Nice review. This sword is based on a German hand-and-a-half sword dated to 1520-1530. It's rather accurate save for a few details that are different from the original: the original has the crossguard terminals, the pommel and the center of the side-ring writhen, while this one has a smooth doorknob without any fluting. The original's blade has a lenticular cross section after the termination of the fuller while this one has a soft central ridge. Other than that, I do believe the original has a bit more distal taper by being generally thinner in the un-fullered area. Overall, not bad, but like you said, at this price range, you might be able to do better, too. With some additional modifications on customer's end it might be a much better sword: grinding off the central ridge and make it thinner after the upper portion, sharpening up the edges, and re-wrap the leather on the grip.
I like these German hilt designs; a perfect representation of a 1.5 hand sword. I see them as being after the Oakeshott typology, would you agree? Honestly, leaving out the details is not the worst choice to keep the price down. The grip is the big problem (the squishy leather is a no-no), then a bit the blade (I would take a flat grind over the central ridge for the last part of the blade), and only after would I improve the fittings. And even then, I would fix a bit the quillon block transition towards the blade before adding the writhed details (less abrupt, more squished around the blade; but not that much of a problem for a longsword compared to a sidesword where they use the same style). But you are right that this would make for a good project sword. For a budget sword, I think it looks nice. P.S. I would like people to try to put beeswax on the leader and use a heat gun. That should shrink the leather (A&A grip style 😇) and harden it. I'm curious if that would fix the squishy factor . 🤔
@@FiliiMartis To me personally, having the wrong blade cross section is what killed this model for me, unless you have the means to fix it yourself or hiring someone to do some competent additional grinding.
@@FortuneFavoursTheBold I think I understand. Because you are familiar with the original pieces, you really wanted a lenticular cross-section blade. I would assume also a bit more distal taper towards the tip. From my very limited experience "goofing off" with mild steel fittings, one needs the tools and a bit of knowledge before they can reprofile the blade. While I want to like this sword, so I think I can accept the compromises on it, I like more the type itself than this particular realisation. I would 100% agree that small changes would make this sword so much better (a case of 10% more on the price giving 80% more sword). And these types of German swords deserve a better reproduction.
@@FiliiMartis you are absolutely right. Small modifications with little extra cost on the maker’s part can drastically improve this sword and stay closer to the original. And you are right that you should need the knowledge and experience to grind on that blade to increase the degree of distal taper and change the cross section into a full lenticular one.
'Historically plausible '. That's a great way of describing many of these blades that fall just outside of classification. Great review, especially from an alien.
It's that fiberglass composite material that Hanwei uses. No matter how well the sword is sharpened at the factory (or how well you sharpen it yourself), the glass particles embedded in the scabbard material will abrade down the very apex of the edge. It doesn't take much metal off, but it does enough damage that the apex loses its fresh-off-the-stone aggression after just a couple of draws.
That sounds very plausible. I recall this sword being a bit sharper out of the box than it was when I recorded. I tested it on paper when I first unboxed it and while it wasn't great, it did better back then.
Great overview; that sword packs a lot of punch for how “short” it is. Pretty heavyweight bastard sword. Great points all around and could probably be elevated with a few of the recommendations you listed!
Be careful with hitting harder targets. The cross guard got loose on mine because it was held mostly by the wood on the hilt and the wood is pretty light and soft
Good stuff! Nice to see this get your treatment. I've had one of these for a few years now; I'm not wealthy and it was, for me, exactly as you suggest: my affordable way into getting a fair-enough actual longsword. I still very much like its overall aesthetic (the blade dimensions just look *right* to me) and enjoy swinging it about. I don't get to actually put any impact on it, but I remember seeing someone take apart the hilt of one and show that it was robustly constructed, so they should hold up fairly well. That said, I know Matt Easton made the guard on one of these rattle, but he did basically cut a tree down with it, so... Anyway, thanks again for all your reviews!
What is easier for a sword to do, cut through one hundred armoured human thighs, or one paltry tree? A sword is not an ancient porcelain vase. It is a steel tool, like a hammer. If you couldn't hammer with a hammer, would you be upset? With modern manufacturing technologies combined with modern metallurgical technologies empowered by modern information technologies vastly more effective and robust swords could be produced for significantly less than these "budget" swords, and they could handle and perform so much better than the most expensive swords now on the market. But if you limit the dialog in the sword market to, "This is a type 12 sword with a type 42 pommel and a type 187 cross guard..." as if that were in any way important to the good functioning of a sword. And that doesn't negate aesthetics. Good designs are inherently elegant . When form EFFECTIVELY follows function, beauty is created, real beauty. Not superficial beauty, which has and will always be pushed over actual beauty, because there is power in actual beauty, and those that have power do not wish to sell it to the powerless.
