10-20-2003, 06:28 PM
Quote:I have never found much authoritative information on European swords on the Internet.
Two sites, which have quite good informations:
http://bjorn.foxtail.nu/swords.htm
http://www.myarmoury.com/features.html
1075 steel is the nearest steel you can come to the historical steels used without having your own mining company/steel mill and while still making swords in larger quantities.
I wouldn't compare it with a viking ship made of fibreglass, rather with a viking ship made out of Canadian fir instead of Norvegan fir.
If you prefer the "real thing" Patrick Bartà also makes blades from selfsmelted iron: http://www.templ.net/indexe.php?id=15a
He is also one of the best smiths working today.
Of course swords are only toys for grown-up kids, an obsolete thing, without real use. But so are horses in our civilized world, except for some special uses (and one can argue that swords are still widely used in countries like Iran and Afghanistan), square-rigged sailing ships or blackpowder guns (and Diablo I ;)). But all these things still have a community and people who care about these obsolete things.