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*

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.

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.

Lyrax wrote: 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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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...

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

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/

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.

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.

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?

Want to see a supersword made with modern metalurgy.

Its meteroric iron no less

Durgil wrote: 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?

Jake Norwood wrote: 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.

Jake

Bob Richter wrote: Most swords would snap with the first use, and few would survive the fourth.

European metallurgy was fantastic. It wasn't what we have today, but it was the basis for what we have today (it's not like the 20th century introduced everything we think of now as modern...it had to establish itself somewhere). There are many fine sources on this. I reccoment Ewart Okeshott's books on swords and medieval weaponry as a good place to start with a sword-and-armor perspective. The barbaric metallurgy is another myth from the same pot as the "stupid clumsy knight."

Jake

I read a translation from part of a period French training manual for knights (yes, even back then they had training manuals).

The training expectations for a knight were not much different than that for a modern GI in full pack.

Among the requirements knights were expected to:

be able to chimney climb to the height of a city wall (i.e. wedged feet and back between two walls).

vault into a horses saddle without touching stirrups.

and several other somewhat surprising things.


All while wearing full armor.

I read an interesting theory about the end of armor once, though I've been unable to find it since. The theory said that ideas of armor becoming less useful due to bows, and pikes, and gunpowder was only a small part of the story. The big reason, according to the theory, was climate. Late in the period, Europe was coming out of a period of sub normal temperatures (the little ice age was in there somewhere), and the theory said that it just got too hot to wear. I've never seen that theory espoused again, so it may have been crackpot conjecture, but what reminded me of it here was that the author (whom I unfortuneatly cannot remember) went to great lengths to establish just how good and effective period armor was, as a prelude to concluding that some other reason was necessary to explain its discontinued use.