@@alphanumeric1529 No particular arguments with you over form and function and the aesthetics of practicality. That's one of the things I quite like about this sword - it's not fancy and the proportions feel about right, somehow, to me. I'll just note, on the 'If you couldn't hammer with a hammer' point, that Matt Easton didn't fail to cut through the tree - he just made the guard a bit loose and rattly. Tod, of Tod's Workshop and Tod Cutler fame, has often observed that many actual historical swords seem to have had rattly guards - you find examples where bits of wood or leather have been jammed in to keep the guards tighter. So, in a lower-end 'decent' sword, I personally don't consider that a deal breaker.
Idk how you knew, but i was eyeballing this sword on sword buyers guide. The same thing happened with the kingston arms XIIIA. I bought the Kingston arms based off your review.
Ah its to bad a little bit of sharpening goes a long way on a hanwei. Both my hanwei swords had a edge that would cut. They sort of passed the paper test but not really just like this one. But once you touch up the edge a bit, man it really brings them to life. Phillip martin has a video of this sword cutting with his sharpening and matt cross has his review(not a review according to him lol) of the tinker greatsword of war he sharpened and with a proper edge these swords shred! They're very fun swords to use!(sharpened) Affordable, fairly handsome, very well designed and manufactured swords in my experience. Especially the blades! Both my Hanwei tinkers are awesome cutters and ring like a bell while they're at it. Which makes them super fun to use. Again it's really too bad Hanwei doesn't put a better edge on, because if they did it wouldn't even be debated who makes the best budget swords. Then again you're going to have to figure out something when it comes to sharpening. Swords will dull if you cut with them no matter what. You're going to have to sharpen eventually so you can't be to overly critical of sharpness, especially for >300$ 1000+$ swords sometimes have pretty lame factory sharpness. Perhaps it's worth considering the fact that this sword has a 5160 blade as well. Hanwei was selling 5160 blades on a budget before it was widely known and used as a buzz word steel. Now everyone knows 5160 steel. I tell people my swords are 5160 and people are like "oh that sounds familiar... they use that on forged in fire, right?" And I'm like "yeah when the guy messes up his Damascus and starts over. This is the blade he makes." LOL they seem impressed, if that matters. Different steels have different pros and cons but 5160 is very tough stuff.
Yeah, there's very few makers who put a truly good edge on their swords. I think LK Chen generally does a good job, although my experience with it is inconsistent.
i haven't kept up with prices so it might just be me, but it seems like good stuff is getting cheaper (or staying the same, while everything else goes up). I would've thought you could only get something deepeeka tier for $300 five years ago
I have a question: for a katana practitioner who wants to try a European sword, which of these 3 would you recommend? I mainly cut bamboo so the sword needs to be study.
My next 4 scheduled reviews are all budget longswords, so I think it makes the most sense for me to defer to after those. If pressed to make a choice now, though, of the 3 I mentioned in this video, I'd probably going with the Albrecht II.
I wouldn't want to do that, for a couple reasons off the top of my head: 1) A pommel that screws onto the tang is not historical, nor is it really robust enough of a construction method. You want to peen the pommel to the tang, or use a hex nut assembly and lock it down. 2) The material. I doubt most door knobs are made of good quality steel. Most are probably some kind of zinc alloy or cheap stainless steel that is not going to be appropriate for sword use.
The horse is Hanwei brand marking. I guess they updated it. It's not about medieval Europe. 😅 When you mentioned the grip feeling squishy, I knew exactly what you meant... and I don't like that feel on a grip at all. It's a dealbreaker for me.
@@alientude Don't worry about the logo, honest mistake, and you're in good company. Before the Kingston Arms Renaissance Side Sword, a similar model was sold by CAS Iberia via the Hanwei brand. In particular, it had a wire grip. I was looking at some antiques and the local dealer was also selling as a Victorian historicism sword, the Hanwei Side Sword. I had a look at the maker's mark (which was worn out) and I pointed out that it was just a Hanwei modern sword. He immediately agreed. I bought it for a discount and used it as a project sword (in particular rounding off the quillon block transition to the blade to make it usable, but that's a different story). So that's why I remember that Hanwei = horse logo, and that one should be careful when buying anything because even people that know better can make mistakes. Btw, while I fully agree with you that we see maker's marks in later periods, and we also see totemic symbols (e.g. turk's head, cockatrice, sun and moon, cutting wind, crosses, special numbers, the Passau wolf) I actually don't remember seeing a horse used as a symbol (and I'm not sure if a Passau wolf variation was that of a horse). Which is strange considering that "swift as a horse" must have been a thing in the period, so one would expect to have it used quite a lot as a symbol. Or maybe because the horse was such a daily occurrence, it was deemed to be too mundane as a symbol.
