a wide range of metals from simple wrought iron to the crucible steel or "Wootz" of the Middle-east and India.  Does the rules take into account the quality of the metal used for this equipment, and if so, how does it?