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Wouldn't it be fun to create your own sword? Custom swords are not hard to forge if you go by how simple the movies make it look. A regular Joe should be able to get there with some research and practice, right? Not so fast. It takes skill and years of experience to produce high-quality blades. While technology has improved over the years, the basic processes of sword making have remained more or less the same over many centuries. Let's look at t...

I've long been fascinated with swords. I was fortunate enough to start cutting with replica swords in my teens back in the 1980s. It was that, combined with play fighting using all manner of sword simulators, which set me on a lifelong course of study. But it wasn't until the 1990s that I came to understand what factors went into making a sword "real" or rather, what made one an accurate reproduction of a historical model. Fast forward to today a...

Medieval swords are regularly portrayed in the media as ungainly, cumbersome tools that are most effective in the hands of brawny men. But, was that the case in reality? Think about it. Why would soldiers carry weapons weighing upwards of 30 lbs when the speed of movement was paramount in the melee of the medieval battlefield? The wide, exaggerated sword swings depicted on the screen are exactly that - exaggerated. So, why the misconception? It...