Category Archives: Store Product Info and Musings

When the you know what hits the fan – you will likely find that a hefty, utilitarian and rather brutal cutlass will serve you well – and just one look at the latest edition to the Doomsday series designed by esteemed sword tester and designer Jason Woodard will tell you that if the fifth seal is broken, you could do a lot worse than to have one of these beasties strapped to your side..

Behind the Scenes: How it is Made

Hand made from start to finish at Chris Palmers Workshop in Springfield, Missouri – the Doomsday Cutlass was sketched and designed by Jason Woodard using a 1:1 scale blueprint hand drawn on butchers paper.

Chris takes the design into the workshop, creating a template and cutting a sheet of 1095 carbon steel to shape.

Note the characteristic ‘knuckle duster’ hand guard – this bad boy sure does pack a mean punch along almost every inch of its surface!

From here, the sword blank is hand shaped and hardened by heating the steel to 1500 degrees until it becomes non-magnetic and then quenching it in brine. Each blade is then hand tempered, heating the steel to 500 degrees for 2 hours and letting it air cool – resulting in an even HRC of approx 57 for the entirety of the blade. Below you can see how the heat treatments have changed the base color of the steel.

Finally, before the blade is polished, the blade blued and the sword itself finished up, the walnut wood sandwich tang handle is affixed in place with a combination of several metal pins and a generous coat of epoxy – essentially making these swords of solid one piece construction with no weak points or ‘moving parts’.

And here, the end result!

Exclusively available at Sword Buyers Guide for just $269.99!

If you are going to make mistakes practicing HEMA (and when you are just starting out, you will by default make a LOT of mistakes) it makes sense to minimize your personal risk by training with an unsharpened sword.

If you look at some of the standard basic HEMA Longsword drills it is easy for a beginner to forget to move a leg back out of the way, clip their shoulder or thigh when performing a flourish or otherwise get injured by training with a sharpened sword. Just look at the video below and imagine how many accidents and close calls it would take until the level of speed and technique shown is reached.

Of course, there are already quite a few nice steel and synthetic training swords already on the market – and we list what we feel are the best ones right here in the training tools section of our store.

But today we are delighted to announce 3 new options for HEMA practitioners designed by Sword expert David Rawlings in the UK and his company, Red Dragon Armoury.

INTRODUCING – the Red Dragon Unsharpened Combat Sword Line

All of the swords in this line have several things in common.

All are made from hard wearing EN42J steel, tempered with a core HRC of approx 45 and an outer hardness of HRC50. All are styled forged guards and pommels constructed from steel, and wooden grips that are masterfully wrapped in leather cord. And all come with attractive wood core, leather bound scabbards including an integrated belt and suspension system that is worth the price of admission for that alone!

From here though, each of the three swords is quite different. The first is the most purpose-built, with a thick 2mm edge and rounded safety tip and is called the Combat Hand-and-a-half-Sword

The second, called the Combat Temple Church Sword, is the most ornate and is based on a 14th century Templar Sword found in the river Thames and features more ornate decorations and embellishments than the other two and has a narrower 1.5mm edge.

And finally, the Combat Bastard Sword with a much thinner 1mm edge. This is the kind of sword that you could train with as a blunt and, because it is made from good steel, can later be sharpened if so desired.

The MSRP price on these swords is $300 for the Hand and a Half and the Bastard Sword, and $390 for the more ornate Church Temple Sword. But as usual we have offered them at a special discounted introuctory price of just $229 and $284 respectively!

Check out all these are more in the Training Swords & Gear section of our store by clicking the link below: