> >Neil,
> What a goofus. He obviously had zero respect for the blade. I was
> almost glad when the tip broke off and shot into him.
>
> David Michael Grouchy II
Laugh! Ya. But it is a pretty good example of how just smacking the blade
sideways on something hard can snap a blade - which could very reasonably
be expected to happen unintentionally during combat. Of course that blade
was probably also fairly crummy.
Well, he wasn't smacking it sideways, he was smacking the back of the blade
on the table.
Though those blades are really, really crappy. And 44.95 for the set is a
rip-off. I've seen them for $15, and even then, it's not worth it.
Any of you gusy out there heardof the ABS? Their journeyman test (from
memory here, and it's knives not swords) is to cut a 1" hanging rope, hack a
2X4 in half, and still shave hair, then bend 90 degrees without breaking.
(Then again, there's been some who have been able to pass the test with an
unhardened blade, so go figure).
The point there is that a well-made blade wouldn't snap from that little bit
of abuse. Howard Clark's regimen of testing to destruction includes beating
the sword, edge-on, as hard as he can, against a hardened forklift tine
until the edge chips. His latest, greatest stuff will take a dozen or so
whacks (so I hear) until the edge chips (not breaks, just chips). Breaking
takes a lot more effort.
There are historical accounts of soldiers stepping out of the line of battle
to straighten their weapons, and preferring swords that bend to swords that
break.
Then again, maybe TFT weapons are so lousy because there's Mening spells...