Can you at least acknowledge in your reviews that some buyers in the sword market have absolutely no desire for specific historically motivated swords? You give a lot of time to the historicity of the swords that you review. It's totally cool that that is an important issue for you. But please understand that this gives a false signal to the manufacturers serving the sword market that this is a major interest for sword buyers. It is for some, but many buyers will reward the sword designer/manufacturer who can provide the market with purpose built modern swords for modern needs. If you insist that there are no modern needs that a sword can fulfill, you'd be very wrong. Almost all buyers I personally know are looking for the most effective swords that they can affordably purchase, but they have to pinch their noses and spend a hundred extra dollars for sword "features" they don't want because those "features" don't further the efficacy of modern purposes. Half the swords advertised and stocked today are katanas like it's still the 90's. The manufacturers have slack sales and keep just pushing the same old crap in new packaging. Certainly there are needs to be met by katanas, but manufacturers will not make any great strides in the market until they figure out what a significant portion of the sword market is really trying to buy, aka a working sword. I really must wonder if the manufacturer's restraint is due to ignorance, or an organized effort. I could believe it is ignorance if they listened to most sword reviewers. Perhaps that is part of it. But I tend to think there is pressure placed on the sword manufacturers to produce only marginally effective swords. And then I think sword reviewers are used to spin people out, chasing frivolous purposes. Just an idea.
I've mentioned such before, but only in passing, and I'm not going to change that. I highly value historical accuracy, historical inspiration, and sword designs that incorporate them. If that's unimportant to you, that's fine - feel free to skip those sections or just not watch my videos at all. If you think my voice and reviews are detrimental to your ability to buy the type of sword you want, feel free to put in the time and effort to build your own voice and promote the designs you'd like to see.
![[Sub Thai] APT. - ROSÉ & Bruno Mars](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bYjhzP8x_uc/mqdefault.jpg)
Nice review. This sword is based on a German hand-and-a-half sword dated to 1520-1530. It's rather accurate save for a few details that are different from the original: the original has the crossguard terminals, the pommel and the center of the side-ring writhen, while this one has a smooth doorknob without any fluting. The original's blade has a lenticular cross section after the termination of the fuller while this one has a soft central ridge. Other than that, I do believe the original has a bit more distal taper by being generally thinner in the un-fullered area. Overall, not bad, but like you said, at this price range, you might be able to do better, too. With some additional modifications on customer's end it might be a much better sword: grinding off the central ridge and make it thinner after the upper portion, sharpening up the edges, and re-wrap the leather on the grip.
Thanks for the info - I didn't realize this was patterned on a historical sword.
I like these German hilt designs; a perfect representation of a 1.5 hand sword. I see them as being after the Oakeshott typology, would you agree?
Honestly, leaving out the details is not the worst choice to keep the price down. The grip is the big problem (the squishy leather is a no-no), then a bit the blade (I would take a flat grind over the central ridge for the last part of the blade), and only after would I improve the fittings. And even then, I would fix a bit the quillon block transition towards the blade before adding the writhed details (less abrupt, more squished around the blade; but not that much of a problem for a longsword compared to a sidesword where they use the same style). But you are right that this would make for a good project sword. For a budget sword, I think it looks nice.
P.S. I would like people to try to put beeswax on the leader and use a heat gun. That should shrink the leather (A&A grip style 😇) and harden it. I'm curious if that would fix the squishy factor . 🤔
@@FiliiMartis To me personally, having the wrong blade cross section is what killed this model for me, unless you have the means to fix it yourself or hiring someone to do some competent additional grinding.
@@FortuneFavoursTheBold I think I understand. Because you are familiar with the original pieces, you really wanted a lenticular cross-section blade. I would assume also a bit more distal taper towards the tip. From my very limited experience "goofing off" with mild steel fittings, one needs the tools and a bit of knowledge before they can reprofile the blade. While I want to like this sword, so I think I can accept the compromises on it, I like more the type itself than this particular realisation. I would 100% agree that small changes would make this sword so much better (a case of 10% more on the price giving 80% more sword). And these types of German swords deserve a better reproduction.
@@FiliiMartis you are absolutely right. Small modifications with little extra cost on the maker’s part can drastically improve this sword and stay closer to the original. And you are right that you should need the knowledge and experience to grind on that blade to increase the degree of distal taper and change the cross section into a full lenticular one.
'Historically plausible '. That's a great way of describing many of these blades that fall just outside of classification. Great review, especially from an alien.
We love you, Kyle!
❤️
It's that fiberglass composite material that Hanwei uses. No matter how well the sword is sharpened at the factory (or how well you sharpen it yourself), the glass particles embedded in the scabbard material will abrade down the very apex of the edge. It doesn't take much metal off, but it does enough damage that the apex loses its fresh-off-the-stone aggression after just a couple of draws.
That sounds very plausible. I recall this sword being a bit sharper out of the box than it was when I recorded. I tested it on paper when I first unboxed it and while it wasn't great, it did better back then.
Great overview; that sword packs a lot of punch for how “short” it is. Pretty heavyweight bastard sword. Great points all around and could probably be elevated with a few of the recommendations you listed!
Thanks!
Be careful with hitting harder targets. The cross guard got loose on mine because it was held mostly by the wood on the hilt and the wood is pretty light and soft
Rattling guard dissipates shock therefore improving durability
Good stuff! Nice to see this get your treatment. I've had one of these for a few years now; I'm not wealthy and it was, for me, exactly as you suggest: my affordable way into getting a fair-enough actual longsword. I still very much like its overall aesthetic (the blade dimensions just look *right* to me) and enjoy swinging it about. I don't get to actually put any impact on it, but I remember seeing someone take apart the hilt of one and show that it was robustly constructed, so they should hold up fairly well. That said, I know Matt Easton made the guard on one of these rattle, but he did basically cut a tree down with it, so... Anyway, thanks again for all your reviews!
What is easier for a sword to do, cut through one hundred armoured human thighs, or one paltry tree? A sword is not an ancient porcelain vase. It is a steel tool, like a hammer. If you couldn't hammer with a hammer, would you be upset?
With modern manufacturing technologies combined with modern metallurgical technologies empowered by modern information technologies vastly more effective and robust swords could be produced for significantly less than these "budget" swords, and they could handle and perform so much better than the most expensive swords now on the market.
But if you limit the dialog in the sword market to, "This is a type 12 sword with a type 42 pommel and a type 187 cross guard..." as if that were in any way important to the good functioning of a sword. And that doesn't negate aesthetics. Good designs are inherently elegant . When form EFFECTIVELY follows function, beauty is created, real beauty. Not superficial beauty, which has and will always be pushed over actual beauty, because there is power in actual beauty, and those that have power do not wish to sell it to the powerless.
@@alphanumeric1529 No particular arguments with you over form and function and the aesthetics of practicality. That's one of the things I quite like about this sword - it's not fancy and the proportions feel about right, somehow, to me. I'll just note, on the 'If you couldn't hammer with a hammer' point, that Matt Easton didn't fail to cut through the tree - he just made the guard a bit loose and rattly. Tod, of Tod's Workshop and Tod Cutler fame, has often observed that many actual historical swords seem to have had rattly guards - you find examples where bits of wood or leather have been jammed in to keep the guards tighter. So, in a lower-end 'decent' sword, I personally don't consider that a deal breaker.
Idk how you knew, but i was eyeballing this sword on sword buyers guide. The same thing happened with the kingston arms XIIIA. I bought the Kingston arms based off your review.
Ah its to bad a little bit of sharpening goes a long way on a hanwei. Both my hanwei swords had a edge that would cut. They sort of passed the paper test but not really just like this one. But once you touch up the edge a bit, man it really brings them to life. Phillip martin has a video of this sword cutting with his sharpening and matt cross has his review(not a review according to him lol) of the tinker greatsword of war he sharpened and with a proper edge these swords shred! They're very fun swords to use!(sharpened)
Affordable, fairly handsome, very well designed and manufactured swords in my experience.
Especially the blades! Both my Hanwei tinkers are awesome cutters and ring like a bell while they're at it. Which makes them super fun to use.
Again it's really too bad Hanwei doesn't put a better edge on, because if they did it wouldn't even be debated who makes the best budget swords. Then again you're going to have to figure out something when it comes to sharpening. Swords will dull if you cut with them no matter what. You're going to have to sharpen eventually so you can't be to overly critical of sharpness, especially for >300$ 1000+$ swords sometimes have pretty lame factory sharpness.
Perhaps it's worth considering the fact that this sword has a 5160 blade as well. Hanwei was selling 5160 blades on a budget before it was widely known and used as a buzz word steel. Now everyone knows 5160 steel. I tell people my swords are 5160 and people are like "oh that sounds familiar... they use that on forged in fire, right?" And I'm like "yeah when the guy messes up his Damascus and starts over. This is the blade he makes." LOL they seem impressed, if that matters.
Different steels have different pros and cons but 5160 is very tough stuff.
Yeah, there's very few makers who put a truly good edge on their swords. I think LK Chen generally does a good job, although my experience with it is inconsistent.
i haven't kept up with prices so it might just be me, but it seems like good stuff is getting cheaper (or staying the same, while everything else goes up). I would've thought you could only get something deepeeka tier for $300 five years ago
Hanwei has kept some of their classic budget swords in the same price range for quite awhile. It's really great to see.
I have a question: for a katana practitioner who wants to try a European sword, which of these 3 would you recommend? I mainly cut bamboo so the sword needs to be study.
My next 4 scheduled reviews are all budget longswords, so I think it makes the most sense for me to defer to after those. If pressed to make a choice now, though, of the 3 I mentioned in this video, I'd probably going with the Albrecht II.
can you use actual door or shelf handles that you can get from hard wear stores or renovation dumps as threaded sword pommels?
I wouldn't want to do that, for a couple reasons off the top of my head:
1) A pommel that screws onto the tang is not historical, nor is it really robust enough of a construction method. You want to peen the pommel to the tang, or use a hex nut assembly and lock it down.
2) The material. I doubt most door knobs are made of good quality steel. Most are probably some kind of zinc alloy or cheap stainless steel that is not going to be appropriate for sword use.
The horse is Hanwei brand marking. I guess they updated it. It's not about medieval Europe. 😅
When you mentioned the grip feeling squishy, I knew exactly what you meant... and I don't like that feel on a grip at all. It's a dealbreaker for me.
You're right; that's my bad about the horse. Although I stand by my statement that a lot of historical swords had similar markings on the blades.
@@alientude Don't worry about the logo, honest mistake, and you're in good company. Before the Kingston Arms Renaissance Side Sword, a similar model was sold by CAS Iberia via the Hanwei brand. In particular, it had a wire grip. I was looking at some antiques and the local dealer was also selling as a Victorian historicism sword, the Hanwei Side Sword. I had a look at the maker's mark (which was worn out) and I pointed out that it was just a Hanwei modern sword. He immediately agreed. I bought it for a discount and used it as a project sword (in particular rounding off the quillon block transition to the blade to make it usable, but that's a different story). So that's why I remember that Hanwei = horse logo, and that one should be careful when buying anything because even people that know better can make mistakes.
Btw, while I fully agree with you that we see maker's marks in later periods, and we also see totemic symbols (e.g. turk's head, cockatrice, sun and moon, cutting wind, crosses, special numbers, the Passau wolf) I actually don't remember seeing a horse used as a symbol (and I'm not sure if a Passau wolf variation was that of a horse). Which is strange considering that "swift as a horse" must have been a thing in the period, so one would expect to have it used quite a lot as a symbol. Or maybe because the horse was such a daily occurrence, it was deemed to be too mundane as a symbol.
Two years plus wait times and $1,300 later at Albion …. or …. 🤷♂️.
Can you at least acknowledge in your reviews that some buyers in the sword market have absolutely no desire for specific historically motivated swords? You give a lot of time to the historicity of the swords that you review. It's totally cool that that is an important issue for you. But please understand that this gives a false signal to the manufacturers serving the sword market that this is a major interest for sword buyers. It is for some, but many buyers will reward the sword designer/manufacturer who can provide the market with purpose built modern swords for modern needs.
If you insist that there are no modern needs that a sword can fulfill, you'd be very wrong. Almost all buyers I personally know are looking for the most effective swords that they can affordably purchase, but they have to pinch their noses and spend a hundred extra dollars for sword "features" they don't want because those "features" don't further the efficacy of modern purposes.
Half the swords advertised and stocked today are katanas like it's still the 90's. The manufacturers have slack sales and keep just pushing the same old crap in new packaging. Certainly there are needs to be met by katanas, but manufacturers will not make any great strides in the market until they figure out what a significant portion of the sword market is really trying to buy, aka a working sword.
I really must wonder if the manufacturer's restraint is due to ignorance, or an organized effort. I could believe it is ignorance if they listened to most sword reviewers. Perhaps that is part of it. But I tend to think there is pressure placed on the sword manufacturers to produce only marginally effective swords. And then I think sword reviewers are used to spin people out, chasing frivolous purposes.
Just an idea.
I've mentioned such before, but only in passing, and I'm not going to change that. I highly value historical accuracy, historical inspiration, and sword designs that incorporate them. If that's unimportant to you, that's fine - feel free to skip those sections or just not watch my videos at all.
If you think my voice and reviews are detrimental to your ability to buy the type of sword you want, feel free to put in the time and effort to build your own voice and promote the designs you'd like to see.